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Highlands Today

The Sky Is Falling

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By Raleigh Whiteman | Highlands Today

Published: March 26, 2009

Every once in awhile I like to get up on the proverbial soapbox and preach against or for some of the things that are going on around me. I don't expect to change anything all that much, but maybe someday when I have something to say, someone who has the say-so at changing things will pay attention and do something.

Maybe it's because I'm getting older and more of a curmudgeon, but there are so many crazy things happening these days that it's really getting chaotic.

These bailouts and buying of bad loans seem to me to be rewarding those who did the wrong-doings.

The Audacity
The country is in the worst financial condition I have ever witnessed in my lifetime. It appears the main cause is that the banking institutions' approval of bad loans on property. Not only the property prices but the incomes of the applicants were artificially inflated and then the inability of the buyers to make payments and homes going into foreclosure.

I have always been under the assumption that signing a falsified loan application is against the law and punishable under the penalty of law with fines and-or imprisonment, whether by the loan officer or the borrower. Evidently there have been so many of these violations that prosecution would be impossible and there would be no room in the courts to prosecute all those guilty of the crimes they committed.

The big-wigs of these banking institutions are so rich and powerful they are untouchable and there are so many falsifiers they are un-prosecutable.

We Are A Lynch Mob
Looking for someone to blame and hang? It's the upper-middlemen, those few hundred that we can find who overlooked or falsified the bad loans and received their bonuses for doing so. We are only blaming them and their bosses for our troubles. We want to hang them for what they did but we are forgetting the ones who first wrote the contracts for the sale that should be first to blame.

How many lenders would we have left if their records were searched on the homes that they got loans approved and are now in foreclosure? Sure, they did the borrowers a favor by giving them a loan on an overpriced house for very little, if any, down.

And what about these buyers who signed the documents required that stated falsehoods and knowing that the house was way beyond their means. What should we do to those folks? In almost any court being stupid and signing a falsified document is a crime.

Same Old Thing
Watching TV every day and there is an ad depicting a loan officer stamping papers and approving-approving-approving all loans regardless of bad credit - no job – bankruptcy - or foreclosure, the loans are approved regardless of the credit rating by the "GoForApproval" online service.

In all likelihood these automobiles or other property put up for collateral will be repossessed from the borrower.

Be Specific
Two tourists were driving through Wisconsin. As they were approaching Oconomowoc, they started arguing about the pronunciation of the town's name. They argued back and forth until they stopped for lunch. As they stood at the counter, one tourist asked the blonde employee: "Before we order, could you please settle an argument for us? Would you please pronounce where we are ... Very slowly?

The blonde girl leaned over the counter and said, "Burrrrrr, gerrrrrr, Kiiiing."

Raleigh Whiteman, of Lake Placid, is a contributing writer to Highlands Today. You can reach him on the Internet at rwwhiteman@comcast.net

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