Who Wants To Be A Billionaire?

[SIZE="2"]People who have read my previous opinions in the realm of Presidential politics should be no stranger to what I have neglected to write for quite awhile due to exams and other obligations.

The theme of change is a central theme of many slogans promoting Obama and McCain's presidential bid. Each president promises to change America for the better. Whether it may be off-shore drilling, putting Iraq on a time scale, (which is another way of saying 'withdrawal') or finding more constructive ways to deal with the war on "terror" (how ambiguous); the candidates have never backed away from their assertions as men of change.

And even though it seems that there has been nothing but words being thrown about in these presidential debates I can guarantee that change has taken place. Yes! A wonderful change has taken place. What I am speaking about is the wonderful acquisition of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac which was acquired by the federal government for approximately $25 billion according to the New York Times (see ref 1).

With $25,000,000,000 say good bye to ramen packets by the dozen. I can afford eating at a nice restaurant for 2,853,881 years. But of course no one lives that long! So why not pursue a better education. With $25 billion I can attend an expensive private college for 277,777 years. Maybe I could run for politics. But wait, I can't do that because I'm not that good at lying. I know! I could just engage in global conquest. It's not impossible as I could afford 6,250 M1A2 tanks! Maybe I'll get a discount for buying them in bulk.

According to Charles Duhigg (see ref 2) Fannie Mac was centered on the principle of buying housing loans and then repackaging them in bundles. Much like N64 bundle packs where you received an N64, two controllers, Banjoe Kazooe / Mario 64, and a rumble pack. Fannie Mae would then sell this "bundle pack of loans" to investors (usually foreign) who expected to make a profit with market trends on the faith that the loans would be paid back.

A more accurate assessment would be the fact that a "friend of your friend" offered to give you their "N64 Bundle Pack" on the condition that you pay up front. Your friend is the "middle man." You pay him first and trust that his friend really does have an N64 bundle pack that he's going to give you.

Up until 2004, Fannie Mae got their loans paid back in a fairly normal fashion. Then Fannie Mae's leadership changed and with it, one of Fannie Mae's "giant loan partners" threatened to leave if Fannie Mae didn't buy out their riskier debt. Which translates into riskier loaners.

Back to our N64 analogy we can compare this to your relationship with your friend. You've trusted him to get you the N64 you so dearly wanted and a bunch of other gaming consoles. Now the PS3 has come out, and your friend always operates in the same method. What you didn't know is that your friend has gotten into bad business and is now depending on drug-dealers and pimps for his video game resources. What happens is you don't get your PS3. None of the drug-dealers or pimps had the system at all. And now everyone is pineappleed because your friend just didn't know when to pineappleing quit.

Instead of your friend being punished, he gets away scotch free. He has your money and hundreds of other people's money that he made transactions with. In the same theory, the federal government has decided that everyone should pay approximately $3,300 in taxes (value adjusted for middle-income wage makers) to compensate for a capitalistic fiasco.

And while Obama is riding unicorns and McCain is spreading love to the world via a blitzkrieg tank-raid through re-"terrorized" Afghanistan, we're still here bearing another burden of something that was not our fault. We didn't have the chance to vote or decide the outcome of the bill. But we do get to choose between two men who made no initiative and had close to no influence in the plan for the bailout.

God Bless America. [/SIZE]

 Spoiler

ref 1: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/washin...ref=slogin
ref 2: http://video.on.nytimes.com/

What i find interesting is that so few people seem to be thinking in the large scale with the bail-out. Oh, im going to have to pay a lot more in taxes, woe is me. Sorry if it bothers you, but i think with the economy just in horrible condition (again, not our fault, but the long time fault of those elected into office) Most dont realize how huge of an effect that these companies failing would bring to the economy. My economics teacher constantly quotes former fed chairman alan greenspan's comment years ago that the deregulation "created industries too large to fail" and then adds the point that thats true, Because if we let them fail then the results would cause such a huge ripple in the economy, we might have to deal with another depression.

Of course, that doesnt mean i support all this spending, i just dont see another alternative. Its giving them money for screwing up, and for screwing up in such a way that they could cause irrevocable damage to the american economy. But its better than the effect of such large organizations tanking.

[SIZE="2"]Regardless of how taboo this idea may seem, the potential "economic harm" is completely theoretical. The federal treasury along with Wall Street calculated and pooled together a bunch of statistics in order to determine that the unsupported fall out would lead to conclusion X. But the thing is, how do you know that conclusion X is guaranteed?

These are the same men who allowed these terrible housing loan practices from the beginning of 2004 to be initiated and continued to be practiced for the next four years. Congress according to reference 2 even had a hand in reinforcing the purchase of more low-income loaners. What possible implications that not bailing out this 12-trillion dollar business will never be seen.

We assume it will be bad, but in what ways will that apply to the modern American? Because the problem is now government-regulated makes the problem less of a hot issue? And if we didn't do choose to bail out the company, then our pockets would suffer. Isn't it more or less the same consequence as it is now? Our pockets still have to suffer.

And the pure fact that either presidential candidate did not address or was even aware of the problem before it became into fruition is a major issue to me. Who exactly are we electing and putting into office? Since when were our standards so low? These men are senators and have a vital role in Congress to shift the tides and round up their two parties that practically run American politics.

I thought that the government was supposed to serve Americans, but it seems more like an unrequited relationship where Americans are feeding the government by the spoon like it was a premature toddler.[/SIZE]