Brokering Hope

Not all that long ago I got an up close look at the inside of one of the financial institutions involved in the "bailout." It was the first time I'd encountered "mortgage backed securities" and I thought for sure that somehow I must be missing something because no matter how many ways I looked at what these were about I just could not see how they were good.

I'm not a financial wizard. I go to work every day and I make money which I then spend, over the course of every month, on life. All the things we do every day while about the business of living. Food, clothes, rent, gas, and stuff.

But with this financial crisis looking us dead on I was thinking about this former client of mine and one of the names I most encountered (and which will not be spoken here) and so I decided to see what she did with some of her most recent multi-million dollar bonus.

What she did with $10k of it last spring was donate to one of the PAC's supporting Barack Obama's campaign. A man with an extraordinarily enticing message of hope.

Which got me thinking...

It seems to me that "hope" is exactly what got us into this mess in the first place. Every homebuyer who "hoped" so much that they were willing to believe that there is no "catch" to low interest/no interest no money down mortgages. Every homebuyer who looked at houses that were gaining 30-50 percent in value a year and who honestly believed, because real estate agents, friends, and financial advisors were telling them this, that they would make money on these risky investments.

We saw similar hope during the DOT COM boom in the late '90's. Every person with a dream and an idea chased investors, fancy business plans in hand, hoping for "venture capital" to bankroll the next great "thing."

To be fair, some of these companies actually had great ideas and they worked. Google, the company that hosts this blog (for free mind you), is one of the more famous. But how many of us remember pets.com?

A high life, easy money, fast cars, big houses, and "networking" events on money that returned little, if anything, on investments.

Hope. Something we've been recovering from on the DOT Bust. That impact was a momentary thing. This ugly thing happening with our financial sector isn't that bad. No. It's much, much worse.

We did this to ourselves. We let greedy people, get rich schemes, bad judgement and hope lure us into doing something that as American's we should be deeply ashamed of.

And now every American taxpayer is looking at paying in taxes just about what this woman from my former client DONATED to a presidential campaign just six months ago.

It makes me angry that I am just one of thousands of Americans who are about to pay a price because of foolish hope and greed. The subprime mortgage market was not a good idea. You don't have to be an economist to know that.

What do I want? I want the assets of every decision maker in these financial firms seized and auctioned off. I want the US Government to buy these securities at a penny on the dollar and then hold them. I want every one of these companies to close their doors and for us to turn to the higher performing banks (credit unions, etc) to help with the movement of our money. I want the people who were duped into believing the "great american home dream" to quit whining about losing their homes - stupid is not fixed by a sob story.

And for everyone who dreams of getting rich quick I invite you to join me in my personal approach - play the lottery. I've never had to take out a line of credit for it and the return on investment is just about the same.