I am Getting Tired of Being Outraged

I am getting tired of being outraged.

Every single day something new comes to light that makes me more and more angry. Disturbed in fact. I simply cannot believe that some of the things people have done in the name of commerce have actually taken place. Every time you thought you'd heard it all (I thought Maddoff was as bad as it could get) something else crops up.

Today's anecdote:

One of The Sacks Group's services (thanks to our merger with Hollander & Associates) is to provide personal financial counseling to people who are over their heads in debt. We negotiate with creditors to make payment arrangements that our clients can afford to reliably make. Not discounts, better arrangements. One of the largest banks in this country, when asked to lower the minimum monthly payment on a credit card by $20 per month, told us they were unable BY LAW to do that and that if the debtor could not make the current minimum payment they would declare the card in default and write it off.

$20 bucks, that's all, $20 bucks. This client who really wants to make good on his obligations (or he wouldn't have come to us) needs a $20 adjustment to make his personal budget balance and the bank's policy (BY LAW?) is to kiss the whole thing goodbye rather than accommodate his efforts. What's going on? Who's making these decisions?

I feel like we common folk are caught in a feeding frenzy between beggars and thieves. On the one hand, the offer of "stimulus" money has resulted in almost every known organization, company and government institution (plus some who seem to have come out of the woodwork) to have its hand out looking for a piece of the action. On the other hand we have the supposed caretakers of our economy (whose opportunistic pursuits made all of our investments moot) sucking up as much as they can as quickly as they can if, for no other reason, to keep it away from the beggars. The line between the players grows increasingly grey.

Doesn't any policymaker see the paradox? The Federal Reserve Bank reduces interest rates and tightens lending standards and scrutiny. Now that goes a long way towards solving the problem of people who could survive this mess if their credit lines were allowed to remain open, but who can't pass scrutiny right now because their underlying assets have all been devalued in the current crisis. Credit card companies are raising interest rates and minimum monthly payments at the same time people are losing their jobs in record numbers. Wouldn't you think that the credit card companies would want to make it easier on people rather than harder?

Here's the crux of the problem: We spent $1,000,000,000,000 ( I love to see those zeroes) giving an "advance" to lending institutions to "buffer" them against "toxic assets", so that all the money they mistakenly lent during the happy days wouldn't wreck the economy (that was already so damaged as to make one wonder if it could ever recover). This gave them license to call anything they wanted a toxic asset and to sweep it into the pile. If it were a borderline toxic asset, make it not perform if you can and then it will go over the edge into write-offville. After all, they already got their money so they had no skin in the game.

This is as dishonest as the merchant who has a fire and throws every borderline piece of inventory he has into the maelstrom so he can collect from the insurance company. Except, in this instant case, the government gave the banks permission (if not orders) to get rid of everything they didn't want (i.e. didn't pass ridiculous scrutiny) in order to "stimulate" a non-existent economy.

And we all sit back and watch this. Helplessly. This is, in fact, bigger than all of us. There is actually nothing I feel I can do except help those people I can, not watch CNN and hope for the best.

How sad, when we could be doing so much to help so many if enlightened self-interest (what's good for all of us is good for each of us) could only govern the decisions people are making.

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