Greed...is good (?)

That and other rhetorical lines uttered by Gordon Gekko in the movie Wall Street...

Greed - for lack of a better word - is good. Greed is right. Greed works. And you are all being royally screwed over by these, these bureaucrats, with their steak lunches, their hunting and fishing trips, their corporate jets and golden parachutes.

***Here's a typical American story I've heard told to me many times of late...

The main bread-winner loses his job. Not a great job, but a good job in terms of workable income. During the good times leading up to the job loss, credit is over-used so the family can have a few "things" they don't need...fun things. Greed? Perhaps. Refinancing the house occurs (more than once). The homeowners mortgage adjusts as they are unable to secure a new, fixed loan as planned a few months later. The last refinance should not have been approved by the mortgage company. Greed? Perhaps. Homeowners are unable to pay the new exhorbitant mortgage. Home values plunge to less than half the amount of the last appraisal. Eight months pass with them working with the loan company in a modification program, ending with a stamp of DECLINED. Homeowners home is sold at auction for an amount significantly less than the total debt. A knock comes at the door the same day as the sale. Time to get out. Can you vacate the premises in five days? We'll give you a $1000. How about ten days? We'll give you $500. If not, we'll go through the sheriff, ie, the eviction process. Homeowners plan to move into a nice, older, smaller house on the other side of town. The rent: about 1/4 of their former mortgage amount. The rental house is a recent foreclosure of a longtime mortgage. The homeowners are starting over with less than desirable credit and an embarrassing, shameful cloud over their heads. All results from (their own) greed? Perhaps. They'll get over it. In fact, they already have. You gotta live your life. It's just a house now anyway, not a home any longer. The rental house will now be their "home". In the meantime, the government is doling out billions of our tax dollars to the companies whose mismanagement and greed led us to this point. The homeowners know that their choice of actions brought them to this. Greed? Maybe. But where is their bailout program? No one is being approved for these programs. The DECLINED stamp is everywhere. Why doesn't the so-called investment group that purchased their home opt for renting to the original homeowners? They will certainly rent to someone, and soon. The company wants the homeowners out ASAP so they can "move forward". Life goes on. Our home of ten years now belongs to someone else.

***This is not only a story told to me by dozens of people recently...it is our story. At least we're not alone.

Commiseration is the consolation prize. And, Wall Street is one of my favorite movies!