Well, now that the American people have bought a very LARGE box of lemons, let's get busy making lemonade.
I understand we are now in the banking business and I was thinking about how best to handle the $700 Billion package the administration and congress passed.
The American people are looking at this staggering figure and wondering what do you do with that kind of money? I thought I might make a few suggestions. I am not an economist and certainly do not claim to be an expert on finances. However, it is getting to be near Christmas, children every where are thinking about their wish lists, and so here is mine on how to turn lemons into lemonade.
First, since I am now in the banking business I would like to make some changes I think are in the best interest of the American people and I can't see a major downside to banks, either.
1st--Let's firmly take those lemons in our hands and squeeze.
How about an interest rate reduction for every single primary home loan in existence? I did say this was a wish list, right? How about a 25% reduction of every interest rate? If you have a 6% rate right now, the remainder of the loan could be at 4.5%. A current 8% rate would reduce to 6%. We have made all of these loans to people we knew would very likely not be able to pay them back so instead of sitting back and knowingly letting them fail, let's cut them a break, try to help them help us to get out of this mess!
Let's say you took out a loan for $150,000.00 for your primary residence. You put 10% down and got a 30 year fixed rate at 6%. Your payment should be approximately $719 a month. Now let's say you haven't been in the house very long and you still have a remaining balance of $135,000.00. But let's say, since we are now the bankers, we reduce that interest rate to 4.5% instead of the 6%. Your payment would now be approximately $684 a month. That's a difference of $35.00 a month. "Oh, that's not very much," you might say. But let's look at what the average American can do with $35 a month. They could buy 2 pairs of shoes for the kids. They could buy a couple of pairs of pants. Maybe buy fresh fruit for the first time in several months. It could be used to pay an extra amount on those credit cards (an even larger reduction in interest charges). Or, what about putting it in an savings account (I think the juice might just start flowing). Over the course of the year $35 a month turns into $420 a year. Over a ten year period it turns into $4,200. And I would need an amortization schedule to figure out what the savings would be throughout the course of the loan in quicker pay down of the principal. But anyway, it would be a great way to use our new banking opportunity to start making our lemonade.
2nd--Since we are in the banking business and we are trying to make lemonade out of the lemons we have been handed, and this is a wish list, how about we squeeze a little harder to make sure we get every ounce of juice.
Let's increase the interest rate the bank pays us for the use of our money! My present basic, straight savings account pays almost nothing, maybe a 2% APR. Let's increase that 25%. That makes the 2%, 2.5%. And let's say we have an IRA yielding 4%. A 25% increase would make it 5%. So an across the board rate increase for savings products! Yep, that will help us make lemonade, for sure!
Now, let's add some sugar to make sure that lemonade is VERY yummy!
How about, since we are in the banking business, we reduce those treacherous banking fees? How about abolishing that fee for taking money out of our overdraft account? It shouldn't cost $10-$25 to take our own money and move it around to make sure we cover the checks that will come in. At the least, it could be reduced to $2 or $5. Then let's talk about that $25-$35 fee for actually over drafting. Let's just cut that thing down to $15 or $20 at the max. Then, let's look at the bank charging us money to give them our money. Forget that! Free checking across the board no matter what type of balance you keep. If you want to reward those who keep a large balance, give them free checks or how about interest on their checking accounts? That might be too much trouble, but you can certainly reward them with a lollipop or something!
And finally, lemonade is really not all that great unless you include some ice cubes. It's got to be cold! So let's do some freezing. As bankers we can freeze the policy of making any additional loans to those who are really not qualified to get a loan. Those who don't have the qualifications could be linked to other investors who are more willing to make risky loans--NOT banks--at least not the banks using taxpayer money to stay afloat! Investors! Banks cannot continue to be expected to put their own businesses (and the taxpayer's money) in peril because of pressure from community organization groups and/or the government.
So there you have it! Camille's recipe for Banking Lemonade!
Snowy Day 1-20-09
Yate's Mill
And, I'm still STANDING!!!
If a person ONLY gets their information from the mainstream media and never looks beyond what is presented, their thoughts of what is going on are very jaded.
I've been voting since 1980 and I've never agreed 100% with any elected official. Even my favorite president, Ronald Reagan, had his moments. I've been married for almost 25 years and I don't 100% agree with my husband, either. So I am not focusing on finding a politician that I 100% agree with because I know better.
