The Rainmaker, Some Poetry and an Opinion Question

At least one of you is reading my Email because we have a poem from one of our readers included in this posting.  Give some thought to what she says.  Consider sending in something you have written.  It will reach a lot of people. 

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The Rainmaker 

About five years ago I recall there was a mortgage broker who advertised on one of the local radio stations using the nickname of “The Rainmaker.”  He touted inexpensive, low interest rate, or even “interest only” mortgages which while inexpensive, ultimately ballooned into mortgages with prohibitively high monthly payments.  The Rainmaker urged his listeners to call him to apply for these mortgages, pointing out that all they had to do when the cost went up was to refinance with him to achieve a lower monthly payment, as many of his happy “clients” had done.  He pointed out that with just a minimum down payment, or even none at all, a renter could become a homeowner and reduce his monthly outlay for housing.  He made people with traditional 30 year fixed rate mortgages seem like a bunch of suckers.  

Many followed his advice and that of similar hucksters but sadly, when the payments went up, refinancing at a lower rate was no longer available.  This is one of the reasons why Florida is near the top of the list of states in regard to foreclosures and “short sales,” where more is owed on a house’s mortgage than its market price. 

Complicit with the Rainmaker and those like him across the country were real estate appraisers (who valued properties far above their worth), real estate agents (who sold homes to people who they knew couldn’t afford the payments), banks (which blindly gave out the mortgages) and law firms (which made sure all this skullduggery was “legal”), all of whom made money from the home purchases the Rainmaker’s mortgage peddling made possible.  Although a few individuals, law firms and banks have experienced difficulty stemming from these mortgages, many of them are still merrily going along their way, doing their business of making money, which today is centered on resolving, for a fee, the unbelievable debt some of their victims have accumulated and “helping” them go through foreclosures, loan modifications and bankruptcies.  In less civilized countries, there would be general agreement that those who inflicted such harm upon “the people” should be lined up against a wall and shot.  That is what happened at the time of the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution.  It did not happen, however, in the American Revolution.   

Today, however, all we can hope for is increased regulation of our free market system which allowed these people to make life miserable for so many Americans.  If this doesn’t take place, we may be in for trouble the next time the system allows the people, and the nation, to be ripped off.  Real trouble!  

The problem is not one stemming from something the government has done but rather from what the government does not do in terms of regulating a free market economy which sometimes does whatever it wants, regardless of its consequences.

Jack Lippman

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"Lovers"

  Libby Klein

If we are all to die, what good is it to cry?
Let's live our life today, don't think of yesterday.
When we were young and full of glee,
Who thought of death and eternity?
We had happy thoughts in mind,
Anticipating what we'd find, on our journey throughout life ...
joined together as man and wife.
But, when I lost my one true love, there was one thing I was
certain of.
The emptiness of life will pass for me, and then I will
keep you company.


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And here is a little story about which I would like your opinion.  Please send me your comments.  (Instructions for making comments are at the top of the blog, or you can simply send me an Email at riart1@aol.com.)

A prominent architect receives a commission to build a massive public housing project.   When he returns from an extended vacation, he finds that the structure was not built according to his plans, but modified to some extent by other architects involved in the project, so that it was no longer the exact building he had designed.  He was greatly offended by this.  Which of the following courses of action should the architect take? 

JL

1. Because the building would still provide homes which would be a great improvement for families who were presently living in slum-like conditions, accept the changes and move on.
2. Take legal steps to have the unauthorized construction which deviated from his plans removed and reconstruct the building the way it should have been built, even though this would require the government to agree to double the cost of the project.
3. Sneak into the almost completed structure at night and blow it up.