The Debate: McCain's Insane Mortgage Proposal

Well, John McCain didn't waste any time. In response to the first question of the second presidential debate, the Arizonan offered to buy back any mortgage in America that's worth more than the value of the home.

Since maybe as many as 40 percent of the homes in America may be under water -- that is, the mortgage is worth more than the home -- that's quite a tall order, one that makes the $700 billion bailout/rescue plan look like bubkes. It's a stunning nationalization of mortgages, wild in its cost and implications and somewhat bizarre coming from someone who had tried to pare back Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I suspect in the coming days McCain will dial back the plan because it was so outlandishly expensive and such a federal intrusion into the market--not that we're still worrying about that.

What it shows is that McCain isn't too old to be president; he's offering a lot of evidence that he's too adolescent. He's impetuous, imprudent. This latest proposal is as wild as the debate-canceling threat from a couple of weeks ago. I think we're getting a vision of the McCain presidency that's akin to Elvis firing up the Lisa Marie and taking his posse cross country for peanut butter and banana sandwiches. Every week would be an adventure.

That said, I thought McCain did pretty well. He was punchy, alert. Obama struck me as a bit more laconic than usual. He seemed tired and made a number of verbal miscues, the most notable was his whipping Delaware as the state with lax banking regulations. D'oh! You knew he regretted dissing his veep's home state as soon as he said it. He also credited the federal government with coming up with the computer; he meant the Internet.

Still, Obama's very good at connecting up policy with real people anecdotes, nowhere more powerfully than when he repeated the anecdote about his mother dealing with insurance companies while she lay dying of cancer.

On a day when the Dow tested new lows, it was remarkable that neither candidate has a (sensible) plan to stabilize the markets now, and both continue to offer promises as if none of this had happened.

McCain is still offering huge tax cuts and Obama continues pushing aggressive spending. Do you really think 95 percent of Americans will get a tax cut under President Obama? I sincerely doubt it. Will there be a President Obama? He crushed in the immediate post-debate polls, despite McCain's latest gambit. After tonight, it's starting to look more and more that way.

Comments

[finmah@yaho...:]

If Obama can make ridiculous tax cut proposals for people who don't pay the bulk of taxes - you might as well have McCain join the fray of nonsense - this is what you get when you are soliciting the votes of people who have somehow missed every late night comdian tirade, 24 hour cable coverage of every move, Hollywood movies, TV talk show hosts all lopsided to a fawning appreciation a candidate who has very little voting record and refuses to validate anything before his tenure as senator.

2008 Oct 08 05:53 AM

[John Preston:]

I agree, I think the plan he articulated was wrong, but the general idea of addressing main street directly by doing something was right on target.

There is a better way to address the economy:


For over a year I have been trying to be heard from within my industry…I am a 30 year veteran of the mortgage and real estate industries…and I could not create a ripple. In June of this year, I went public, so to speak, trying to effect positive change. No one can hear me over the main stream media/”Washington Speak” roar that has produced no effective method to stabilize housing and the economy.
Then, my proposal was hijacked. Or so it would seem. An op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal (one of the media outlets who had not published my original submission) entitled “First, Let’s Stabilize Home Prices”, gets published last Friday, and get’s quoted all over the CNBC shows…and this article was a somewhat juvenile and more costly approach in comparison to mine.
I have included excerpts from the WSJ op-ed piece, as well as selections my original proposal to Chairman Bernanke.
Excerpted from the Wall Street Journal…..OCTOBER 2, 2008:
First, Let's Stabilize Home Prices, By R. GLENN HUBBARD and CHRIS MAYER
…We are in a vicious cycle: falling housing values cause losses on securities, which reduce bank capital, thereby tightening lending and causing house prices to fall further. The cycle has spread beyond housing, but housing is the place to fix it…
…But this can stop. The price of a home is partially dependent on the mortgage rate -- a lower mortgage rate raises house prices…
…We propose that the Bush administration and Congress allow all residential mortgages on primary residences to be refinanced into 30-year fixed-rate mortgages at 5.25% (matching the lowest mortgage rate in the past 30 years), and place those mortgages with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Investors and speculators should not be allowed to qualify….
…The government might use two approaches to mitigate its losses. It could offer owners and servicers the opportunity to split the losses on refinancing a mortgage with the new agency. Servicers would have to agree to accept these refinancings on all or none of their mortgages, to avoid cherry-picking. Or the government should take an equity position in return for the mortgage write-down so that the taxpayers profit when the housing market turns around…..
…Improvements in household and financial institution balance sheets will increase investment and consumer spending, which will mitigate the extent of the current downturn. Americans, on average, spend about 5% of the equity of their homes on consumer goods and services. So if home prices increased 10% above where they would have been without government intervention, we estimate consumers will have an additional $100 billion annually to spend….
….In addition to focusing on the very real problem in the housing market, the plan could be implemented immediately….
…The decline in housing prices remains the elephant in the room in the discussion of the credit market deterioration. Let's start there….
Mr. Hubbard, dean of Columbia Business School, was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush. Mr. Mayer is a professor of finance and economics and senior vice dean of Columbia Business School.
Here are portions excerpted from the text of my original proposal:
June 16, 2008

