What are hard working Americans who have scrimped and saved and have done everything "right" financially for decades supposed to think about all of these "bailouts" and of the massive financial mess in Washington? How are people who have handled their own finances admirably supposed to feel now that the foolishness of others is leading us all towards a horrific economic collapse? Well, a reader named "Mae" recently left a comment that I think does a good job of communicating what a lot of hard working Americans are feeling right now: My situation is this – we have lived our lives playing by the rules: never carried debt on a credit card that we couldn’t pay off by the due date. If we couldn’t afford the item, we didn’t buy it. We always had a Christmas Club which enabled us to pay cash for the holiday. We payed ourselves first after every paycheck whether it was $10 or $100, whatever we could afford. We made double payments on our mortgage when we could which helped us to pay off our modest home 10 years early. We knew that we couldn’t afford to “have it all” so we made our choices early on and stuck with it. We sacrificed the fancy vacations in order to do large home repairs (like a new roof) ourselves. We didn’t buy expensive cars and now own one outright and carry a small loan on another. That’s our only debt besides monthly bills. We chose jobs that provided health care benefits. We did everything right…we saved and saved and saved to have a decent retirement but of course last year took half the value of our 401k.
Now, I’m expected to sit back and watch Bush, Congress and Obama bail everyone out because they didn’t have the fiscal discipline to manage their money?? I’m supposed to feel bad for people who bought homes they couldn’t afford? or cars they couldn’t pay for? or $1000 cell phone bills? or $20,000 in credit card debt? HELL NO! I’m livid! If I ran my checkbook the way Washington is running the national checkbook, I’d be thrown in jail!
All we can do now is educate as many people as possible about what is happening and hopefully vote all these s.o.b.’s out of office and replace them with fiscally conservative candidates who will vote for term limits. The days of a career politician are over. I don’t know if we can turn any of this around – it will take a lot of hard work to make the tough decisions, but they have to be made if we’re to survive. How many people have the guts to work through this? Not many…we’ve become a spoiled, selfish, arrogant and hypocritical nation with no spine.
Americans have a somewhat religious devotion to capitalism. Just like the German people around 1942, they are soon about to find out just what exactly they have devoted themselves too.
Good for you, Sis! You’ve spoken for many hard working Americans who no longer feel the government is working on their behalf. It’s all ’special interests’ and helping irresponsible Wall Street mavericks who are only out to make millions. I say, ‘less government, more individual responsibility’, and how about some rewards for those of us who are taking grown-up ownership of life’s responsibilities.
I feel exactly the same way we did the same things we don’t have a big screen TV we bought low mileage used vehicles and my husband fixed them did the maintenance of course they keep building them now to make sure people can’t continue to do that. We paid off our home did our own remodeling all through the years I cut coupons and wasn’t out shopping at Macy’s in other words we lived within our means and saved. That’s the problem with socialism whether it be corporate or individual welfare they have stolen from those who did the right thing and worked hard!
Mae is right why should we scrimp and save pay our own way in life by working hard while these people with no moral character live beyond their means and expect us to pay for it?
Little difference from being robbed by a gang banger except that you would have a shot at seeing the gang banger prosecuted!
If you have a birth certificate and a SSN, then you’re a slave. The system is in theory for the benefit of everyone, but by presumption you are treated as the trustee and are responsible for being productive for the Federal Reserve System.
@ CUCU – we Americans are devoted to free market capitalism because it works. We are not devoted to cronyism, greed and deceit, all aspects of human behavior which brought us to this breaking point. It was the repeal of Glass-Steagall championed by Bill Clinton, Alan Greenspan, Paul Rubin, Sandy Weill just to name a few that started the subprime mortgage meltdown.
I’m not understanding your parallel with 1942 Germany, would you explain please?
Thanks
I loved Mae’s piece.
I have been screaming this from the roof tops for two years. I don’t care that all of that wanting and reckless spending lands people in the poor house. When you make a mistake, you are supposed to pay the penalty.
However, the people that didn’t make those mistakes are paying the price for those who did. I am beyond pissed.
I want the same tax forgiveness our Gov gave Citibank. Billions. They think nothing of stealing our money-demanding it and threatening us.
Free country my ass. We got nothing on the old USSR. Just turn over all of your money and nobody will get hurt…and a nincompoop marxist who talks leadership but has no game.
