I'm putting this e-mail to my Republican Congressman in diary form to both keep a record for my own use and to offer some talking points that you might want to put into your own letters concerning the current financial crisis.
We really should all write to our Congressional representatives today. The tide is turning against the "blank check" idea, and we need to reinforce any faint stirrings of conscience or fear of the electorate that might be troubling their sleep. The more outcry, the better.
I titled the letter "Irresponsible Homeowners?"
Please do not give a $700+ billion blank check to the Treasury Secretary. PLEASE.
We hear a lot about how homeowners must take responsibility for the mortgages they agreed to or suffer the consequences of being foolish with their money. Some think these people should lose their houses in order to be properly punished for taking advantage of loans they were offered by reckless brokers.
But wholesale foreclosures also have dire consequences for the overall economy, further accelerating falling prices and depressing the construction business, which my voting-age son is in.
I believe that you must "punish" the owners and top executives of companies who MADE these irresponsible loans, and the owners and top executives of companies who designed and sold creative derivatives based on them.
It is simply outrageous that the people who were happily making years of fat profits off of greed, dishonesty, stupidity and recklessness could soon be using taxpayer money to pay THEIR mortgages (and household staff and jewelry store bills and etc.).
Plus, the lower level employees of these companies will probably also suffer simply because they had the misfortune of being employed by greedy and dishonest people.
I want you, as my representative, to consider the following necessities to get us back on track:
- Banking and securities deregulation must be turned around. At the very least you must ensure that derivatives are constructed in ways which make it possible to evaluate them honestly.
- Oversight and consequences must be instituted and enforced.
- Distressed homeowners MUST be assisted to remain in their homes in order to stave off a collapse/ripple effect in housing markets and construction trades. If you help the rich jerks who put us in this mess, you have to help the poor jerks who didn't know enough to stay out of it.
- As far as possible, you should ensure that the executives and owners of these greedy companies should not profit from their greed, financial "creativity" or outright dishonesty. Avoid the moral hazard of rewarding them for running their companies into the ground. NO GOLDEN PARACHUTES.
- As far as possible, you should make sure that the government gets something in return for all the money we are going to be throwing at these companies, i.e. equity in the companies, so that the taxpayers don't end up taking all the risk while giving any eventual profits to private parties. I think this would also help stabilize the financial stock market.
- Help out the suddenly unemployed lower level employees, perhaps with an extension in benefits, since the current financial situation almost guarantees that it's soon going to be very, very difficult for people to get new jobs, even if they aren't in the financial services business.
I know you are a Republican and Republicans generally don't like to help the little guy at the expense of the big players, but I hope this crisis can be a time when you look at the situation somewhat differently, if only for the sake of your own electoral future.
Thank you for your consideration of this matter.