Ben S. Bernanke, Chairman

Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
20th Street and Constitution Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20551
RE: How To Repair Housing in America

Mr. Chairman
…It is my privilege to share with you my perspective on the current US housing market situation, and to put forth my solution. I have been in the mortgage and real estate industry for 30 plus years, and have spent my career working with homeowners. This is the third major disruption I have endured during this time and quite frankly I am tired of suffering the mistakes and ineptitudes of others….
…It is my strong conviction that we must lend our way out of the current crisis, not suffer our way through it….
The National Refinance/Modification Program
I am proposing as follows:
1. That the Federal Reserve, in concert with the necessary and related federal agencies, announce a National Refinance/Modification Program (NRmP). All existing homeowners would be eligible for this program;
2. All mortgages rewritten under this proposal would be added to the Fed’s balance sheet;
3. This program would be available to all homeowners regardless of their situation;
4. This program is only for owner occupants, no investors or second homes;
5. This program would only payoff existing mortgage debt owed, excluding any prepayment penalties…strictly payment and rate reduction;
6. This program would finance the principle balance, back payments and interest;
7. This program would be mandatory for all lenders under the “federally regulated” umbrella;
8. This program would be voluntary for those homeowners choosing to participate, but it would be time limited as the time frames they can apply;
9. The files would be processed without income, credit or appraisal documentation to expedite the process;
10. There can be no fees charged to the borrower by the lenders;
11. The homeowner would be responsible only for: payoff of any items to provide clean title to the lender, back taxes, homeowners insurance, title insurance, escrow/attorney fees (these could be a fixed fees), and recording fees;
12. Only one program would be available for use…the FHA 245 in a modified form.
13. The Federal Court system would issue an immediate temporary injunction stopping all foreclosures in the US on all federally regulated loans to allow this process to be completed.

…In 2005, Robert Shiller, of Shiller Home Price Index fame, co-wrote a paper entitled “COMPARING WEALTH EFFECTS: THE STOCK MARKET VS. THE HOUSING MARKET”. Here is the extract from this paper:
“We examine the link between increases in housing wealth, financial wealth, and consumer spending. We rely upon a panel of 14 countries observed annually for various periods during the past 25 years and a panel of U.S. states observed quarterly during the 1980s and 1990s…. We find a statistically significant and rather large effect of housing wealth upon household consumption.”
… Their conclusion, in part, is:
“We find at best weak evidence of a stock market wealth effect. However, we do find strong evidence that variations in housing market wealth have important effects upon consumption.”
…They correlate a positive 10% change in housing to approximately a 1% increase in consumption.
…We need to fix housing in America.
…The “one size fits all” approach is intended to bring simplicity, standardization, clarity and uniformity to the solution. If all existing homeowners are included, there is no gripe in the economy about a bailout for a selected group. This becomes politically neutral and acceptable.
…If all existing homeowners are included, then the broader economic concerns are addressed without the direct involvement additional federal money, like the tax refund program which will have minimal, short lived impact. The impact of my proposal may last 3 to 5 years, or longer, giving the economy time to sort out its direction and the individual time to make new plans within the redefined economy.
The FHA 245 Idea as the NRP Loan of Choice
…The FHA 245 is a fixed rate, graduated payment program first introduced in the late 1970’s by HUD as a tool to combat the rapidly rising interest rates and payments. The program has the built in mechanics to address the key issues homeowners face: fixed interest costs; black and white payment plan which homeowners can use to plan a future budget with; low, discounted payments in the first few years. Also, the program documents are already available for all states.
You will notice the similarities between my proposal, and the op/ed piece by Mr. Hubbard. My proposal has since become more refined, but the core of my solution correlates with Mr. Hubbard’s. I do not know Professor Hubbard, but I believe that his article is a stamp of validation on the general content and direction of my original publication.
I am a mortgage broker with real world experience in varied aspects of mortgage lending, and Mr. Hubbard is a respected economist with strong economic credentials with prior Washington / White House experience.
When I first published my “bottom-up solution” to a “top-down” problem, my intent was to stabilize housing and lay the foundation for improvement in the general economy. With my proposal to “Repair Housing in America”, I got there first…With the op-ed piece in Fridays WSJ, Mr. Hubbard got heard first.

