Across the nation yesterday, people from all walks of life gathered in American cities to “get their teabag on”. The point? Protesting provisions in the multi-bill Stimulus Package which help people refinance their mortgages, because preventing foreclosures is wrong. We journeyed to Portland to join in the teabagging fun!
Not long ago, CNBC analyst Rick Santelli spouted off at the Chicago Board of Trade to thunderous applause. Santelli shouted,
How about this, President and new administration? Why don’t you put up a website to have people vote on the Internet as a referendum to see if we really want to subsidize the losers’ mortgages; or would we like to at least buy cars and buy houses in foreclosure and give them to people that might have a chance to actually prosper down the road, and reward people that could carry the water instead of drink the water?
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How many of you people want to pay for your neighbor’s mortgage that has an extra bathroom and can’t pay their bills? Raise their hand.
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We’re thinking of having a Chicago Tea Party in July. All you capitalists that want to show up to Lake Michigan, I’m gonna start organizing.
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[Referring to his cheering audience, the all-white, mostly male crowd of securities traders] These guys are pretty straight forward, and my guess is, a pretty good statistical cross-section of America, the silent majority.
Well, a whole lot of people found they couldn’t argue with Santelli’s comments. Let’s face it; while it’s OK to bail out banks and investment houses and Detroit automakers, and it’s fine for the US to go after a 40% stake in Citigroup (that’s called “nationalizing the bank”, like what was done with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac), it’s wrong, evil and just plain socialist to allow judges to direct lenders to revise the terms of mortgages during personal bankruptcy proceedings so the borrowers can repay the lenders and keep their houses. Even worse, Obama has put aside $75 billion to encourage lenders to refinance loans to 31-38% of income for borrowers. That’s OUR money, being used to help people keep their homes!
Why is it wrong?
Well, let’s see:
Bailing out multinational corporations at taxpayer expense costs us hundreds of billions of dollars, which we may never see again.
Permitting judges to direct banks to revise the terms of personal mortgages, well, that costs us nothing. But it means that the losers won’t have to give up their homes and be suitably punished for their shortcomings! It means the contracts the people signed aren’t sacred anymore! Worse, the Obama Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan costs us $1,000 per year for up to 5 years for each loan a lender agrees to modify, and another $1,000 a year for 3 years for each borrower who stays current! That’s $8,000 of taxpayer funds to prevent a single foreclosure!
Bailing out multinationals may keep some people employed for a little longer — a few months, if the automakers’ demonstration of talented recovery is any example. It will also allow CEOs to put some more money in their pockets before closing up shop. That’s good. It’s called “privatizing profits while socializing losses”, and is one of the ways a capitalist country’s government can help out in tough times.
Bailing out homeowners keeps people in homes. Well, I suppose that’s OK. It also prevents foreclosures. And sure, foreclosures damage the value of properties around them . . .
But it’s morally wrong, to help the losers — those who drink the water — instead of those who can carry the water. These people simply can’t afford their homes, and the government is doing nothing to prevent such losers from taking advantage!
policymakers had to walk a fine line between helping borrowers who have been caught off guard by tricky mortgage products and falling house prices and those who simply made imprudent decisions and genuinely can’t afford their homes. In order to avoid propping up the second group, Treasury won’t subsidize loan modifications that reduce the interest rate below 2%. If you can’t afford a 2% mortgage, in the eyes of the government, you can’t afford your house.
So, like Rick Santelli, we protested! Michelle Malkin cleverly scheduled the event for a Friday at mid-day, when many people, desperate to avoid layoffs, were sure to stay at their desks instead of skipping work for a protest sure to have no impact whatsoever upon Washington policy.
Turnouts were far better than expected, with up to six HUNDRED people turning out in San Diego, and over three HUNDRED in Washington, DC! Some estimates are that up to 0.0001% of the American population turned out in force to protest Obama’s socialistic, foreclosure-preventing policies!
Here are some images for you from Portland’s event.
Portland’s huge crowd . . . at least 150 people, in a metro area of 1.5 million, solidly meeting the 0.0001% population expectation! If that’s not a mandate, President Obama, I don’t know what is!
John McCain joined us, reminding us that he’d told us back in August that the fundamentals of our economy were strong. Why didn’t we listen, instead of following like rats drawn by Obama’s Pied Piper call to economic damnation?
Since I was taking the pictures, I couldn’t hold my own sign, but Janet (in red, on the right) held it for me. “Pay your own mortgage, dead beat!”
Sure, every time a house gets foreclosed it lowers surrounding property values by about 9% . . . but that doesn’t mean that these deadbeats who want their mortgages refinanced from 8 or 9 percent down to 5 (where mine is) should be able to ignore the terms they agreed to! Since when is a contract meaningless?