Mae is a wise man. I’m reading this blog from Europe every day since a couple of weeks and I’m glad to see that common sense hasn’t completely disappeared. That’s a light of hope in this global mess. The point is that one doesn’t need to be a genius to run a country. If you are a genius but you lack common sense, that’s hopeless.
Unfortunately the vast majority of people who run the US as well as our countries here in Europe seem to have forgotten everything about common sense. And also they forgot to listen the “middle class” – all those working guys like you and me – too rich to be helped, not rich enough to hide their money in some tax heaven and just stupid enough to keep paying the bill for both.
Well, I hope my English was good enough for you to understand me and just keep writing.
I think americans and USA are in the same situation as USSR in 90s or close to this. Inflation, $ devaluation, lost savings and pensions, no healthcare and gready and hepocritical politicians …
Well I feel the same way as Mae does. I can see what is the possible outcome; a deflationary depression, an inflationary depression, dollar devaluation, confiscation of our money, confiscation of gold, a “freeze” on our savings accounts, etc…
Well so what is our solution? Well my wife is a Filipino American. She was born here. But she has very close ties to her ancestral homeland. So we are going to move in April 2010. We are going to move to a remote town/village. We already bought some land under her father’s name who lives there now and had a beautiful 3000 square foot Spanish villa built two years ago. Plus we bought lots and lots of land where we can grow our own organic food and raise chickens.
Even though as a whole the Philippines is a poor society, they are moving forward. If you have about $150,000 or more, you can live like a king with all of the Western accommodations. If you are living in the U.S.A. then move. Our country won’t be the same in the next coming years. I will wait for this storm to pass. Then I can either choose to stay in the Philippines or come back to America.
Remember, whatever you do, prepare yourself. “Prepare for the worst and hope for the best”.
What are hard-working Americans doing? Screaming very loudly, but the politicians aren’t listening. They haven’t listened for decades.
But I don’t want fiscal conservatives, I want a human being who understands that people are more important than corporations. Where were you folks when Bush was spending like a drunken sailor and lying us into war? And it was a Republican, Phil Gramm, who put in the repeal of Glass-Steagal.
I wish more people would actually read history and not repeat Republican talking points. But don’t think I’m crazy about Democrats either. I generally despise all of Congress except for a handful of people who actually put country first.
@sharonsj
I for one was loudly protesting the enormous pork spending by Congress under the Bush Adm along with Bush’s failure to use his veto power. I believe it was 2007 when the democratically controlled Congress had an approval rating of 14% and was spending $20 billion a year on pork –
As for lying us into war – if you believe that then you would have to believe numerous international agencies along with Congress who was privy to the same information Bush had, were lying (then you’re into conspiracy territory) and that the violations (22 I believe)of UN Resolutions were meaningless. There was every reason to get rid of Hussein and none to keep him, I for one am glad he’s gone.
As for Phil Gramm, I did mention his name along with others who were complicit in the repeal of Glass-Steagull but it was Clinton who did nothing to stop it(veto). The record shows he was a strong supporter of it.
I lump all of these people under the category of Progressives – Republican and Democrat alike, who have brought this country of ours to the brink. Obama has already spent twice the amount Bush did on 2 wars!
I agree with you regarding wishing more people would read more history and not simply repeat political talking points from either side.
I am impressed with the political speed the Tea Party is picking up, it’s the last chance we have to sound the alarm.
My county taxes have just been raised 15% and our school district wants to raise the school tax 11%, the cost of food is increasing, utilities going up…people have got to wake up! We’ve got to get the word out to replace our Congressional members with people who have not only common sense but character, morals, values. We need to get back to basics and fast! Right now a fiscally conservative candidate/person strikes me as the only type who can get us there.
I hate to be the one to inform you, no matter how good you think you are, you have participated in this system like it or not! A system rooted in the Federal Reserve run by an evil conglomerate of banking families who fund extremely evil ventures throughout the world, including wars to profit by. Like it or not, your money was printed out based on nothing from thin air and you’ve been living an illusion. You’ve profited from this system and used it’s infrastructure created by these evil criminals robbing the world, and now you’re getting raped along with the rest of us. You believed in a lie, an illusion and now, like the rest of us, you will pay the price for it.
Progressive-ism (thank you President Wilson) derailed this country. Those who have been perpetuating this ideology are the ones who destroyed us. I have never seen such anger as I do now regarding the current President and Congress, which tells me that people are finally educating themselves and becoming engaged in politics.
couldn’t agree more! mae has put in to word’s what iv’e been feeling for a long time!