2008 Oct 08 08:52 AM

[urbanexus:]

Helpful analysis on McCain's impulsive housing proposal. Thanks. As to taxes, both candidates have proposed significant cuts. McCain would leave 62% of filers with no Federal income tax liability. The figure for Obama's proposal is 63% (taxfoundation.org)

2008 Oct 08 08:56 AM

[Fabien Hug:]

You are nuts in the States. How can you be talking about tax cuts with the deficit you are running? You need to increase taxes and faster than ever and put that money to work on something else than missiles.

2008 Oct 08 09:21 AM

[Jon Smirl:]

There are far simpler solutions that could be implemented instantly.

For example allow the deduction of 200% of interest paid, not accrued.

Forgiving people who put little down extremely punishes people who put a lot down and then lost their down payment. It is cruel to force people who have lost their entire down payment to subsidize people who put little down. Zero down == renter.

Deducting 200% interest paid will keep people in their home who can afford it, but not help those who were never able to afford the house in the first place. I wish I'd bought a $15M house for nothing down! If you truly can't afford the home, the faster it forecloses the better off everyone is.

200% deduction would only be for pre-existing loans and it would phase out in about five years.

2008 Oct 08 09:28 AM

[LiquidSoapD...:]

Fabian, the obvious conundrum we are in is, raising taxes is the prudent thing to do to stop sinking into massive debt. But you seem to ignore that raising taxes typically hurts the economy, and that lowers the amount of taxable income. Yes? No?

2008 Oct 08 09:32 AM

[selene:]

Let's try to remember that no one is suggesting anything as simplistic as raising taxes across the board, or cutting them across the board. Obama wants to cut taxes on everyone making under $200K and raise them on everyone above $250K, broadly speaking. Since current tax policies have disproportionately benefited the top 2% of Americans by income, something like this shouldn't be dismissed out of hand.

After last night's performance I don't think it matters what McCain wants to do.

2008 Oct 08 09:44 AM

[akasidney:]

Treating the disease, not the symptoms.
While I’m personally a staunch Obama supporter, the proposal made by John McCain last night during the debate regarding the purchase of underwater mortgages has some merit. There have been a variety of proposals for this line of attack, including recently by Martin Feldstein in the WSJ. I have also proposed a plan, outlined below. Following my plan is a précis of Feldsteins plan, followed by a comparison of both. There is great merit in a strategy of treating the disease and not the symptoms:
Some pertinent data points;
• Number of families who now hold a subprime mortgage: 7.2 million1
• Proportion of subprime mortgages in default: 14.44 percent2
• Proportion of subprime mortgages made from 2004 to 2006 that come with “exploding” adjustable interest rates: 89-93%
• Proportion of completed foreclosures attributable to adjustable rate loans out of all loans made in 2006 and bundled in subprime mortgage backed securities: 93%
• Number of subprime mortgages set for an interest-rate reset in 2007 and 2008: 1.8 million Valued at: $450 billion

There are 7.2 million subprime mortgages out there worth 1.3 trillion, of which possibly 70% of them have exploding rate mortgages, which means about 5 million have exploding rates. Exploding rate mortgages account for 93% of the bad mortgages, which means that possibly 4.5 million of these will go bad, or 63% of the total, at a value of $820 billion and an average value of $180,000. If the ARMs reset from 7% to 12%, the increase in monthly payments is about $590 per month. $590 per month times the total of 5 million is about 3 billion dollars per month. Therefore, $700 billion would pay for 233 months, or nearly 20 years of payments… and this without renegotiating the loans so that maybe they just go to… say… 9% with the government picking up the difference. The holders of all the CDO’s would then be able to value them, mark them back to market, solve their balance sheet problems… financial problems solved. From the housing markets point of view, it would relieve the pressure of the foreclosure spiral forcing down prices more than ‘normal’, and provide years for the economy to recover and housing to rebound. Furthermore, any homeowner who availed himself of the help would give up all or a part of the appreciation of the property over time, penalizing them for getting jammed up, but not penalizing the guy who is paying his mortgage and playing by the rules.

