I’ve had plenty of work to keep me busy and out of trouble this morning – I’m still working on getting my company shut down in preparation for going on strike. But here are a few posts I found interesting.
Housing… for responsible taxpayers the new slogan is “what’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is mine” – at least when it comes to paying mortgages. Michelle Malkin is all over the foreclosure scandal. And scandal it is. Last year my family paid about twelve thousand dollars in taxes. We are BY FAR not rich – our gross income is WELL below $100,000. Our house is about 1100 square feet, and we own two elderly Saturns. The very idea that any of that tax money we paid is going to subsidize the theft of people who stole in order to enjoy a better lifestyle than we have is enraging and frustrating. We have been careful to avoid taking on more debt than we can pay. We pay our bills every month. We actually cashed in our 401k in order to pay off overdue medical bills. (Which was a good move, because the market tanked soon afterwards; if we hadn’t done that we’d have lost a bundle and still had to pay those bills. Responsibility pays off!) But looking at all these foreclosures of people who treated their houses as ATMs, cashing out tens, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars that they had no reasonable expectation of repaying. Bus drivers and bartenders cashing out many times more than their annual income… where did the money go? Nobody in the media is asking.
For whatever reason, these people have run up more bills than they can pay, and the question now is whether the rest of us should allow them to not pay their bills, yet continue to enjoy the lifestyle they can’t afford to maintain. Personally, I feel kind of stupid, sitting here in my 1100 square foot, uninsulated house with a paid-up mortgage, when I could have had a McMansion all this time. In the past, when people took on more house than they could afford, the remedy was bankruptcy, a terrible credit rating that took seven to ten years to restore – and that, with hard work. Eventually, when they’d earned it, they’d be trusted with another loan. Usually with a healthy down-payment. There were actually consequences for both bad judgment and bad behavior. Now, just call yourself a “victim” and you’re off the hook! Don’t worry about reading the fine print or being responsible for your decisions. Just grab what you can, and worry about it later. Your Uncle Sam will take care of you with some free money! The only criteria seems to be “I WANT it!” We’re a nation of spoiled, whining brats.
You have no idea how tempting it is to look at this new “rescue” plan and tailor some irresponsibility to fit it. If I could stop paying my mortgage for about six months, I could… well, it doesn’t matter. I’m not going to do it. In the end I will not permit myself to steal from my fellow taxpayers.
That “tiny percentage” of radical muslims… is growing. I’ve done my Islamic math quite a few times over the last few years, and rationalize it all you like, it just keeps getting worse. I’ll do some more math later, but take a look at Jawa’s in the meantime. And then read this Dan Simmons story.
Toads croaking… in the free speech for me but not for thee department, an old toad croaks out some snark about Bobby Jindal, which, if said by a Republican would have resulted in a virtual tar and feathering. Trent Lott was run out of leadership for less. There are plenty of other examples – more than a few provided by Joe Biden – of how differently the left and right are treated for jokes, offhand comments, and ill-considered remarks.
Altogether, if I didn’t have a hope and a future, a la Jeremiah 29:11, it might make me quite bitter.
