The Issues, No. 44 - The Financial Crisis and the American People

Yesterday I talked about the irresponsible members of the House of Representatives who voted against the bailout legislation on Monday. Today, after looking at a couple of national polls on the subject and seeing that the majority of Americans who responded to the polls are also against a bailout, I have concluded that, if those people are truly representative of all the American people, we, as a nation, are truly in deep trouble. Of course I could be missing something here, but I don't think so.

It's OK to be mad at the fact that the financial industry, because of greed and mismanagement, caused its own problems. It's OK to be mad at the fact that our government leaders didn't pay more attention to the situation and nip the problem in the bud before it got out of hand. And, it's OK to be extra mad because now you and the rest of the American taxpayers are being asked to bail the industry out. But, it's not OK to not fix the problem just because you are mad and want to punish the bad guys!

As a matter of fact, you may be part of the problem too, if you have run your credit card debt up so far that you can't even make the minimum payments and/or you are in a situation where you can't make your mortgage payment because it escalated as the contract that you signed said it would. Nobody forced you into those situations. You got into them for essentially the same reason the financial industry is in trouble ----- you were greedy and you wanted stuff you really couldn't afford! So now, instead of being all righteous and sanctimonious and blaming others for your problems you need to take responsibility for your own actions and realize that the government bailout is absolutely necessary for our nation's, a good part of the rest of the world's, and your own personal financial well-being.

And for those of you who are opposed to the bailout because you think you are financially sound and don't believe you should be asked to shoulder any of the burden to help a failing industry, I think you better look at the consequences of not doing the bailout. Your 401K that you are relying on for your retirement income may dwindle to nothing. You may not be able to borrow money to buy a new car or fix your roof or send your kid to college or do any number of things you need to do. So, you also need to think beyond your anger and look at what no action here will do to your own financial picture.

For all of us, this entire situation is a terrific example of how we, if only we were smart enough as individuals and would take responsibility for our own actions, could prevent this kind of crisis. We should know when we can't afford something we want and we should be smart enough to not be tempted by our own greed and desire, which in this case, the financial institutions have preyed upon. The situation is also a good example of how our Congress needs to be more vigilant about what's going on in the country and put the brakes on practices that they know are harmful to our society regardless of the possible loss of votes or campaign contributions.