Sub-prime (rhymes with slime)

Wait a minute! Let me get this straight.

For years these people have fallen all over themselves telling me how “poor” my credit is, have charged me tens of thousands in extra interest and prepayment penalties, meanwhile helping themselves to large fistfuls of my money, who have charged me interest rates for which the only word is “usury”, this in spite of the fact that I have never cost them a penny, have always paid them, if not on time, then with whatever penalties and service charges and fees and other unjust enrichment they demanded.

Now these same people and institutions

• are asking for, and getting, direct assistance from their good friend George Bush, and from the Fed
• are crying foul because the bond-rating services overvalued various poorly-understood derivatives
• are rushing to hide their own complicity, the pressure they put on those same rating services, on appraisers, on auditors and actuaries, their wishful thinking and willful ignorance, the blind eye they turned to this situation as it developed over the course of years
• will eventually need a taxpayer bailout for all the well-known reasons (too big to fail, restore order to the markets, confidence-building measures, national security)

Several years ago I got an especially nasty dunning call during dinner, so nasty in fact that only the presence of guests kept me from using the F-word. At the time, the only thing that struck me (apart from the caller’s unusual rudeness) was the fact the dun was outsourced to an Asian country whose capital is New Delhi. But who do you suppose was willing to intrude on a peaceful evening for $175 (which was several years old and disputed?) If you said MCI/WorldCom, you were right, MCI, the largest Chapter XI filing in U.S. history. When the smoke cleared, MCI bondholders were paid 36.5 cents on the dollar, MCI shares were worthless and Bernard Ebbers was on his way to prison.

Maybe if the financial institutions had left a little more money in people’s hands, if they hadn’t been quite so greedy I mean, … nah, never mind