HOUSE OF CARDS

I don't want to toot my own horn here, but all this bad news coming out of Wall Street about people defaulting on their home loans is something I've been predicting for years. Just to give you a little bit of background, remember back in 2004 when bush "would have been" the first president since Hoover to reside over a net loss of jobs during his time in office? Well, if you recall, the one positive thing bush was able to tout in the economy was record number of home purchases. Of course, he didn't mention that every year is a record breaking year in home purchases ... including every year under Clinton. That's because the population keeps growing, and people buy houses.

At any rate, the only thing that kept the US from going into the economic crapper during those years was the incredibly low interest rates. The entire economy was sustained by people buying homes, refinancing their homes, remodeling their homes, and the like. The problem with this -- as I pointed out to the few who would listen -- is that it was "fake" economic growth; banks were throwing all their tried-and-true loan rules out the window and doing whatever they could to put people in houses. And it certainly didn't matter that many of those people were stretched to the limit in order to get into a home that they couldn't afford. Sure, everything was great when the interest rate was at historic lows, but most of those loans were adjustable. Therefore, when the Fed started raising interested rates, those poor people could no longer pay their bills.

So, that's where we are today. Senator (and presidential candidate) Chris Dodd wants to provide a safety net for those people. Since the repuglican philosophy is all about not helping people, I wouldn't get my hopes up with bush in office.