The Other Victims of the Mortgage Meltdown
My name is Michael Jayne and I am a 100% non-service connected disabled veteran. When my son Max graduated from high school last year with decent grades, his hope at the time was to work and earn enough to go to the Stillpoint School of Massage Therapy, a nationally recognized program offered at Greenfield Community College. As soon as he graduated he got a job in construction doing roofing. Since he was very physically strong, intelligent, and a quick learner, he worked his way up to $15/hour within two months of starting.
It looked like his plan would work until the real estate bubble popped and housing construction as an industry ceased to exist. He now is competing with every other unemployed 19 year-old chasing after minimum wage jobs that, if found, are not quite enough to survive on, never mind saving up for school. His situation has deteriorated to the point that all of his savings are gone and he had to move in with me.
This is a huge risk for the both of us because I live in a subsidized 1-bedroom apartment and I cannot legally add him to my lease. If I lose my non-transferable Section-8, we both become homeless without options. My son might be able to couch-surf for a while but with my disabilities (lower back spinal cord injury, six 3″ screws hold my back together) the thought of homelessness scares the hell out of me. Since he hasn’t been able to find work, the two of us have been trying to live on the $985 a month that I get from the VA. We are NOT making it. I am at risk of having my electricity cut off at any time (I still owe over $300) and I expect to lose my phone in less than a week. It is a struggle to even make the co-payments for my medications. If it weren’t for food from various charities, we would be genuinely hungry.
These BANDITS that already live in the lap of luxury apparently felt that they either needed or deserved MORE. They got it by de-regulation of mortgage-based securities that enabled them to go on the kind of speculation investment binge that brought us the Savings & Loan Disaster (another taxpayer bailout) and prior to that the Great Stock Market Crash of Oct. 1929. This time, unlike 1929, instead of jumping out of windows, these money mis-managers asked for and got a huge taxpayer funded bailout with almost no strings attached. A significant part of this money they promptly used to reward themselves with huge bonuses in recognition of saving their shareholder’s hides at the expense of EVERYBODY ELSE.
Did they use ANY of that money to help homeowners by re-negotiating their mortgages to an affordable fixed rate? No Way! Houses that already had construction started on them found that the building loan money had dried up and blown away making the term “construction worker” synonymous with “unemployed” here in Massachusetts.
As a registered Republican for the last thirty years, I have been made a fool of. In the last 8 years the wealthiest top 10% of US citizens enjoyed a huge MULTIPLICATION of their wealth while the middle class was looted of its jobs, retirements, and homes. Welfare to the Wall Street Fat Cats in the form of taxpayer-funded bailouts is OK by this new kind of Republican Party. However helping out people who go to work each day (if they still have a job), pay their bills (unless….), and have played by the rules of the American Dream seem to be at the bottom of the GOP’s priority list.
More than anything else, I am disappointed that I would be forced to choose between the “Tax & Spend” party or the “Borrow & Spend” party.
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