OUR FUTURE BANKERS

Sen. Maria Cantwell

Rep. Dave Reichart

Sen. Patty Murray

Here they are, our State Representatives. “The Cop”, “The Mom in Tennis Shoes”, and “Whatever, I Need to Work Somewhere”. I’ve tried to locate the email addresses for these folks on-line to no avail. What they offer is a form on their respective pages to be filled out, along with a message, and sent into the ether with the hope that it will find the intended recipient. I don’t care type my message three times, so I will convey my thoughts here, then send them a link via their little forms.

Folks [Dave, Patty and Maria], I have some concerns. First, all of you are too nice to be effective.

Dave’s done a pretty good job of moving up the charts in the House, making it to the Ways and Means Committee. But honestly Dave, how many years of hob-knobbing do you plan to invest before you say something that matters? Are you under the impression that you have to hang around for 10+ years before anyone will listen? Sure, everyone likes a nice guy. But what the country needs right now, and especially us out here in the Northwest corner, is some backbone. I haven’t seen your name in the paper since Nov 4, 2008, and that bothers me.

Patty is working hard for the improvement of the treatment of our veterans. Nothing could be more noble. However, how much more chatting around this subject is necessary? You’re the self-proclaimed “Mom In Tennis Shoes”. I suggest you put on those shoes and move on…to anything else. The veterans issues are pretty well known, but your approach is too nice, and too timid. You have a kick-ass issue there. Get LOUD, and get the changes done. Heck, you’ve been there long enough to throw your weight around. Call Oprah for gosh sake. I bet you have a ton of stories that would quickly fill more than an hour. At least call Larry King. But get moving on this thing. Once the Iraq war is wound down, you won’t get the interest level as high again. In fact, you may have already missed the mark.

Maria, Maria, Maria. What are we to do with you? You’ve been there how many years? And you have all the punch of a loaf of white bread. Then, out of the blue, I read that you plan to vote, or have voted, in opposition to the Bush proposed, and Obama endorsed, bailout plan. Yes, there is great uncertainty there. But there is no uncertainty concerning the state of the economy. Then again Maria, are you unsure about what’s going on out here in the land of reality? Maybe you should call your Mom. Ask her how her neighbors are doing. Maybe she’ll tell you about her checker at QFC that’s been working doubles for the last six months because her husband was laid off, not to mention the five year arm that is in its last 6 months before that bomb goes off. Since the Feds have cranked up the heat on the quality of mortgage applicants, the checker doesn’t qualify to refi the house she bought 5 years ago. I really have no idea what it is that you do. But I am acutely aware that I have not heard your voice, or seen your name in type……for…..years.

Patty and Maria, [Dave's off the hook because he wasn't in the game yet] I wrote to you prior to the first vote for the first allocation of money for Bush’s war in Iraq. Check your archives. It should be around. I still have the responses you sent back. At that time I warned you that funding the war was wrong, and that it would uncategorically create financial havoc in our fragile economy. I wasn’t anti-war in the pacifist sense. I was anti-war because it was stupid and fiscally irresponsible. No WMD’s, not much Al Quaida, but we sure did a good job of shortening the life span of about 500,000 innocent people. Although the actual number may never be known. I believe that I touched on the fact that it’s only been 150 years since our own civil war, and it was unreasonable to expect the tribes of Iraq to reconcile their differences and become a democracy overnight……because we tell them to. Anyway, I have to get this off my chest: I told you so.

Now, for the matters at hand. ARE YOU DEAF AND DUMB??!!??!! You, our Washington contingent are sort of the exemplary wimps of our Federal Government. Where is the incredulity at what is occurring ON YOUR WATCH? You can’t send out a statement about your anger at the early bonuses for the Merrill-Lynch crooks? You have nothing to say about the AIG $500,000 retreat? You’re OK with the same guys running the show, both on Wall Stret, and DC, that have run us into the ground?

It was the funniest thing in the paper today. It is being considered that The Fed become the big watchdog over all financial institutions, where they now only watch over 800+ banks. This may sound crazy, but my guess is that most believed, whether it was the SEC, IRS, The Fed, or even Homeland Security, that someone was watching the store. GEEZE, it was only a few years ago that the country was about blown away by ENRON. Doesn’t anyone learn, or follow-up on stuff like this? Corporate tendancies that indicate that business is not being conducted normally? Was no one at all paying attention when WAMU reported…..FOR YEARS… that it was booking unpaid interest on its negative amortization loans as profit….year….after year……after year? And everyone shuddered for months that might fail. Anyone who knew that one aspect about that bank knew, then and there, they were done.

