Mortgage Meltdown Shows Americans Are Unable to Benefit From Experience

Saturday, August 16, 2008 by: Barbara L. Minton
Tags: home mortgages, health news, Natural News

(NewsTarget) As many victims of the mortgage crisis continue their fancy footwork to stay one step ahead of foreclosure, others who owe more than their houses are worth have just given up and mailed the keys back to their lenders. Although mainstream media's guestimates as to when the crisis will end are fairly optimistic, nobody really has a clue as to how long foreclosures will rise and housing values will continue to plummet. And nobody knows how long it will take to clear the huge glut of houses currently on the market.

Finger pointing has become the national pastime. Many believe the mortgage crisis is the result of stupid consumers greedy for soaring ceilings and granite countertops. Others say predatory lending is to blame. Some even say that not everybody who has a full time job deserves to be a homeowner.

These rationales fail to acknowledge what is really happening to the citizens of America as a result of the policies of the Clinton and Bush administrations that have destroyed the jobs traditionally held by the middle class. The erosion of America's ability to manufacture and produce goods to be sold on world markets has put a stake through the heart of the middle class who can no longer earn the kind of wages needed to make house payments. Their ability to save and invest for their future as well as to pay the kind of taxes needed to fund the imperialistic goals of our government has also been severely compromised.

When people have good jobs, they can afford to by homes. They are able to save and amass a substantial down payment so they have a stake in the future of their loans, an outcome that's good for the borrower, good for the lender, and good for America. But the good jobs are gone now. They left on the free trade express.

Remember back in the 1992 election when Ross Perot warned us loud and clear that if we supported candidates in favor of NAFTA we would hear a giant sucking sound? The sound he was referring to was the loss of jobs and the reduced standard of living of the American people that would follow such job loss. We didn't hear him then, because we really weren't listening. We were too busy making fun of his accent and mannerisms to hear the truth of his words. Besides that, Perot was a third party candidate, and we have never liked them. We always have been slaves to brand names.

In 1992 we chose the young man who magically appeared out of nowhere to tell us of the wonders that would befall the American people when NAFTA came to pass. He promised us that the standard of living of Mexico and Canada would be elevated to match the standard of living in the U.S., and as a result we would have a huge source of additional revenue for our corporations because they would be able to trade freely with the burgeoning economies of these countries. It didn't turn out that way.

Part of what we didn't hear was Perot warning us that NAFTA really meant that the standard of living of the U.S. and Canada would sink to the level of the lowest common denominator, Mexico. We are now living through the fulfillment phase of his warning as the few remaining American producers and manufacturers open their plants and fields south of our border where wages have remained just as cheap as they were when NAFTA began.

Many of us now wish we had listened to Perot.

Then there's the declining value of the dollar that makes houses in the U.S. look so expensive when they are really not. The value of the U.S. dollar has declined more than 50% since the year 2000, a testimonial to the failed policies of the Bush administration. So a house that was worth $150,000 in 2000 is now worth more than $300,000 because it takes twice as many dollars to create the value that it took in 2000. It's not that housing prices went up so fast over the last eight years that's the problem. The problem is that the currency Americans have to buy houses with is worth only half as much.

Why is the dollar losing its value at such a rapid rate? The Bush administration likes to tell us that it supports a strong dollar, but this is just propaganda being fed to us to keep us pacified. In the markets of the world, the dollar is regularly talked down in value, and here's why. As the dollar falls in value relative to other currencies, the multinational corporations that derive so much of their earnings from sales in foreign countries are able to convert their profits back into dollars at rates very favorable to them.

The falling buck also allows the corporations of other countries to buy American assets on the cheap. When the dollar isn't worth very much against the currencies of other countries, it is as though each and every asset owned by America and Americans is on sale at dirt cheap prices. There are plenty of buyers. The recent purchase of Anheuser Busch by Belgium company InBev tells the tale as America loses its last name brand brewery to foreign ownership.

Globalization is heaven for multinational corporations. It's hell for the American middle class.

Free traders and those who support globalization try to get us to think just being able to by cheap goods from foreign markets is a great thing. Americans are now thought of as the consumers that power the rest of the world. But there is no thought given to how they will continue to consume when they have no money coming in. If you lose your job, can you continue to buy things just like you did when you had a job?

Gus Stelzer, former General Motors executive, has tried to make it clear that it's not the consumer who is king, but the producer. It's the labor of the people as evidenced by production that is the origin of all income and tax revenue.

Production is the molding of the Earth's resources into useful products. It is this adding of value to what existed before that lays the groundwork for a successful economy. When Americans produced most of what they needed to live -- cars, clothes, food, electronics -- they were paid well. They could afford to buy a house and fill it with the furnishings and appliances needed for living. Their purchases added to the bottom lines of the companies where they worked. This is how a successful economy operates.

Now all we have are retail outlets where foreign merchandise is sold. What retail clerk earns enough money to buy a house? And what retail clerk is able to pay the kind of taxes it would take to pay the interest on the huge federal debt, much less cover the ever expanding government employee payroll?

If the goods represented by America's trade deficit were produced in the U.S., they would generate 42 trillion in added national income, an amount equal to $16,600 per household, according to Stelzer.

It was the failure of free trade between the colonies and England that resulted in the writing of the Constitution, which states that trade with foreign nations should be "regulated... to form a more perfect union", points out Stelzer. It was also the failure of free trade that forced President Nixon to take the U.S. off the gold standard before foreign holders of our dollars wiped out our gold reserves. When we lost the gold standard, our money was no longer pegged to anything real, and became totally worthless except for the goodwill of others willing to accept it.

Since then, our trade deficit has ballooned and the federal debt has soared to a jaw dropping 10 trillion dollars. We are on the fast track to an economic collapse that may bring us into parity with Mexico in short order. Just what the globalists seem to want.

Now it's election time again. Ron Paul was this year's third party candidate, bringing us his version of how to restore America to liberty and prosperity, much like what Perot tried to tell us back in 1992. Again, we have chosen not to listen. We have ridiculed Paul like we did Perot instead of hearing the truth of his words.

We will march to the polls on Election Day to vote for one of the two candidates who both support the globalists' agenda and the continued selling out of America and all things American to the highest bidder. But maybe it will all turn out okay. With a little more devaluation of the dollar, maybe the Chinese will want to buy our foreclosures.

About the author

Barbara is a school psychologist, a published author in the area of personal finance, a breast cancer survivor using "alternative" treatments, a born existentialist, and a student of nature and all things natural.