I did support Bush, both times! I'm not ashamed or apologetic about that. My goodness, the man stood up before a nation and prayed to the Creator of the Universe on behalf of the people he represented. He wasn't ashamed, or didn't feel his countrymen too diverse to put forth his true, heartfelt beliefs.
And yes, I supported John McCain because as the choices were presented I knew I couldn't support Obama. Obama stands for a vast majority of things I stand against. I am not ashamed or apologetic of that either. I am an American, that is my right but more importantly, my resonsibility!
I can't vote for a man who in 2007 gave a speech to Planned Parenthood telling how he would support abortion for all females; then in 2008 told the nation at the Saddleback forum that identifying the beginning of life was above his pay grade; and then a few days after the inauguration with a stroke of his pen he suddenly feels conception is NOT above his pay grade anymore. He either can't remember what he stands for or is flat out lying. Either way, I'm not a supporter of an alzheimer's victim or a liar for president.
We really knew where he stood no matter what he said because his record in the Illinios senate bore that out. The man voted at least 4 times to promote abortion at all costs. He voted to strip the rights of American citizens who survived an abortion gone wrong (right?). He told you and me the wording wasn't right. Yet, if you look at what really happened you see he insisted certain wording be added so it would align with what was past at the federal level. Once that wording was included he still voted against it. Now I say, "Liar, liar pants on fire!" I'm okay with being a little juvenile too! I'm an old lady and every chance I get I try to take it!
I'm not inclined to support a man who in less than 3 months has racked up a larger deficit that any previous administration in all of their years combined. But yet, every time he goes to talk about why he's doing what he's doing he blames the previous administration for the mess they left him. And acts like that's all he should have to say.
If we can pull our thoughts back to the memory station and remember what the previous administration had been doing those past 8 years we will recall that the last 2 years no one got anything productive done because congress refused to promote anything that was good for this country for no other reason than partisianship. Then the 2 years before that there was enough of a majority in the house and senate that many things Bush tried to get done for the betterment of the American citizens was filibustered--through yet more partisianship. So Obama's excuse is nothing more than passing the buck and it's very unbecoming a man or woman in his position.
Not to mention--I've been paying bills for our household for a long time. We've been in financial trouble before--you can't spend your way out of financial issues! It doesn't work--It has never worked and will never work, not on the personal level and certainly not on the national level. For the man to get up and say ONLY the federal government can get us out of this mess simply shows his ignorance. He can't remember, or has never understood, who the federal government is, or who they are employed by.
We the people have to pay every bill they commit themselves to. Essentially they are commiting us to those bills. We are trying to grab the checkbook and say, "Oh no you don't! We don't have the money for that and it is NOT in our best interest to obligate ourselves to that." The man can say oh yeah we will spend, spend, spend and then we will have money to pay, pay, pay but does he understand the spending and the paying are coming out of the same wallet?
I can't support a man who voluntarily sat and listened to a man get up and preach the damning of America; and his wife, who said she was never proud of her country before her husband ran for the greatest office in the land. (I guess she wasn't proud of anything going on in Illinois either). And now, in that same vein we have your representative and mine globe trotting with the message that he doesn't like the American people either. He apparently hasn't been proud of his country either. He thinks we have been arrogant, derisive and divisive all of these years. And right near the shores of Normandy. You young people need to pull out those old dusty history books, you might not get the true info from the internet--it's being changed to fit what they want to suit the next generation of tickled ears. You might want to sit down and talk to that grandfather or great uncle. Let them tell you what America was all about. Let them tell you how hurt and betrayed they are to hear someone from their own country say they are arrogant.
And, now his own administration has turned us against ourselves. He issued a proclamation that people who don't like BIG government; those who believe abortion is wrong; those who are returning from foreign lands they went to, to protect; those who think illegal immigration ought to be "illegal"; just might be right-wing extremists and involved in terror activities. They won't call internatiional terrorists, terrorist but they don't have a problem calling their own people terrorists. I'm quite upset and mighty angry at such a screwed up administration.
And some want to still claim to not understand why American's would be upset now and not before. I'll tell you--before we were being attacked from without and our within was being protected. Now our without and our within is being attacked by the very people someone(?) voted in to protect our without and our within.
I've been voting since 1980 and I've never agreed 100% with any elected official. Even my favorite president, Ronald Reagan, had his moments. I've been married for almost 25 years and I don't 100% agree with my husband, either. So I am not focusing on finding a politician that I 100% agree with because I know better.
