To Quote A Line From One Of My Favorite Movies, ‘I Been Saying It, I Been Saying It For Ten Damn Years. Aint I been Saying It, Huh? I Been Saying It.’

Ten damn years ago, I came to the conclusion that the US economy was headed for a meltdown.  As a young pup in high school, I came to the conclusion that if people kept getting into debt they could not handle and then defaulting on that debt, banks would start failing.  Ten damn years ago this kid in high school realized what was happening. So if a high school kid can come to that conclusion, why the hell did it come to this?

I am the first person to bemoan government spending, however, I am disturbed that this so-called ‘bailout’ (which wasnt really a bailout but more of a reallocation of assets) did not pass.  I think this was kind of a damned-if-you-do and damned-if-you-dont thing.  The horrible thing is that the damned-if-you-dont seems worse than the damned-if-you-do.  I dont want to see the government take on more debt but I also dont want to see more banks fail.  On the other hand, this will force banks to be more selective as to who they loan to.  Regarding the government literally bailing out institutions like AIG, I say to my elected idiots, stop.  Im all about FDIC and FCUA insurance but we cannot shunt monies to any company that gets themselves in trouble.  That would start an alarming trend and where would it end?

I was walking past the channel 2 news studio today and was approached by a reporter getting reaction on the failure of the ‘bailout’ bill.  The reporter asked me if I thought the recession would get worse.  I replied that he should stop throwing around the ‘r’ word because we have not seen a quarter with a negative GDP so by pure definition we are not in a recession.  I then went on to accuse the reporter of fostering panic which can lead to a run on banks which can hasten the failure of said banks.  He looked a little put off for a moment and then asked me if I thought we would go into a recession.  To be truthful, I didnt know what to say.  I finally made some comment about how the dynamics and causitive factors in every recession can vary so I cant make a prediction.

If When the economy recovers, I would like to think that we will be forced to be much more responsible with our spending and borrowing.  Im glad to say that the repercusions of my irresponsible ways of my younger years are finally starting to go away.  My credit score has increased by a full 100 points in the past year and I do not have a single loan or bill that I cannot pay.  I learned that I cannot live outside my means or I will pay the price.  We all need to realize this.

By the way, the movie I mentioned above is Independance Day.

Im Eriq Kiltz and I approved this message.