Uneasy Lies The Head,…
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Oct 1, 2008
What a week it's been financially for America. For that matter, what a last three weeks it's been! Some of the largest financial institutions in the United States have gone under, or merged with someone else, or been bought out by someone else. And, when the president decides to try to intervene, Congress shuts it down. And let's not forget that some states are actually having problems getting fuel to gas stations; of all things!
President Bush now has his lowest rating ever, at 26%. Hoping not to sound political, but we're in a major leadership crisis right now, and it's one of those times where I'm not really sure how he could be doing better at it. The one thing I know is that the blame game has to end, and the president and Congress need to get together to try to figure out what to do, because our financial problems don't only affect us, but the rest of the world as well.
Or does he, or they? It would seem that there's no clear cut answer to this one, as some economists believe a governmental bailout is the only way to stem the bad tide of things, and others believing it's an inappropriate use of the government's money. If the people who study this stuff are battling each other, then what makes us think that Congress or President Bush have the answers, no matter how many advisors they have?
Of course, the problems we're now having have a lot to do with some practices in the past. Sometimes, present leadership takes the fall for some practices that previous leaders put into play. I'm talking about the heads of these banks, the men who came up with these funny interest rates and mortgage loans, which put a lot of dollars into their pockets so they could retire comfortably, and then the status quo was maintained by leaders who followed these guys, over and over until we got to the leaders now, some of whom have lost their jobs over this fiasco.
Because, in the long run, new leaders don't get a pass when they walk into a situation they know is a bad deal and then don't do anything about it. And they knew about it; all of this was predicted by economists some years ago, because the worst thing deregulation led to was floating interest rates, which has led to many foreclosures and a weak housing market, and banks are foreclosing on houses that they can't sell, which invariably hurts them and has closed down a good number of them. Wow; who didn't see that coming?
I'm glad to live in New York state at this point in time. Our state didn't allow any of those kinds of loans, so we're not suffering the same type of financial mess that everyone else is. We're suffering in a different way, though, as it seems our budget is dependent upon the performance of Wall Street, from whom the state gets money because the Stock Exchange is in this state, and we're facing a major budget deficit. Frankly, our previous leaders seemed to have figured a lot of things out in advance, but missed that one.
"Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown"; that's from Henry IV by Shakespeare. It's kind of fitting at this moment in time. Someone really wants this job of president right now? Astounding!
Hey Mitch,
I came over to read your blog but had some difficulty because the “Ads by Google” covered about a third of the page. I went to your other blogs and that is the case with them as well. The ad covers nearly half the page.
So based on the part I was able to read, here is my response: I agree, deregulation has hurt this economy but so has pure greed. The red flag warnings were there but everyone seemed to ignore them. Now ALL of us are forced to pay the price for those actions.
Beverly Mahone´s last blog post..The Truth about Women Bloggers
Hi Beverly. Odd thing about the Google ads, because on this blog, you shouldn’t even see any Google ads until you’ve read either the entire article or almost the entire article, depending on length of the article; that’s why I put them so low, so if you encountered them earlier, that’s strange. My other blog is different, since it’s main intention is to make money.
Second, I think greed has always been with us, and telemarketers and those guys late at night with their big time money making commercials are only an extension from the days when those guys used to drive around the country in their covered wagons selling snake oil to the public, convincing them it could do all sorts of things.
Some governmental controls helped keep things in line to a degree, but once the doors are off, then everyone is open game, and suddenly children and animals are getting offers for credit cards. Heck, I’ve lived in this house for 8 years, and the previous two owners are still getting credit card offers at this address, even though I keep writing both (using their free envelopes, of course) and telling them those people don’t live here. But who knows if that’s not happening in other neighborhoods, at other houses, and those people just may not be as scrupulous as I am?
Thanks for the comment; sorry if your eyes were assaulted.