So now we have a bigger problem, and it’s just like 1991, only worse.  Can you remember back that far? Desert Storm and the S & L crises. Things were going pretty good. Not as crazy as 2007, but pretty good. Then a bunch of overextended, overspeculating savings and loans failed, ala Charles Keating and the like. That was not a good time to apply for a loan. Like now, with the Feds looking under every bank teller’s chair, the pendulum swung waaay too far over, suffocating legitimate businesses that had done nothing wrong, but their business lines of credit were chopped, right when they needed them most, with no more explanation that we are getting today.

Here’s the big question for all three of you: if the banks are not going to lend the taxpayers dollars you keep giving them, what’s the point? I implore all of you to get incredulous, get loud, get angry, but get that money moving out the doors of those bank recipients, or all will be for naught. Are there no conditions on those funds? The money is just handed to these knuckleheads with no accountability about how to use it? There is no time limit?

Here’s an idea: the goverment should just take over B of A. Use all of the money to refinance those that have not already lost their homes, get those credit lines going again with the hundreds of thousands of small businesses across this country. People would start to feel good again in a big hurry. Waht happens when people feel good? They spend money. As for the car companies? forget about them. As evidenced by their collective private jet junkett to DC to plead for cash, they don’t deserve anything. Their labor union needs to have a long conversation with itself. It will have the time to do that when most of them are unemployed. The workers are arrogant, and the products are uncompetitive… have been for years. Heck, I just watched “An Inconvenient Truth” for the first time about a month ago. It was uncanny how accurate Gore’s auto production charts were back then. It was dead on with what we are seeing today. How can the auto industry base its product on the price of gas today when it takes, according to them, up to five years to design and build something new? They say they can’t afford to design more efficient cars? Can they afford not to? Again, that union has to have a VERY serious conversation with itself. The concessions they have won over the years may cost them all of their jobs. Heck, I was talking with a lady the other day that was saying that her father, a retired autoworker, was worried that he wouldn’t get his free, brand new car every year. What the heck does a retired guy need with a new car every year? If they have health insurance they’re doing better than about half the country to begin with.

My big concern is that darned pendulum. It has swung too far. No bank is sure if they can write a loan for anyone. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac raised their fees?…….NOW? That’s just outright craziness. Another wrench in the gears. Again, they mismanaged themselves, so we get to pay for it. Seriously, folks. We need a Federal Bank, and we need it now. You say the government cannot be in the banking business? Well guess what? You already are. Either you accept the fact and learn to run it, or get ready to accept the blame when this thing really crashes on your head.

Damn Banks or…..Why Is it Taking So Long To Recover?

How do banks make money? They make loans.

What if they don’t make loans? They sit on the money they have.

What if they don’t have money to sit on? They threaten to fail and the Federal Government gives them money to sit on OR they “arrange” a managed failure with the help of the Federal Government, in the course of which they are taken over by another big bank that curries favor with said Federal Government.

The Federal Government, via the media, has made it clear that the recovery is not happening because consumers are not spending. Consumers? That’s the problem? How about the thousands of small businesses that continue to go out of business and cast thousands of “consumers into the unemployment lines because BANKS WON”T MAKE LOANS?

A $600 rebate is going to help me help the economy? Are you kidding? How about putting that $10+Billion sitting at B of A to work? Do you have any idea how much a billion dollars is? I’ve been told that one billion dollars, laid end to end, would stretch around the circumference of planet Earth 8.5 times. Think of the mileage we could get out of one billion dollars if it were put to work in the form of loans to the businesses that need them for payroll, inventory, expansion, etc.

I currently have several accounts at Bank of Arrogance, one of the kings of the BBB’s ["Banks sitting on Bailout Billions"]. I am considering moving my accounts to a credit union. I doubt B of A will miss me, but it is my small way of saying that I am appalled at the arrogance of these institutions. We have trusted our legislators to help the banks so that the banks will help us. New flash: IT”S NOT HAPPENING!

So the problem is us silly consumers. Chrysler is failing, so I should go out and buy one? I might consider it if my tax dollars hadn’t already been contributed to saving this failing company. Spend more money? Why should we spend to help the economy while the BBB’s sit on billions of tax dollars? I think there is failure on the part of The Feds to understand that we aren’t as stupid as they would like to believe. So let me be clear: WE’LL START SPENDING WHEN THE BANKS START LENDING.

