10.15.08
I Own My House, at Last!
The Economic Meltdown, part 3
So I’m watching the news last night out of sheer masochism, when Brian Williams made this stunning announcement: Marion, he said, there is good news for you and Greg. Your mortgage has been paid!! BY YOU!!
Yepper, a fat $25 million in tax money has gone to Bank of America! What luck, because they own our mortgage!!
Honestly, I guess you could say that lots of people now own my house, with me. But this is ridiculous.
Actually, it’s a step in the right direction in some ways, for this ol-time socialist thinker. We have nationalized our banks. I just never expected it to happen this way.
My issue with the whole system, and with this bailout business, is why haven’t we ever ever applied this kind of focus, commitment and dedication to social problems? Why are our schools struggling? Why does a little boy in Maryland die of an abscessed tooth because his family has no health insurance?
This country has always been first and foremost about money. In many ways, that has allowed democracy to actually work … people with money are happy and they won’t riot.
Once people become poor and hungry, they will riot. Once people realize they have power, they will try to claim it … and take it away from the government.
So just keep a little change in everyone’s pocket and they will go along with the program, whatever it is. Yet these days, the whole system is grinding down to a stop: We have to grease the wheels of the big money machine.
Why hasn’t this kind of national effort focused on people? We develop and buy billions in weapons; we now owe an unthinkable amount to our banks and Wall Street. So why are children uneducated? Why is a doctor’s visit unaffordable for many people? Why does an old man lose his foot to diabetes?
