Posted by
SonOfTed on Saturday, September 20, 2008 7:57:52 PM
My Two Cents…
Disclaimers: Actually, it’s quite a bit MORE than two, but I’m very wordy and sometimes full of crap. Nevertheless I try as hard as I can to think outside the box and come up with new and interesting angles on the major issues of our time. Thus I may tend to ramble a bit, so reading through my entire point of view is entirely up to you.
<End disclaimers>
Recently I completed reading “Fleeced”, an in-depth bi-partisan analysis of the major problems plaguing America. The authors are Dick Morris & Eileen McGann and if you haven’t read it yet, I highly recommend it.
As related to last week’s Wall Street crisis I see two major issues as potential avenues of optimism. Right now Morris and McGann list several major issues plaguing low-income people in particular:
1. School loans and the expense of college tuition.
2. The ability to own your own home.
3. Credit card rip-offs.
Within 2 decades, Glenn Beck of CNN Headline News (along with a former U.S. Comptroller) predict that government spending on entitlements – primarily Social Security and Medicare – will eat up the entire United States budget… even if there is ZERO discretionary spending on other items like Defense, Interior, Energy, etc.
So how do we solve all of these problems and still serve the taxpayer effectively?
If I were President…
The budget crisis would be my first priority. If the government collapses then everything else will too. But I’m a “two birds with one stone” type of guy and I think a lot of other people are too. Thus these recommendations…
1. Use the Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac buyouts to regulate those nasty sub-prime mortgages. The government should do what it can to help low-income people KEEP those homes even if it means cutting them some slack on those monthly payments.
a. If taxpayers have bought into these companies, then we have the right to see it regulated more thoroughly and to receive benefits from it.
b. This is a HUGE potential source of revenue for a government badly in need of it, since (as everyone knows) most of the payments on a home for the first 20 or so years of a 30 year mortgage are mostly the INTEREST revenue paid to those holding the loan.
c. Help homeowners keep their home, and use the revenue from the interest to offset (or eliminate the need for) tax increases that will only hurt America.
2. Find a way to regulate the credit card industry. Morris & McGann list all of the tricks that those companies have used over the past decade to trick people into keeping a high-interest balance on their cards. Penalties, late fees, outrageous interest… you name it, they’re doin’ it.
a. Once again this is tough on the average American because it deceives them into thinking that they have to live with debt.
b. This industry should be strictly regulated as well… sticking young people with high interest debt only adds to their problem of trying to make it through college.
c. Young people have to do THEIR part too, though. Perhaps they might have to start out at (or settle for) a community college instead of that expensive Ivy League university. Perhaps they may only get one or two vacations during college… as opposed to partying constantly. Those who study should be rewarded… those who waste their college days should receive less support.
3. I think government should FIND a way to use these new purchases they’ve made and run them like the businesses they are. Make a PROFIT on these insurance companies and use that revenue to prevent additional tax increases. That’s SMART, but it requires reform and a resistance to the traditional lobbyists and hedge funders influencing Washington.
They’ve already done ONE thing right… if you’re going to buy companies that are in trouble you should do so when their stock is at an all-time low.
Now they should find a way to sell HIGH.