I ask that you consider moving your accounts to a credit union, or to a BSCA ["Banks 2 Small 2 Care About", i.e., they don't make mega political contributions to The Feds]. You will find the service friendlier and the fees lower. All you will miss is that you won’t find a branch on every corner. The Boeing Employee Credit Union office is located right inside Safeway at the Bear Creek Shopping Center. It’s a lot easier to access than risking your life getting to the B of A on Redmond Way.

Happy New Year 2009

 So arrives another new year. Live your life!

As 2008 closed out amidst concern, if not angst, over the economic turmoil that has consumed our collective national consciousness, I am perplexed. Is it the power of the media that has us running for cover….because it tells us to? Granted, major financial institutions and auto manufacturers failing is going to grab headlines. But how many of us does that directly affect?

It would seem that it affects all of us if we are to believe what we are told. But seriously, unless you were laid off, how did Washington Mutual’s failure affect you? Probably not at all. If there are no new Chevrolets, will you stop buying groceries? Not likely. These events are not going to affect your day to day activities, unless you decide to allow it.

Suggestion: Turn off the tube. It’s an aberration of what is already loosely termed “news”. Read the newspaper instead. I like  page three when I want to learn something. TV news broadcasts are entertainment, pure and simple, garnering advertising dollars based on viewership.

Are you old enough to recall the debut of “60 Minutes” many years ago? Initially panned as doomed to fail, much like “Monday Night Football”, it broke all the rules and soared to higher ratings than the producers could have ever imagined. Today we have not only dedicated “news” programs ad nauseum, we have a host of “news channels”.

Other than the weather channels, I think it is all a bunch of poorly reported, inadequately researched, largely unverified, crap. Conservatives accuse “the media” of being too liberal. Liberals accuse the media of being too conservative. I think they’re both right. Truth be told, the media is simply sloppy, thus the accusations. It is the inaccuracies inherent in reporting too fast, too carelessly, that gets the talking heads rolling.

Tv and radio talk show hosts live on the edge of truth for the sake of ratings. If it’s not controversial, who’s going to  watch or listen? OK, so how to make boring news controversial? Spin it. Make a story out of a non-story. Take the Governor of Illinois….please!! The guy’s a loser. We get it. Do we need to get beat over the head with it? The newspapers were largely done with this guy after a week. The electronic media has beat this story to death for a month. Why? His stupid hair? His goofy accent? Oh no, the interest is sagging. Spruce it up with highly dubious (read untrue) Obama tie-ins. More pics of the dumb guy with the dumber hair.

Why does this formula work for the electronic media? Maybe it’s because they know what we are not willing to admit: the TV is on in too many homes ALL THE TIME.

I walk by my family room and the TV is on, and no one is in the room. I go work in my office for a little while, come out to go to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee. Walking past the family room, the TV is on again, and there’s no one in the room. This can happen several times a day. It doesn’t matter what I say to the household, it’s just the way it is. I think my room mates
are fearful of silence. Heaven forbid it is quiet enough to contemplate ones own thoughts. Horrors! It is something that I have accepted as a cost of working at home. I think it will be my New Year’s resolution to limit the number of hours that the TV is on. I am also swearing off talk radio. They’re not all bad, but the worst are on during the hours that I am most likely
on the road.

I didn’t mean to lose my way here, but I had to get that out. My point is that I fear that we are sliding down a precipitous slope for no better reason than we are being told that we sliding down a precipitous slope. Most of us have the same job, car, house, family, etc., that we had 12 months ago. I don’t doubt that people in finance, real estate, and car sales are having a tough time. Heck, I ought to know. But I’ve been through downturns before, and survived. Each time we have been told, “we’ve never seen anything like this”, “there’s no end in sight”, “this could be the beginning of a depression”, etc. The World was transfixed by the news stream from the Mideast during Desert Shield in 1991. The World seemed to stop as all air traffic was grounded following 9/11. Out of the mayhem emerged strong economic runs. It will happen again. It’s not a matter of if, but rather when, a turnaround will occur. Just as when many over-speculated on the premise that the recent run up in real estate would never end, it is a mistake to believe the current downturn won’t end.

While it is always good to be prudent, I am focusing on being well positioned for the rebound when it comes. So I urge all to turn off the so-called news channels, turn away from self-fulfilling prophecy conversations, enjoy what you have now, and have faith that things will get better if we simply think for ourselves.