Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Change
I was listening to my boss talk to one of the other managers at work the other day. His cohort is a millionaire with intelligent and productive children with good jobs and a pretty good grasp on how to manage their money. His son, who is 27, decided to purchase a 1200 television. He wanted to pay half in cash and put half on a store account. He has good credit and an income somewhere in the 75000 a year range. Despite these facts, the store account was not approved. I asked his dad if he had a lot of other debt, but as that isn't the case, it would seem simply that no one is extending credit right now, and this young man's story is apparently not the only one like it.
Creditors are limiting their funding for companies such as Ford and GM. Stockbrokers are crying on Wall Street and markets plummeted worldwide last week. President Bush assures us that lawyers and other necessary personnel are being hired and organized to start dispersing the miracle bailout. In the meantime, Obama assures us that things will be better for everyone if we spread the wealth around, which sounds ominously like socialism at its most idealistic, and Senator McCain wants to spend several more billion to refinance homes and personal loans that should never have been extended to begin with.
I find myself wondering how they all look at the same problem, and find so many different 'solutions'. At this point, I think wonder what would happen if they tried something new....leave it alone. Let the market work itself out, stop interfering, and please try not to turn the United States into another hotbed of socialistic economics. It seems to me that our governmental leaders continue to talk about how much we need change. Keeping your hands out of it would certainly fit that criteria.
