Media and Government on Guard

This is really soon for another post but a show on CNN really excited me. It was a show designed to warn and protect the consumer and everything was delivered with a breathless sense of urgency and importance. They talked about the "mortgage meltdown" and fraudulent car repairs, etc. The mortgage part is my interest, but for others it might have been the warning not to be duped into paying for an unnecessary replacement of the air in your tires, or something equally important. The "mortgage meltdown" segment led to an "interview" with a Democratic senator named Frank, Barney I believe is his first name. When asked by the airhead doing the segment why the congress hadn't done anything to stop or head off the incredible foreclosure rate, he said it was because the Republicans had been in the majority. Now of course everything is going to be OK. When asked how, the senator said that they were going to introduce legislation making it unlawful to loan more money to someone than they could afford to repay. They didn't want to discourage making loans to home buyers generally, he was quick to point out, only those who couldn't afford to pay them back. The second prong in this two pronged legislation would take the form of not allowing people to borrow more on a home than the home was worth. Whew! and Golly! You can almost hear the sigh of relief from the financial markets. A solution that had entirely escaped their notice is about to be provided, no, enforced, by a wise and benevolent government. Don't loan money to people who aren't going to pay it back. Until you see it written down you can't believe it's so simple. The interviewer was so dazzled by the brilliance of the senator's speech and financial wisdom she neglected to ask him if he were at all involved in other governmental financial matters, such as Social Security, Medicare, general budget shortfalls, etc.
Without doubt there is an increase in foreclosures, brought about by many different forces, some market driven, some driven by the greed of real estate and mortgage practitioners, some from the actions of the government. Probably some corrective action is necessary, but certainly not from the likes of our Congress. Consumer education is foremost, enforcing the existing laws covering loan and bank fraud would be nice, and finally, perhaps reducing the high fees involved in the sale and financing of real property, although market forces (competition) should take care of the latter if education is adequately provided.
I'm going to keep watching CNN for more good solutions from our elected officials. With gas prices on the rise again maybe they can legislate something like only driving our cars to work, and thus reduce our consumption by 50%.
As usual. Thanks for visiting.