Mortgage Primer 101

President Obama has just released his latest plan to keep people in their homes. I have a flash for his cast at Treasury.
PEOPLE WANT TO SELL THEIR HOMES! We went down this road of 0% down 125% financing thanks to Bill Clinton, Chris Dodd and Barney Frank. We had to close the housing gap! There were people out there who could not afford to buy a house! Of course more affluent people used the plan to buy a $730,000 dollar home when they could only afford maybe a modest little $600,000 dollar home.
The point is that three or four years down the road, they still have no equity and are still upside down on the mortgage. They are upside down because they took that extra 25% and paid off credit card debt or other personal debt or maybe added a pool to their new digs that they couldn’t afford in the first place.
Now, in order to sell, they have to find someone willing to take on that extra mortgage amount. Even if we were in the housing market of the last decade, the homes value would not have appreciated enough to make up that 25%. We do not need a plan to re-write these mortgages and “keep people in their homes”. We need a plan to bring liquidity and mobility back in the market. That will only happen if we return to the basic premise that equity builds value. Let’s get the intellectuals and social engineers out of business.

LAYOFFS AND DOWNSIZING....

Has anyone out there ever been laid-off or downsized?

I can tell you one group that never has suffered this indignity. Our ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES!!

When a company falls on difficult times, one of the things that seems to happen is they reduce their staff and workers. The remaining workers need to find ways to continue to do a good job or risk that their job would be eliminated as well. Wall street, and the media normally congratulate the CEO for making this type of "tough decision", and his board of directors gives him a big bonus.

Our government should not be immune from similar risks.

Therefore: Reduce the House of Representatives from the current 435 members to 218 members and Senate members from 100 to 50 (one per State). Also reduce remaining staff by 25%.

Accomplish this over the next 8 years. (two steps / two elections) and of course this would require some redistricting.

Some Yearly Monetary Gains Include:

$44,108,400 for elimination of base pay for congress. (267 members X $165,200 pay / member / yr.)

$97,175,000 for elimination of the above people's staff. (estimate $1.3 Million in staff per each member of the House, and $3 Million in staff per each member of the Senate every year)

$240,294 for the reduction in remaining staff by 25%.

$7,500,000,000 reduction in pork barrel ear-marks each year. (those members whose jobs are gone. Current estimates for total government pork earmarks are at $15 Billion / yr)

The remaining representatives would need to work smarter and would need to improve efficiencies. It might even be in their best interests to work together for the good of our country?

We may also expect that smaller committees might lead to a more efficient resolution of issues as well. It might even be easier to keep track of what your representative is doing.

Congress has more tools available to do their jobs than it had back in 1911 when the current number of representatives was established. (telephone, computers, cell phones to name a few)

Note:
Congress did not hesitate to head home when it was a holiday, when the nation needed a real fix to the economic problems. Also, there were 3 senators that were not doing their jobs while on the campaign trail for 18+ months) but were still accepting full pay. These facts alone support a reduction in senators & congress.

Summary of opportunity:

$ 44,108,400 reduction of congress members.

$282,100, 000 for elimination of the reduced house member staff.

$150,000,000 for elimination of reduced senate member staff.

$59,675,000 for 25% reduction of staff for remaining house members.

$37,500,000 for 25% reduction of staff for remaining senate members.

$7,500,000,000 reduction in pork added to bills by the reduction of congress members.

$8,073,383,400.00 per year, estimated total savings. (that's 8-BILLION just to start!)

Big business does these types of cuts all the time.

If Congresspersons were required to serve 20, 25 or 30 years (like everyone else) in order to collect retirement benefits there is no telling how much we would save. Now they get full retirement after serving only ONE term.

IF you are happy how the Congress spends our taxes, then just ignore this post. IF you are NOT at all happy, then I assume you know what to do.

Next Week: The Administration! What we might call the CEO and Staff!

A.M.

YOU'RE FIRED!

CONSERVATISM vs. LIBERALISIM

History 101 (Crash course)

For those that don't know about history ... Here is a condensed version:

Humans originally existed as members of small bands of nomadic hunters/gatherers. They lived on deer in the mountains during the summer and would go to the coast and live on fish and lobster in the winter.

The two most important events in all of history were the invention of beer and the invention of the wheel. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer. These were the foundations of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of humanity into two distinct subgroups:

1. Liberals (the gatherers)
2. Conservatives. (the hunters)

Once beer was discovered, it required grain and that was the beginning of agriculture. Neither the glass bottle nor aluminum can were invented yet, so while our early humans were sitting around waiting for them to be invented, they just stayed close to the brewery. That's how villages were formed.

Some men spent their days tracking and killing animals to B-B-Q at night while they were drinking beer. This was the beginning of what is known as the Conservative movement.

Other men who were weaker and less skilled at hunting learned to live off the Conservatives by showing up for the nightly B-B-Q's and doing the sewing, fetching, and hair dressing. This was the beginning of the Liberal movement.

Some of these liberal men eventually became known as girlie-men. Some noteworthy liberal achievements include the domestication of cats, the invention of group therapy, group hugs, and the concept of democratic voting to decide how to divide the meat and beer that conservatives provided.

Over the years Conservatives came to be symbolized by the largest, most powerful land animal on earth, the elephant. Liberals are symbolized by the jackass.

Modern liberals like imported beer (with lime added), but most prefer white wine or imported bottled water. They eat raw fish but like their beef well done. Sushi, tofu, and French food are standard liberal fare. Another interesting evolutionary side note: most of their women have higher testosterone levels than their men. Most government social workers, and employee's, personal injury lawyer's, journalists, dreamers in Hollywood and group therapists are liberals. Liberals invented the designated hitter rule because it wasn't fair to make the pitcher also bat.

Conservatives drink domestic beer, mostly Bud. They eat red meat and provide for their family & community. Conservatives are big-game hunters, rodeo cowboys, lumberjacks, construction workers, firemen, medical doctors, police officers, corporate executives, attorney’s, athletes, members of the military, airline pilots, teachers who believe in our founding fathers, and generally anyone who works productively. Conservatives who own companies hire other conservatives who want to work for a living.

Liberals produce little or nothing. They like to govern the producers and decide what to do with the production. Liberals believe Europeans are more enlightened than Americans. That is why most of the liberals remained in Europe when conservatives were coming to America . They crept in after the Wild West was tamed and created a business of trying to get something for nothing.

When a fishing boat comes to the dock, Liberals want to confiscate some of the fish to feed those who cannot fish. Conservatives want to hire people to fish and let them learn how to buy their own boat.

Here ends today's lesson in world history:

It should be noted that a Liberal may have a momentary urge to angrily respond to the above.

A Conservative will simply laugh and be so convinced of the absolute truth of this history that it will be forwarded immediately to other true believers and to more liberals just to tick them off.

And there you have it. Let your next action reveal your true self.

WE LIVE IN THE LAND OF THE FREE, ONLY BECAUSE OF THE BRAVE

Thanks to Ron V.

Note: This is NOT about Republicans and Democrats. It’s a distinction as to what you believe about the Constitution, National Defense, Personal Responsibility, Fiscal Responsibility, and most importantly Freedom!
Moderates are a melding of Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, and all others that believe in the above ideas.

War was declared on the United States of America
2,724 days, 9 hours, 24 minutes and 12 seconds ago.

Conservatives want to end the war in victory for the people of Iraq, so they may also have personal and economic freedom.
Liberals choose to walk away, because it has just ‘taken too long”, AND there would be more money to spend on people in this country who want more hand-outs.