Business: March 2008 Archives

Michelle Singletary - Debt Addicts Get A Dose of Reality - washingtonpost.com:

"But many of the individuals who are overloaded with debt need to take responsibility for their bad choices, too. Take credit card debt, for example. Certainly there has been a tremendous push -- for decades -- by financial institutions to get people to view credit cards as indispensable.

And consumers gladly went along, with no complaint, using other people's money until life's hardships -- a job loss, illness or divorce -- got in the way and they could no longer pay today for what they long since had purchased."

(Via The Washington Post.)

A quick, but fair, look at why debtors clearly have to share responsibility in the current economic crisis.

msnbc.com video: Obama on the economy:

(Via MSNBC.com.)

Wages and incomes for middle class America have been flat for far longer than Obama intimated. In real dollar terms, they've been stagnant for decades where the top earners' incomes shares of national income have quintupled. So in terms of basic fairness and even sound long term economics, you've got to pay the piper. Rich folk: do you want to be pigs who get fat or hogs who get slaughtered?

Obama Casts Wide Blame for Financial Crisis and Proposes Homeowner Aid - New York Times:

"‘Instead of establishing a 21st-century regulatory framework, we simply dismantled the old one,’ he said, ‘aided by a legal but corrupt bargain in which campaign money all too often shaped policy and watered down oversight.’"

(Via The NY Times.)

I'm always for keeping things balanced. One thing he can't say without losing his bid is that a 21 century framework has to be structured so that debtors shoulder some responsibility. While I'm sure many were hoodwinked and bamboozled, many others simply got greedy and gorged on cheap debt. They have to be taken to the shed as well. Let's hope Barack leads in an effort to setup such a system.