If the sub-prime ARMS were renegotiated down to 9%, the monthly payments the government would be liable for would be an average of $225 per house per month, or $1.1 billion annually. The $700 billion under those circumstances would be good for 636 months, or 53 years…

This would be a much cheaper and more effective way to solve the problem… renegotiate the exploding rate, paying the difference and profiting from the increase in asset value over time.

The following is the proposal advanced by Feldstein in the WSJ:

The Problem Is Still Falling House Prices
The bailout bill doesn't get at the root of the credit crunch.
By MARTIN FELDSTEIN

A successful plan to stabilize the U.S. economy and prevent a deep global recession must do more than buy back impaired debt from financial institutions. It must address the fundamental cause of the crisis: the downward spiral of house prices that devastates household wealth and destroys the capital of financial institutions that hold mortgages and mortgage-backed securities.
...
We need a firewall to break the downward spiral of house prices. Here's how it might work. The federal government would offer any homeowner with a mortgage an opportunity to replace 20% of the mortgage with a low-interest loan from the government, subject to a maximum of $80,000. This would be available to new buyers as well as those with mortgages. The interest on that loan would reflect the government's cost of funds and could be as low as 2%.
...
Consider a homeowner who has a mortgage equal to 90% of the value of his home. The 15% decline in the value of his house that may be needed to bring it back to its prebubble level would shift that homeowner into negative equity. Further price declines would make default attractive. But the 20% mortgage replacement loan would take the loan-to-value ratio to 72% from 90%, making it unlikely that prices would fall far enough to push him into negative equity. An interest saving that could be as large as $3,000 a year would provide a strong incentive to accept the mortgage-replacement loan, even if the individual thinks that he might temporarily have a moderate level of negative equity.

Below is a comparison of the advantages of the two plans point by point:

• No budget busting huge amounts of capital required in any one year, but rather nominal amounts in any particular year.
o Feldstein’s plan would require huge outlays of capital, a trillion dollars by his own estimate, in order to protect the 5,000,000 threatened mortgages, which is a totally unnecessary budget buster
• No need to try and ‘untangle’ all of the bundled, sold, sliced and diced mortgages… they will be paid.
o A benefit of both plans.
• Slows the fall in house values, shoring up all real estate assets both residential and commercial
o A benefit of both plans
• Doesn’t penalize those who ‘play by the rules’
o The Feldstein plan rewards those who for what ever reason can’t make their payments by making them eligible for a very cheap very long term loan. This penalizes those who are paying and is unfair on it’s face.
• Allows Mark to Market rule to continue to be used
o A benefit of both plans
• By establishing a value for all the mortgage-related assets, the markets in them will restart, liquidity problem solved.
o This is less clear under Feldstein’s plan, as there still could be defaults. Payment is left to the original mortgagee, and what if they decided to take that $80,000 and pay off some other more pressing bill. Because of that threat, the trillions of dollars in derivatives would not be as secure and thus would not be as valuable. They may be as liquid, but at a risk induced lower price… not a good thing.
• Moral hazard: companies that participated in selling the bubble take a hit for their reckless behavior through the discount in the ARM through the revaluing downwards of their assets.
o Feldstein’s plan does not recognize the need to lower the ARM (more appropriately an ERM – exploding rate mortgage) increases through a blanket one time renegotiation with all holders. This is equivalent to what happens when someone secures a better deal rescuing a company than the deal originally offered to the original stock holders… such is life.
• The program could be expanded to include anyone who was threatened with foreclosure due to ARMs… not just sub-prime, but Alt-A, etc.
o A benefit of both plans.
• No bankruptcy interventions necessary.
o A benefit of both plans.

In sum, there is merit in the strategy advanced by McCain… however, his methodology is poor and can be greatly improved upon.

2008 Oct 08 10:23 AM

[sacking:]

I lost my job a few years ago and piled up debt as I went a year looking for work. Had to sell my condo and TRADE DOWN to a condo I could afford. Why the heck should I help someone who went and bought a house they couldn't afford just because their real estate broker sold them on the idea that the home value would continue to go up?
I did the right thing and in McCains plan, I get punished, while the idiot who went and bought something they couldn't afford gets rewarded.
Way to give the alcoholic who's 7 days sober a drink.
Let's reward good behavior, not bad.