There are scads more pictures available. Go to Facebook.com and look up “tea party” groups for all the local groups!
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I think it’s wonderful that parents bring as many of their children to events like this as they can! It’s a wonderful way to re-enforce values, and spend quality time together away from the TV set.
I wish I’d been able to make it! My 10-year-old would have loved it!
Perhaps you and the other ignoramuses in the “teabagging movement” should do a quick search of the internet to learn that “teabagging” has another, um, “colorful” meaning that is surely not what you are intending. What this ignorance does is further underscore how foolish you are in your attempts to discredit this new administration and the progressive movement that is gaining strength. Ironically, it is because of foolishness like this that the “conservative” movement (at least what is being labeled as conservative) is losing support from mainstream America. Thanks and keep up the good work! ROFL!
The original tea party was to protest a corporate stranglehold (The East India Company and the compliant UK govt) held over the colonists. That’s why they dumped a privately-distributed commodity. A REAL tea party today would be everybody closing out their bank accounts and blocking gasoline stations and Wal-Marts.
Think any contemporary conservatives are on board with that?
Tom, the modern Tea Party movement is about stopping government handouts to corporations. The situation today is very different from the Boston tea party.
However, closing out bank accounts and blocking gasoline stations would complete the destruction of the American economy, not to mention violating the free market. How exactly would that relieve taxpaying Americans of big-government oppression?
Geralyn, I agree that Jenny’s choice of “teabagging” is unfortunate. However, why do you think that the conservative movement is losing strength? If anything, it’s now gaining.
I guess you will see, tomorrow.
Jenny isn’t the only one using the term “teabagging”. It has been used by many in the movement, although, now that the alternate meaning has been made known, its usage has lessened.
The conservative movement is not growing. Perhaps a movement that is trying to pass itself off as conservative is, but not true a true conservative movement. Instead I see individuals from the planet Wingnuttia who are ignorant of the US Constitution and who get their information from people like Hannity and Beck and Limbaugh – self-serving blow-hards who are misleading people while they laugh all the way to the bank. What’s happening now is that ultra-right-wing crazies are being stoked to carry out, who knows what. I see one of these fools carrying out another Oklahoma City bombing. We need to stop finding ways to divide our country and start trying to find ways to come together. We’re never going to agree on all points, but with the US Constitution as our guide, we can certainly do better.
Check this out – http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090414/us_nm/us_usa_security_extremists;_ylt=AsCJYg5r09DDQ61T1LNIVfms0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTJzaDUwdmY3BGFzc2V0A25tLzIwMDkwNDE0L3VzX3VzYV9zZWN1cml0eV9leHRyZW1pc3RzBGNwb3MDNwRwb3MDMTYEc2VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yeQRzbGsDcmVjZXNzaW9uZnVl
Geralyn, thank you for pointing out the inappropriate choice of term I have used. As you noted, I’d seen it elsewhere in the same context, and never suspected it would relate to non-procreative sexual relations! Eww.
The link you’ve provided drives home a point that I’d been considering, and which I plan to write on tonight. You see, radical leftist groups like ACORN and the Huffington Post are working tirelessly to infiltrate the Tea Parties, in an attempt to make all who don’t agree with Obama’s massive redirection of taxpayer dollars into the pockets of failed corporations look like racists. It’s my belief that they’ve been infiltrating organizations like Stormfront for years. You see, by painting all who hold conservative beliefs as bigots and paranoid crazies, it’s easy to, say, elect a Socialist president who has spent his first 100 days nationalizing banks and industrial concerns.
I will also be putting together a piece on corporatism, the less-offensive synonym for economic fascism. You may find it interesting.
You may have noted that there’s nothing on this site praising Glenn Beck, or Sean Hannity, or Rush Limbaugh. None of them are real Christians, as far as I can tell, and none are real conservatives. Some may be called “Christian conservatives”, due to their espousing of Bible-based views on social matters; however, they are mere Republicans. None have demonstrated a basic understanding of economics. For that, I typically turn to Gary North, a noted Austrian School economist. (You can read about Austrian School economics at http://www.mises.org, and subscribe to Dr. North’s “Economic Edge” newsletter at http://www.americanvision.org.)
Geralyn, can you explain to me why it is so many liberals think it’s a GOOD idea to print trillions of dollars of fiat money and hand it to failed corporations run by incompetent fools, so that all our children and grandchildren can be saddled with decades of debt? I really don’t get it. Why are we rewarding gross incompetence? Is that what liberal America is about?
That’s what I’m against, Geralyn.