another day in the stock market …

  

“World leaders are trying to calm anxious investors…”

That’s a the words I read this morning on cnn… did it make me feel any better? No. Why? Well, as the market shows, it doesn’t matter what the governments are saying, investors (not to mention people in general) don’t trust them any more.

You say things will get better, but yet instead of stepping in and directly regulating failing banks, you simply produce a bailout plan that pays these companies billions of dollars to recoupe their failures. Why? Don’t you understand the biggest problem is not the fact they are in debt, it’s how they got there.

Between million dollar payouts to high ranking executives to poor spending habits (see AIG’s 500k retreat for their execs after an 85 billion dollar loan) these companies will continue to downward spiral until the money that us taxpayers are footing the bill for in some way or another is all gone yet again. You might as well sit out front on the steps of the Capitol and burn money and throw it to the wind.

Someone asked me why I was a bit cranky this week. Wouldn’t you be if you were watching as the key points of your 401k were just burning out? Now, keep in mind I am optimistic as to my investments and have faith in the particular ones I’ve chosen only because I trust the people who directly influence them and know that somehow those investments will recover once the bottom of this pit has been reached. Those investments don’t depend soley on the health of the stock market to continue doing business and that is why I chose them. One day, they can recover. But do I trust things will get better when government officials who allowed this to happen says they’re doing everything they can? *NO*

As I made pretty clear yesterday, I’m unhappy with the political and economic health of this nation. While being a nation of unparalleled freedoms it has also become a nation of greedy politicians and businessmen. While not all are blatent liars and thieves, the vast majority of them which directly affects us are. While at this point in time, my family is doing ok, who’s to say tomorrow says the same tale if things continue the way they are.

We’ve tolerated too much as a nation by putting our trust people who do not have our best interests in mind. They don’t care about their neighbors, just themselves. You see them with multiple houses (*cough*McCain*cough*) that they don’t need while families are losing their homes. Now, don’t get me wrong here… just because many of the leaders (both business and government)  are crooked doesn’t mean some of the American people aren’t to blame either.

The mortgage crisis, is in part the people’s fault for allowing it to happen. Wether through ignorance or plain stupidity, a lot of people fell for these shady offers that lenders put out there. I’m sorry, but a subprime loan that has an ajustable rate… use your noggins. If your payment was 1200/mo at the time of signing and you could barely afford it, you had two options… a) have a solid plan to refinance on a fixed rate within 2 yrs or b) make enough money to handle the hike in price. A huge chunk of the failed mortgages were due to the fact that when those loans adjusted up, people couldn’t afford their payments anymore. I blame both parties there. The lenders for allowing people to put themselves into that position without properly educating them and the borrowers for not having the sense to walk away if it was something they couldn’t do.

Regardless, the nation, the world is in turmoil and bleeding out due to many factors and instead of actually addressing and fixing those things, we’re trying to apply bandages where stitches and sometimes amputation is necessary.  I wouldn’t be too surprised if we dropped under 8,000 today. *shrug*

who knows…

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