The Erosion of Individual Responsibility
Ah, the old “but I have rights!” defense. My dear old Dad is awfully fond of Lou Dobbs, and as such I’ve been watching him and his news “team” of attractive, young, and well-lit lady assistants admonish the federal government for not bailing out the people hit hard by the mortgage crisis and “bailing out” Bear Stearns instead. If you asked anyone at Bear Stearns how they felt about being bailed out they’d probably wail like a wounded animal and try to shove a $700 pen into their jugular vein, but it’s much easier to vilify them then it is to vilify the poor bastards with second and third mortgages who thought buying a house would be a better investment decision then renting with a comparable amount of income.
Now I haven’t got much position to judge, as I’ve never taken out anything remotely resembling a mortgage, and my rent is cheap as hell since I live with four hippie roommates in the barrio. But I am clever enough to have realized that borrowing vast amounts of money from a rapidly dying industry with no safety net is nothing you can whine to the federal government about when it falls through. Helping banks out is important because it stabilizes the market and prevents billions upon billions of dollars being lost. Plus, it allows your mortgages to go to someone who might actually manage them properly. Bailing you out is not the stock market’s problem, and thus isn’t really the federal government’s either.
All that said, Lou Dobbs has all the subtlety of a cinderblock to the temple. If I had a dollar for every time he stared forlornly into the camera, framed by a “WAR on the Middle Class” graphic while a well-lit lady assistant nodded sagely in the background, I’d be able to buy people’s mortgages.
