It's really something. One hardly knows what to say . . .

[pegkerr]

Okay, I was stupid. I knew I shouldn't look, but I did. My 401(k) has lost about 39% of its value since the beginning of the year. My family's dealing with unemployment, but I know there are a helluva lot of families out there with equally scary stories. The mind boggles, trying to grasp what this desperation is like, nationwide.

A sentence in the cover article of this week's Time Magazine sort of jumped out at me: "Credit Suisse predicts that 13% of U.S. homeowners with mortgages could end up losing their homes."

Excuse me?

You know, I wouldn't blame either Obama OR McCain for looking at the mess of headlines from the last couple weeks and saying, "You know, come to think of it . . . nah. I'm withdrawing my name from the ballot. Don't want the job anymore." But we need someone to step up and lead us out of this mess. Which just keeps getting more frightening all the time.

Remember that great exchange in between the President and one of his advisors in Rob Reiner's movie The American President?

Lewis Rothschild: People want leadership, Mr. President, and in the absence of genuine leadership, they'll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want leadership. They're so thirsty for it they'll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there's no water, they'll drink the sand.

President Andrew Shepherd: Lewis, we've had presidents who were beloved, who couldn't find a coherent sentence with two hands and a flashlight. People don't drink the sand because they're thirsty. They drink the sand because they don't know the difference.

You know, I'm getting really tired of drinking sand.

(Great movie, if you haven't seen it.)

Comments

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

In a time when people are willing to drink sand (what a horribly true metaphor) I just figured out how to get rich. All you need to do is to send out a spam email something like this -
----
Afraid of losing your home? We can help!
Did you know that if you file for bankruptcy all your debts are wiped out and you CANNOT LOSE YOUR HOME?

It's easy!

Simply send us $300 for filing fees and we GUARANTEE...
-----
I can't even type any more of that. It was making me ill. My God - I hope not too many people decide to profiteer on this crisis. I hope their attempts are as obvious as the one above and that the vast majority of people know better than to fall for it.

Scary.

[nwl.livejournal.com]

I've seen any number of those spams (help with mortgages) on my email and have for a while now. I also get at least two "make money at home" spams a day as well. If you look in your local paper, there are probably a number of ads that say the same thing.

I've also seen ads on TV for debt consolidation, which may or may not be legit. One of the big issues (I guess that would be the word) in the D.C. area centers around "pay day loan" offices and the businesses that offer a short term loan based on ones car registration.

You must have a pretty good, or at least better than mine, spam filter if you haven't had any spam about debt.