Deniece Comments on Bailout

As I dedicatedly educate myself on the process of voting for a method of distribution of a proposed $700Billion to stimulate our financial system, I support congress' ability to stand up for the right to study the recommendation, add provisions to a blank check, and continue to strongly oppose the pressure being handed down from the executive offices to act quickly and recklessly. Quickly they understand. Recklessly they do not. I agree.

Infusing available money into the home mortgage market will allow more buyers to qualify for home loans than could qualify previously this year. More available money equals less stringent qualification guidelines. It is not that responsible buyers don’t want to buy. It is that current guidelines, in reaction to previously over-lax guidelines, have made it impossible for so many to buy. This does not mean we return to the over-lax qualifications that caused people who could not afford payments to get money. This means we make money available to responsible institutions that will use fair guidelines to qualify more buyers. Who will determine which guidelines are considered fair is what I believe must be the current behind doors debate.

Taxpayer money is being used for this (available money) bailout. It is fair that taxpayers insist that if their money is used to buy assets and a profit is made on those assets that the profits return to the taxpayer.

For the first time that I can remember, the average American family striving for the American dream is starting to be seen as an entity with influence on the global economy such as that of Wall Street. For the first time, “Main Street” has become a unit that has gained recognition. This recognition has been both bad and good.

Unfortunately, when lied to and deviously manipulated by large corporations who take advantage of loopholes exploiting the average want-to-be homeowner, the corporations can take dreams and turn them into nightmares. Such was the case recently when banks allowed people who could not prove income, or job history, to purchase as large an asset as a residential property. Banks made profits as they did this.

As the American family is dislocated, instability and certain fear are created in the lives of adults and children alike. The vulturous actions of the ethically irresponsible placed a rug underneath these families, only to pull it out from under them. These are people. These people are Main Street.

Now, that there is an option for Main Street to do something about it, we must act. Congress is hearing us. Over and over again Representatives and Senators have spoken of the input they have received from their constituents this week. There has been enough Main Street input to thwart, at least temporarily, a blind decision to put an exorbitant and unprecedented amount of money into the control of one person's hands (Treasury Secretary Paulson, appointed by the Bush Administration).

I believe that to reduce the amount of carnage created by the self-serving interests of corporations, congress should strongly consider options to infuse liquid into markets which will make home loans more readily available. There must however, be assurances that as the money is distributed, regulation of the money is clear, so as not to take advantage of Main Street one more time for banks’ benefit while simultaneously creating an even more precarious situation. I applaud congress for not being bullied into their decision of what to do with $700Billion with the same dangerous haste as those who got us into this position in the first place.

Note: This article assumes an understanding that we are in a financial crisis and that government and private interventions have been made to try and positively affect our currency value as well as help failing corporations. The deregulated free for all encouraged in the past years has not proven positive for all people. Although not an end-all for repairing the country’s current financial challenges freeing the housing market’s stagnation could positively affect work towards “un-gumming” our country’s frozen financial state by at least infusing some available monies to decrease the current inventories of available homes. It is with high hopes that this be done much more responsibly than has currently been done.