Quote of the day:
No man's life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session. - Judge Gideon J. Tucker
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Many blogs this week have turned their attention to the 'dire news' about our economy. Although it is attributed to the 'meltdown' in the subprime mortgage market we all have a pretty good idea this is not the case. It may have been the straw that broke the camel's back , however we have had serious debt problems for many many years.
At the outset I receive at least two credit card offers each week. ( I have not used a credit card for six or seven years. My first medical practice nearly was bankrupted by numerous payors who without much warning reduced reimbursements by 40%, and also quite effectively stole my patient base in the name of managed care. At least four IPAs that I joined and sponsored went belly up in the same time period. This devastated my long term and short term capitalization and business plan for my ophthalmology practice.
I had a rather nice home which I purchased, but could no longer afford the payments on. I sold it. There was no one there to offer me a bailout.
I had made some foolish decisions thinking that my high income would continue for many more years. I also assumed nothing bad would happen to my health. Boy, was I wrong, in both cases. It was rather humiliating, at the time, and still carries a sting of shame.
I bring this up because I do not see any shame or humiliation in the officials who knew this was coming for some time. Obviously they hoped they could make it through the first Tuesday in November.
Our nation is how many trillions of dollars in debt...All those hummers,mercedes, lexuses, and million dollar homes...As a nation we have become dead-beats. Not the vision our founding fathers envisioned for a new country.
In 2001 we were attacked, and had a knee-jerk reaction entering a war that is still ongoing.
That has cost billions and billions of dollars. It's easy to look back and judge if it was a mistake. At the time it was do it, or we would be wiped off the globe by terrorists.
We were told if we did not do it, the consequences would be dire. Now we are being told the same thing will destroy our economy regarding the 700 billion dollar bailout for the incompetency of some supposedly very bright financiers.
Listen up now....our economy is a wreck,
and bailout will do nothing to improve it. Printing and finding 700 billion dollars
from some undisclosed source is not an option. I'm not ponying up additional taxes to bailout some high and fancy financier that cooks books, manipulates markets, commits fraud, and exhibit no fiduciary responsibility for investors, and mortgage holder.
Back in the good old days, when banks were in trouble, they recalled loans, mortgages if their reserves became inadequate. I don't know if they do that anymore.
We have been told for many years that Social Security and/or Medicare would be bankrupt by 2013....The feds were setting us up to blame it on medicine, patients, hospitals....All the while the financial system was already in the tank. How come no one predicted this one?
We thought Enron, Worldcomm, Charles Keating, and the Savings and Loans fiasco some 15 years ago was bad....you ain't seen nothing yet....As Yogi Berra says, "it ain't over 'til it's over."