2008 Oct 08 11:48 AM

[experienced:]

There is a way to stabilize housing prices: The government should buy defaulted mortgages from lenders at 50% of face value. Then the government should turn around and offer a 30-year 6% mortgage to replace the defaulted mortgage, also at the 50% level. This would, in most cases, leave homeowners with enough equity and lower monthly payments (roughly half of what they were paying) to prevent foreclosure sales. In order to prevent speculation from an early sale of a house with the new mortgage, the government would receive 80% of the equity from any sale during the first year of the new mortgage, 60% during the second year, and so on down to 5 years, after which the homeowner could recover the full equity.

Unless this, or something similar is done quickly, there will simply be more foreclosures, a glut of unsold homes, and reverberations throughout the credit markets. Equally bad, the precipitous drop in housing prices will lead to lower property tax assessments, leading in turn to lower local property tax revenues. As far as I can tell, the McCain plan does not really get at these problems.

2008 Oct 08 12:44 PM

[Still Renting:]

McCain and Obama - Dumb vs Dumb AND scary.

I gotta go with dumb. But dumb it is. That is why I was not voting until just before the Palin announcement. To be fair, it was not the entry of Palin that made me decide. Rather, it was the compilation of several months worth of reading about Obama, diciphering what I believe to be the likely truth, and recognizing him as possibly the most dangerous man to ever run for president in the last century.

I'll have to hold my nose and vote for McCain and then buy another thousand rounds for my SKS just in case the rioting hits the burbs on election night.

2008 Oct 08 01:13 PM

[Still Renting:]

No.

I am not kidding.

2008 Oct 08 01:13 PM

[Jon Smirl:]

Why should the government buy defaulted mortgages at 50% of face? I'll default on my CountryWide Alt-A tomorrow if that's the case. I'm sick of hearing hedge fund managers on CNBC saying they can't sell Alt-A's at 50 cents on the dollar. I called up and offered 75 cents on the dollar for my Alt-A and was told to get lost or pay 100%.

If banks are so desperate for capital why won't they deal with the mortgage holders? The only way to get them to deal is to purposely send the loan into foreclosure.

I am completely at a lost as to why anybody would sell at a loan at 30 cents on the dollar without first sending letters to the mortgage holders offering 30 day payoff deals at 50 cents first.

2008 Oct 08 01:16 PM

[Partly Sunny:]

My kids, through middle and high schools, didn't get go on nice vacations or have closets full of the newest fashions, as did our neighbors. We paid the same for our house as the neighbors paid for theirs, although they make more money. We didn't use our credit cards for HELOC for luxuries. Now they're in trouble, although they still make more money than we, and McCain wants to give them a break?
It doesn't make sense on a whole lot of levels.

2008 Oct 08 01:38 PM

[Zikon:]

Obama and McCain already voted for this, it’s the law, so what the hell are you people still arguing about..McCain didn’t come up with this.

Sorry Obama is not the second coming and McCain is not a Maverick...just two politicians messing up this country and another loss for American people ;(

P.S

See Section 110 (ASSISTANCE TO HOMEOWNERS) of HR 1424 (Bailout + pork)
If you don’t feel like looking it up
(b) HOMEOWNER ASSISTANCE BY AGENCIES.-

(1) IN GENERAL.-To the extent that the Federal
property manager holds, owns, or controls mortgages,
mortgage backed securities, and other assets secured
by residential real estate, including multifamily housing,
the Federal property manager shall implement a
plan that seeks to maximize assistance for home
owners and use its authority to encourage the
servicers of the underlying mortgages, and considering
net present value to the taxpayer, to take advantage
of the HOPE for Homeowners Program under section
257 of the National Housing Act or other available
programs to minimize foreclosures.

(2) MODIFICATIONS.-In the case of a residential
mortgage loan, modifications made under paragraph
(1) may include-
1 (A) reduction in interest rates;
2 (B) reduction of loan principal; and
3 (C) other similar modifications.

2008 Oct 08 01:50 PM

[gwinner:]

Hasn't government already done too much? And yes, clearly McCain would have won the day had he only corrected, "Sorry Obama, it was Al Gore who invented the Internet, the computer was invented by private industry".

