Holy Buck, Fatman!

I opened up my electric bill and it was $1,300.

I shit you not.

BG$E are pretty much demanding everything short of our first born these days and some asshole Senator tells me i’m a “WHINER?!?!?!?!”

You bet your ASS I’m whining.

When deregulation was championed as the sure fire way to increase competition and lower prices, it was accepted as the best thing to happen since sliced bread. Everyone was on board!  The prospect of consumer choice sounded as cool as comparing cool appliances while remodeling your kitchen.

However, it’s been proven to be a disastrous failure except, of course, for Constellation Energy, Baltimore’s own Enron. Prices have done nothing but go up up up. Competition? Right. I might be able to “Choose a provider” but I’m still paying BG$E a “Delivery charge”. Competition my ass. It isn’t competition when you can’t opt out of paying a company you’re not happy with.The people at the top of the mountain can’t seem to understand what is wrong with everyone else. They’re doing just fine.

Gramm’s Comments were indicative of his severe disconnect with the “regular folk” who make up a rather large majority of the US. Gramm Co-Sponsored a bill called the Commodity Futures Modification Act of 2000, often referred to as the “Enron Loophole”. Now i’m totally speculating, but I bet you his friends cashed their stake in Enron before Dec of 2001….or…am I?

Gramm, in edition to advising McCain on economic issues, also sits as the Vice Chairman to UBS bank, who has substantial exposure to Big Shitpile along with a myriad of other issues.

Now, there is serious discussion that taxpayers (That’s you & I) will possibly be bearing the burden of taking on the largely unregulated gambles that these companies participated in. In their minds, we were the ones at fault anyhow. from the WaPo:

Amid increased speculation that the companies might require a federal bailout or other changes that could undermine the value of their publicly traded stock, Paulson issued a statement saying that “our primary focus is supporting Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in their current form” — a remark that seemed to downplay the likelihood of any imminent government intervention.

Paulson briefed President Bush on the issue this morning and later Bush told reporters, “Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are very important institutions. . . . He assured me that he and [Federal Reserve Chairman] Ben Bernanke will be working on this issue very hard.”

A staunch free market anti regulation anti tax champion believes wholeheartedly that everything bad happens to people because they make poor financial choices. It is the fault of the over burdened homeowner who bought a house they couldn’t afford. Because of that, banks are failing. They primarily believe that despite the strong push towards an “ownership society” some people just had no business even applying for loans to buy  homes at horrible bubble prices.  No one forced them to get the loans, they did it to themselves.

What they don’t understand is how the pressure to be included within that ownership society had fueled the desires of a working class couple to start saying, “Well, that flyer I just recieved in the mail says my payment will only be 500$ on a 250K loan!”  The stigma of being a renter pushed that young, recently married couple to say, “Look, honey, we can afford a payment of 1500$ monthly, it’s the same as our rent!” The desire to close deals and take home huge commissions fueled brokers to push creative financing and HELOCS as solutions to higher then usual debt to income ratios.

Irrational exhuberance and the desire to consume under the guise of wealth drove  RE speculators, big wall street investors  and consumers to making silly financial choices based on many telling them, “Housing will always gain in equity. You can bet your retirement on it!”

Yet, to people like John McCain and Phil Gramm, it’s always going to be our fault.