I did support Bush, both times! I'm not ashamed or apologetic about that. My goodness, the man stood up before a nation and prayed to the Creator of the Universe on behalf of the people he represented. He wasn't ashamed, or didn't feel his countrymen too diverse to put forth his true, heartfelt beliefs.
And yes, I supported John McCain because as the choices were presented I knew I couldn't support Obama. Obama stands for a vast majority of things I stand against. I am not ashamed or apologetic of that either. I am an American, that is my right but more importantly, my resonsibility!
I can't vote for a man who in 2007 gave a speech to Planned Parenthood telling how he would support abortion for all females; then in 2008 told the nation at the Saddleback forum that identifying the beginning of life was above his pay grade; and then a few days after the inauguration with a stroke of his pen he suddenly feels conception is NOT above his pay grade anymore. He either can't remember what he stands for or is flat out lying. Either way, I'm not a supporter of an alzheimer's victim or a liar for president.
We really knew where he stood no matter what he said because his record in the Illinios senate bore that out. The man voted at least 4 times to promote abortion at all costs. He voted to strip the rights of American citizens who survived an abortion gone wrong (right?). He told you and me the wording wasn't right. Yet, if you look at what really happened you see he insisted certain wording be added so it would align with what was past at the federal level. Once that wording was included he still voted against it. Now I say, "Liar, liar pants on fire!" I'm okay with being a little juvenile too! I'm an old lady and every chance I get I try to take it!
I'm not inclined to support a man who in less than 3 months has racked up a larger deficit that any previous administration in all of their years combined. But yet, every time he goes to talk about why he's doing what he's doing he blames the previous administration for the mess they left him. And acts like that's all he should have to say.
If we can pull our thoughts back to the memory station and remember what the previous administration had been doing those past 8 years we will recall that the last 2 years no one got anything productive done because congress refused to promote anything that was good for this country for no other reason than partisianship. Then the 2 years before that there was enough of a majority in the house and senate that many things Bush tried to get done for the betterment of the American citizens was filibustered--through yet more partisianship. So Obama's excuse is nothing more than passing the buck and it's very unbecoming a man or woman in his position.
Not to mention--I've been paying bills for our household for a long time. We've been in financial trouble before--you can't spend your way out of financial issues! It doesn't work--It has never worked and will never work, not on the personal level and certainly not on the national level. For the man to get up and say ONLY the federal government can get us out of this mess simply shows his ignorance. He can't remember, or has never understood, who the federal government is, or who they are employed by.
We the people have to pay every bill they commit themselves to. Essentially they are commiting us to those bills. We are trying to grab the checkbook and say, "Oh no you don't! We don't have the money for that and it is NOT in our best interest to obligate ourselves to that." The man can say oh yeah we will spend, spend, spend and then we will have money to pay, pay, pay but does he understand the spending and the paying are coming out of the same wallet?
I can't support a man who voluntarily sat and listened to a man get up and preach the damning of America; and his wife, who said she was never proud of her country before her husband ran for the greatest office in the land. (I guess she wasn't proud of anything going on in Illinois either). And now, in that same vein we have your representative and mine globe trotting with the message that he doesn't like the American people either. He apparently hasn't been proud of his country either. He thinks we have been arrogant, derisive and divisive all of these years. And right near the shores of Normandy. You young people need to pull out those old dusty history books, you might not get the true info from the internet--it's being changed to fit what they want to suit the next generation of tickled ears. You might want to sit down and talk to that grandfather or great uncle. Let them tell you what America was all about. Let them tell you how hurt and betrayed they are to hear someone from their own country say they are arrogant.
And, now his own administration has turned us against ourselves. He issued a proclamation that people who don't like BIG government; those who believe abortion is wrong; those who are returning from foreign lands they went to, to protect; those who think illegal immigration ought to be "illegal"; just might be right-wing extremists and involved in terror activities. They won't call internatiional terrorists, terrorist but they don't have a problem calling their own people terrorists. I'm quite upset and mighty angry at such a screwed up administration.
And some want to still claim to not understand why American's would be upset now and not before. I'll tell you--before we were being attacked from without and our within was being protected. Now our without and our within is being attacked by the very people someone(?) voted in to protect our without and our within.
See The Light
North Carolina Fall 2008
God's Amazing Beauty
Quiet Country
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