Admit it

I love to admit mistakes. There is nothing like letting it all hang out there, or as much as is comfortable. We all do stupid things from time to time, I have, you have, the president has.

Bankers do stupid things too. Heck, all working people make mistakes on the job. One time, I was interviewing an artist for about 25 minutes and I realized I had not turned the camera on. 25 minutes of brilliance wasted.

But lets talk about mistakes bankers made, make and want to continue to make. A few years ago many stupid bankers started to come up with brilliant ways to make more money. See, bankers like to make money, it is the nature of banking. So, as they started to find new ways of making money, say, by loaning money to people unfit for a loan, they could show, on their books, that their banking strategy was brilliant. Which, for many months, it was. Well, it was for bankers.

Not so much for the schmoe who for years and years and rightfully knew he could never get a load and buy a house. Home ownership is such a strong part of the fabric of being an American. In America we own our own property, we have our own little home, or big home, and it is ours. Well, it's ours and the bank that loans us money to buy it, and the taxing authorities who make sure we pay our taxes, or they will own our homes. Many people for many years could not afford a home of their own. This is how the system worked for many many years. You made a living, you saved your money, and you purchased a home.

Then the stupid and greedy bankers found ways of loaning money to people completely unable to comprehend the financial shell game. So when a slick greedy banker type sold people of limited means the opportunity to own that home they always dreamed of, how could they be expected to resist. They could not, you could not, I could not, no one in their right mind could.

The problem is so simple, even a stupid greedy banker should have been able to figure it out, mostly because greedy bankers throughout history knew one thing, if a person could not afford to pay back a loan, that person at some point would not be paying back the loan. Kind of simple logic when you say it out loud.

The thing about being stupid and greedy is this, greed overwhelms stupid. I want more money, I always want more money. Just today I was thinking how I want a private jet to take me to visit my friend in California. Sure, I could use miles, or even pay for some cheap ticket to visit, but I want the money to buy a jet and fly where I want, when I want. See? I want a shitload of money. This too is part of the American fabric, which is why republicans promise big tax cuts to the very wealthy, and they get support not only from the very wealthy, but sometimes from the very poor, who figure with a couple years of decent pay increases, they too may someday be super wealthy and they want those tax cuts in place when that happens.

Back to stupid greedy bankers. In short, they loaned a lot of money, trillions of dollars, to people who did not have a decent pot to piss in. You can not judge a families earning power by the pots they choose to piss in, but when all they have around the house to piss in are discarded McDonalds super sized cups, it would be a decent guess to figure they are not the type who piss in Tiffany pots.

Greedy stupid bankers did not worry about pots or piss. They loaned money to every pot pisser they could find. In no other time in history could any imagine loaning people money without proving they have a job, an income and assets. Except a few years ago, almost anyone could get a loan by asking for it. It was the stupidest banking scheme ever and it fell apart about a year ago and the legacy of this program will haunt this country for thousands and thousands of, no, I am kidding, no one cares.

Seriously, the stupid greedy bankers did not lose their jobs. Most got bailed out by government programs, some even made money by using the governments no-interest loans to continue programs that were at the very least ineffective. In all of this, bad loans to deadbeats and the like, bankers getting bailed out because they had grown their banks so large that if they were to collapse (as they should have) the economy would have tumbled into the deepest depression since the last deep depression.

The bad news is these bankers are using some of that bailout money to hire fleshy lobbyists to grease the machine that is big government. Not a single major regulation has been passed and signed into law. Think about that, these irresponsible bankers not only kept their jobs, they are fighting any regulation that would force them to act like responsible adults. And the responsible adults making rules in Washington DC? More interested in the presidents real birth certificate, the watering down of any serious health reform and of course, counting all those angry protesters marching in the streets, demanding more for less.

The waning days of any long running play are often sad and depressing. This particular play, the American system, was once a drama, then a farce and now, not so funny comedy.