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Video Journal Entries for Jon

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  Re: Greed: Milton Friedman Brenda Sue Faulkner February 10th, 2009 12:21 am MST

  Older video and a good find ... and scary, just the kind of "screw you" attitude that the financial and corporate gurus used to put the world in the economic toilet we're in now!! 

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  Re: Greed: Milton Friedman Jon February 10th, 2009 8:50 am MST

  I honestly don't think the Financial Institutions were doing anything different than we do as individuals, they were being greedy, trying to make money and profit, something I see nothing wrong with and something every single person I know does. When we sell property, do we sell it for a price that gives the buyer a good deal or do we sell it at a price that makes us a nice profit? I think we must all admit that we sell it for as much as we can to make as much as we can and I think it's fair to say that we do this when selling anything... we sell it for whatever the market will bear. That is as it should be in a Capitalist Economy.

  I think the main cause of this economic meltdown started with Jimmy Carter, yes, that's right, way back then, when it was decided that it's the governments business to make sure that everyone, regardless of income, should be able to own a house. Yeah, it's a nice idea in principle, however, it doesn't work in the real world as some people just don't earn enough to afford a house. It really got carried away when Bill Clinton came into office and started dictating to banks that they give mortgages to people without down payments, that they not verify employment and income. When I bought my first place, you had to put 20% down before a bank would give you a mortgage and the bank verified my income with my employer. Doing away with that because of government mandates is what I think started this whole mess. All the Financial Institutions did is to take advantage of all these new mortgages, that without government dictactes and interference, never would have existed and bundled them up and resold them. Pretty creative actually. Unfortunately, they didn't look at the details of the mortgages they were buying and thanks to government prodding and mandates, many of these mortgages weren't worth the paper they were written on.

  What upsets me about this whole thing is that I've struggled to pay a hefty mortgage for over 10 years now and I do not want to see my taxes going to bail out or subsidize someone else's mortgage, that is just not fair to me and anyone else who's struggled, yet managed to pay their mortgage. If the government wants to step in, then it should be via a plan that helps everyone, including people who are paying their mortgages, maybe allowing everyone with a mortgage to deduct twice the interest paid per year or something along those lines. The simple fact is that some people just can't afford to own a home and people are not entitled to own a home anymore than they are entitled to own a Ferrari or a Yacht. I am against this whole movement towards the "redistribution of the wealth" which I think will be the death of this country over the long term.