The Devaluing of America

Yesterday my wife and I ran errands.  We always try to pass out tracts and witness when we go to town, and we had a great opportunity to witness to a Salvation Army volunteer.  But that's a different story.

While traveling, we saw a sign on the side of the road that said, "Moving Sale."  Loving Garage Sales, we decided to stop, so we followed the signs to a beautiful home right on the water.  As we went inside we met the owner who told us about why he was selling everything.  His story was heart-breaking. 

He told us that three or four years ago his home was valued at 1.2 million dollars.  The plummeting economy slowly chipped away at the value of the house and now the house is estimated to be worth only about $700,000.  The problem is the man said he owed more than that on his mortage.  And the reason he was selling everything was in the hopes of being able to make a few more payments on his mortage and hope someone will buy it before the bank forecloses on him. 

His story was so sad.  He said for five years he had the house on the market.  Not only had he bought the home years ago as an investment, and built many add-ons to the home to raise it's value, but he seriously thought he would eventually make money on the house and be able to sell it someday for a profit.  Especially since it was right on the water, with a long pier out on the water.

As I looked at his situation, I was saddened greatly.  I also looked around the neighborhood and all the homes in the area were also in foreclosure and up for sale.  What was worse was the majority of the homes were Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Remember them?  Yep, they are the GOVERNMENTAL agencies that years ago the government started to "Help People."  Uh, huh.  Right.  (to be read sarcastically).

So let me see if I can get this straight and explain this for you folks that don't know what happened.  Yep, the government passed laws to "help" people which forced banks to give loans to people who they knew couldn't pay them back.  What happened?  People didn't pay them back.  They couldn't as the economy failed, and the banks didn't get their money back.  So we had to "bail" those banks out, as they were "too big to fail." 
But what about this guy?  Who bails him out?  Nobody.  He lost everything, and he gets nothing in return.  What a sad state.  But that's how America has been devalued.  Things are worse less, while the prices people owe for them remain the same.  Who gets rich?  Bankers.