Scoop’s Views

About four to five weeks ago, all the so-called experts and financial geniuses were telling people to sell their stocks, cash in what they could, and be prepared for a stock market crash similar to that of the one in 1929.

At the same time, I held the same view that very few “financial experts” featured on television held: buy as many shares of as many stocks as you possibly can while the price-per-share is low. At the time, it was something of a buyer’s delight with prices being low.

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It seems just about half the members of the U.S. House of Representatives have half a brain, or, if not that, then at least the commonsense God gave to individuals fiscally responsible for managing household budgets.

Barack Obama, however, is not among that crowd: he had this strange idea that the very CEOs that got the financial institutions into a mess should receive “reasonable compensation packages.” Those CEOs should be paying compensation to the U.S., to the homeowners they helped defraud by giving mortgages to people who never should have qualified for them in the first place.

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Congress has approved a $300 billion funding measure to help people who are at risk of losing their homes due to foreclosure, and now, it seems, almost every media outlet in the country is busy touting the ways to stake claim to your chunk of change from that bailout.

To be in foreclosure means you haven’t paid your mortgage. Wow! What a concept. Most of the people in the current mortgage crisis are people who managed to get mortgages from lenders who offered sub-prime loans. The loans were given to people with a variety of options, but many people who never would have managed to get a mortgage from traditional lenders managed to buy a home. Great. Until the taxpayer-funded bailout.

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Ed McMahon, the former face of Publisher’s Clearinghouse sweepstakes, who teased Americans for years that he could show up at the door of anyone’s home, at any time, and make them a millionaire, seems to be in need of a sweepstakes win these days.

In recent days, McMahon’s financial woes have gone public, and now he says that he is “representing many people in the same situation.” What a crock! Perhaps he should ask one of his neighbors, such as Britney Spears, if he represents everyday people.

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