2008 Oct 08 02:27 PM

[Stagpartypo...:]

As a follow up to the last post, NO, government didn't do too much. It did too little too late, and gave a 'skip jail card' to Barney Frank, Ben Bernanke, Chuck Schumer, et al. Had some sort of restructuring been proposed and acted upon 3-4 years ago, we may not have avoided all this, but at least limited the damage. I am a Mortgage and Real Estate Professional, full-time student, and currently a struggling wage-earner. There is plenty of blame to go around from the consumer, to the mortgage brokers to the appraiser, to the hauncho in the approval department at the banks that are failing now; on down to the white-collared Ivy League educated criminal geniuses that packaged all of our livelihoods up in a shiny 'Fiat.' Greed and class wars are what have driven this crisis, and no one wants to say it. Fear of difference and blurring of class lines are what is preventing many in this country, some of whom I know personally, from voting Democratic. I get it. As for the debate, I agree that neither of the candidates' proposals are very concrete. Even with more fleshing out as we come closer to E-day, my suspicions are directed toward more useless pandering.

Having been a 'by default' supporter of Hillary before she turned to a campaign of attacks only a simpleton would listen to, I just couldn't stomach the dribble and low-brow lines that McCain, Palin (?,) and their imprudently chosen surrogates are passing off as a campaign. We didn't want McCain in 2000 or 2004, and after President GW bumbledy..., we want change and expect to find it in McCain? I too am unsure of the promise that an Obama presidency offers, but given the despicable tripe that John McCain has recently turned to, I am not sure that I am ready for another Rove puppet, one lamely attempting to conceal his obvious desperation, disconnect, and irrationality.

We may not like his politics, or socialistic leanings, but I suppose that we can all agree that Obama has the most rational and realistic grasp on the details of this crisis (a not so rare phenomenon). I certainly am not swayed by Obama's rhetoric, as I recognize it for what it is. He is however, seemingly more forthright, and is at least not pandering to my supposed inner 'Blue Collar TV' addict.

As for there being riots if McCain is elected, I just hope that most of America is sufficiently up to date on McCain's character post-Hanoi that minorities are not the only portion of the population that is up in arms. With all the brilliant minds - as well as a few warped ones - her on seekingalpha.com, it is no small wonder that while unfamiliarity can bring distrust, familiarity definitely breeds contempt. More precisely, familiarity breeds contempt when we are all party to a 24 hour news cycle in which neither of the candidates is offering significantly less '...of the same.'

I want my president to be smart, not some grumpy, adolescent idealist, that panders to special interests while making villains of the under-served. Notice I did not say underpriveleged. This is America, rather than Freebiestan. Give people the tools they need through legislation, and if they choose to use them responsibly to pull themselves up, great. Should they choose to ignore free market principles, they have in effect chosen the short end of the stick. Not my problem.

Equal access to the tools and access to the education with which to effectively make use of those tools in order to advance one's position is the key. Without 90-100% participation, the free market has handicapped itself, and we simply are not making full use of our employee assets/ inputs. Healthy, educated workers are the foundation of a functional, society with well-apportioned resources; not unlike a business. Not a society enamored with welfare for the undeserving of course, but one that rewards those who apply themselves and places into positions in which they are useful, those who choose to opt out.

Do any of us who actually want a change think that John McCain, who is stuck in the 50's with his 'Hussein' garbage, possesses the capacity for any meaningful change? Earmark, earmark, goodies, festooned....what are we 5? With his choice of Sarah Palin - also well versed in economics - need I say more? He'll be in hiding in Camp David more often than a mindless citizen from taxes during a financial 'crisis.' I am a Republican, I believe in God, and I am a conservative. I also believe we make the highest and best use of our talents when we solve our own problems, rather than relying on government. When we make government our god or our enemy, we miss the point. None of this has anything to do with patriotism, nor does it validate me as a good or bad citizen. Regardless of the dogma that other Americans with a similar profile have been accosted with, I certainly do not believe in a conservative use of my intellect. This is precisely what it would take for John McCain's pre-election appeal to resonate with someone who chooses to think.

'Country First' means bottom-up inclusiveness, rather than the top-down policies that have worked really well up to this point. Sorry to kill the buzz here at the stag party, but for most Americans, less is not more. More is more - we've all seen the markets lately. Whether we like it or, the world in which we live in and thrive, is dependent ultimately upon the consumer's mobility, not just confidence. That confidence, although fragile at times, comes from the bottom and must resonate throughout for sustainable growth to be probable.

Thank you for your time, and I welcome any corrections or constructive clarification/analysis of topics I may have covered too cursorily.

2008 Oct 09 12:31 AM