The American Spectator : Survival

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Survival

By Reid Collins on 2.16.09 @ 6:06AM

There's more bad recession news tonight.

(Page 2 of 2)

"You don't need to know. One word you gotta know-- greed. Greed that extends to the out-of-work guy who lies on the mortgage application that he's makin' a hundred grand a year. But when the house price collapses like a cheap suitcase and the mortgage interest goes up anyway, he is stuck. Thousands are stuck. And who's gonna bail 'em out?"

I give.

"You are. Your tax dollar. 'Cause Uncle Sam has declared everybody has a god-given right to own a house, no matter who lied to provide it, who cut up the worthless mortgages, and who bought the pieces."

Is that why this Senator Gregg doesn't want to be Commerce chieftain?

"Nobody knows. His explanation sounds like Treasury Geithner explaining his plans for a pullout. Put 'em together, I say, and send 'em out on the road like Hope and Crosby."

Who and who?

"That's right. I forget you are a youngster. They were funny guys, and one could sing. Hope and Crosby were a little relief during the big depression. Another relief was the Chicago World's Fair where one night they shot Dillinger."

Shot who?

"A bad guy who robbed banks."

But the way you talk about them, banks sort of deserve it.

"Yeah. But now they're robbed by the guys who run 'em. Turn on the music. Let's listen to some good stuff and then -- know what? We'll go over and meet those new folks who moved in a week ago."

Really?

"Yep. 'Cause that's another thing, like the music, that got us through the last one. Neighborliness. Giving a damn about the guy next door."

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About the Author

Reid Collins is a former CBS and CNN news correspondent.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (9) | Leave a comment

Kitty| 2.16.09 @ 6:30AM

"First thing you do is unload all the guns in the house."

Don't worry, BO will do that for you. He can't be having any independent-minded people who are also armed, now can he.

...

Melvin| 2.16.09 @ 7:31AM

How was is that Communism enslaved millions of people without nary a revolt. It was easy the Soviet Union kept their people illiterate.
Simply put, a ignorant man doesn't question the state he only knows how to follow and fear it.
A literate man will question authority, therefore he becomes a threat to the state.

David Govett| 2.16.09 @ 2:13PM

The ascendancy of Obama and the liberal hordes is not the worst possible outcome. Not by a damn sight. Should their policies deepen the misery of recession among Americans, a people unaccustomed to poverty, they will divert the American republic down a dark and dangerous path inimical to freedom. The republic might be at stake, folks.

Pat| 2.16.09 @ 3:29PM

"House of Cards" - CNBC ran a medium good 2 hour special on how we got into this credit market mess. One of many amusing but depressing examples cited was a Lebanese immigrant who sold cars, then got into the mortgage origination racket and started making $5 million a month peddling mortgages, to Wall St., which were so risky they weren't sound enough to be labeled sub-prime, bought himself a million dollar Ferrari Enzo, bankrolled his own Hollywood movie. An American success story but one without nobility, without inspiration, without even a happy, tear jerking ending.

Our wise ones point to greed as the culprit, unbridled greed - as if by re-discovering this human weakness we are somehow guaranteed hope and redemption. For a country with the best political system in the world, one that Churchill said was better than all the rest, our so-called system fell flat on its witless face. The "rest", those systems Churchill scorned, must be really bad if our system is held up as some kind of shining example.

A system that can't effectively deal with a basic human motivation like greed isn't much of a system. A political system that will rob us to pay for the fundamental mistakes of others is one we'd wish on our enemy. Sure, the Lebanese mortgage pirate was greedy, manipulative, irresponsible, but he won't suffer for it - you will, I will, a lot of innocent taxpayers will because "we're all in this together". And loading or unloading our guns won't matter, we can't change our worthless system, all that any of us can do is complain about it and then pay up - it's our magnificent Churchillian system holding the loaded gun.

Alan Brooks| 2.16.09 @ 8:00PM

Daphne "i will have a psychedelic gleam in my eye at all times" Kenward has the answer to our funk:

go to Woodstock next August for the 40th anniversary.

Jim Turner| 2.16.09 @ 8:22PM

re: "...the Soviet Union kept their people illiterate.
Simply put, a ignorant man doesn't question the state he only knows how to follow and fear it." - They've just about accomplished that here too in the government schools!

A Balrog of Morgoth| 2.17.09 @ 3:23AM

Melvin,

No revolts other than the Russian Civil War, you mean. And I must disagree with the notion that Russians were kept illiterate. Au contraire, literacy was promoted...and channelled to serve the party.

Move INTO THE FUTURE| 2.17.09 @ 7:42AM

Step out of your BOX, and look towards a new technological age, of developement and progress.
Any one can shoot a MUSLIM, invest the money you use for bullets to creat JOBS in your country.

Use the money to create clean energy, and educate your people. New forms of transport cut back on pollution for a cleaner and healthier society, that invest less in mass murder and more in developement.