Reason to celebrate!

Gwen and I on the eve of the election. The other two people are Jane Jensen (vice chair of the Fayette County Dem Party, and former co-chair of Change For Kentucky) and Reggie Thomas (LD chair for the 88th; he traveled to several different counties to get votes for Obama – one of them only had one African-American registered voter!).

We lost the state for Obama and Lunsford, but the nation was won... and we had several local wins in Fayette County.

Obama and Lunsford had a strong showing in the 88th. To see the results by precinct, go to:

http://www.kentucky.com/static/flash/2008fallelections/fayette_county/index.html

7th District Council Race: K.C. Crosbie vs. Chris Logan

I've been relatively quiet about the contest in the 7th District this time, unlike two years ago. The choice is less clear-cut, since neither candidate appears to be particularly progressive or gay-friendly (although I am still grateful to Scott Crosbie for supporting Lexington's Fairness Ordinance when he was sitting on the Council).

K.C. and I were on different sides of the water issue, a strike against her, but she has at least worked on getting the roads in her district repaired. As far as I know, she hasn't proposed anything anti-gay. I know less about Chris Logan, but I am concerned about what I do know.

We came home one day to find his materials on our door, and have received mailings since. He advertises himself as follows: "The experience I have gained as a Pastor, a financial planner, and as a small business owner makes me the best candidate to represent you."

Hmm. I wonder what he thought of our "May Goddess Bless" sign. He says he's for green space, but his survey with Kentuckians for the Commonwealth indicates that he's one of those pastors that doesn't think gay people should even be able to PAY to share health care with a loved one (since that's how the LFUCG health care works). Not a surprise, but there are plenty of people who love green space who are a lot more open minded.

I worry that Pastor Logan might have an agenda to further besides preserving green space (so many pastors seem fixated on us gay folks). There's gay-unsupportive, and then there's legislating morality. At this point, I'm debating whether I should sit this particular race out or vote for the evil I know. Does anyone out there have further information?

No Incentive to Save

Trickle-down economics and deregulation made a great party atmosphere for the folks at the top. Now those at the bottom are being asked to foot the bill. It is not right. It is not fair. Most of all it is not something the voters should stand for. The question is: do enough of us understand what is happing to actually stop the insanity?

Yes. I said insanity.

The US has the lowest rate of savings among first world countries. We get no incentives to save. Interest rates are ridiculously low because the federal government has been consistently cutting rates to prop up the market for way too long. As a result, interest rates on savings accounts have not kept up with inflation. It effectively costs us money to save.

Today, the U.S. Senate is voting on their version of the bailout. They have not improved it. In fact, they placed huge tax cuts into their version at a time when the country can ill afford to cut anyone’s taxes. Aside from the tax cuts, there are a couple things we should consider before bailing out Wall Street. First of all, everyone seems to have forgotten the people who have been paying rent through the housing bubble, refusing to spend their hard earned cash on overpriced houses with crazy mortgages.

These folks have actually lost buying power by putting those dollars away instead of running up debt like their neighbors or getting involved in one of the cockamamie mortgage deals being floated by the banks. Why should we punish them further instead of letting the price correct so they can buy their dream home?

This bailout punishes anybody who has been saving and waiting for the bubble to burst so they could afford a home. Why should we artificially inflate the price of a home, while we reward the bankers who made it unaffordable in the first place? People renting while they saved up to buy their dream home didn’t get the big tax advantages the US hands out to homeowners. These folks are looking at the first buyer’s market in years and Washington wants to take it away from them. They have been waiting for this market correction to make their American dream affordable.

Instead of a big payoff for thrift, they are looking at more tax cuts for the instigators of the mess while the knife is driven deeper into the body of our nation. Economic growth fueled by loose lending and growing debt has created a giant wound. I can’t help thinking that our government is trying to place a band-aid over an open femoral artery. It will not hold. If Washington wants to do something to help in this crisis, they need to pull out the knife and use it to cut debt, cut spending, and cut out the giveaways. And if Wall Street wants to take out a loan to keep afloat, we citizens should give them one. But please, give them same sort of interest rates they charged borrowers the past decade. I am willing to invest a few tax dollars at those rates, and if they default, foreclose on them. That is the option they have given us.

Greed

It is nice to know that the Republican candidate’s opinion of Obama’s five step plan to get us out of this financial mess matched so closely that he plagiarized it and announced it as his own. With the two candidates in such close agreement it should be easy to come up with a plan in time for tonight’s debate. Perhaps that is why McCain is so eager to face Obama.

Okay, that wasn’t nice, but the time to be nice is over. With Washington Mutual becoming the latest victim of the meltdown in our housing market, it is time to get serious how we got into this mess and how we are going to have to pull together to get through it.

I know a lot of us are saying “I’m not to blame for this. I don’t even understand what happened.” If you feel a little or a lot confused by the talking heads or in a state of shock by the $700, 000,000,000 price tag being thrown around in Congress. This is a mess of colossal scale. The financial markets are imploding and as they collapse they will take the rest of the economy with them. This is why FDR put regulations on the banks.

Greed is why Wall Street has spent billions getting rid of those regulations in the years since his death. Greed created the housing bubble. Wall Street is no guiltier of being Greedy than Main Street but deregulation allowed them to do it on a larger scale. With deregulation they got the ability to create investment banks in house and literally write loans to themselves.

When the Great Depression started, only two percent of the population was invested in the market. Two percent brought the markets to a halt and crashed the economy. I heard one of my coworkers talking about how all she had was a savings account and that was insured. Not so! With two or three questions, I was able to determine that she has a retirement account heavily invested in stocks and she has a mortgage, one high enough that if she or her husband were off from work for more than a few weeks they would be at serious risk of defaulting. How did we all get into this mess?

Let’s talk about Main Street first, since it is the easiest to understand. Most of us want a home of our own and, being greedy, want the best house we can afford. When the local banks and contractors tell us that they have a great deal on that mortgage we believe them. These guys are our neighbors, hometown folks like us, right? No! Your bank is owned by another bank, which is owned by an investment bank or holding company. The little guy you were talking to has been bought and sold so many times he or she has little or no control over the type of mortgage offered.

What they do know are the terms of your mortgage and probably didn’t tell you or at least they glossed over the fine print. They also didn’t mention that as soon as you sign the deal their parent company is going to sell it to another company who, in turn, will sell it again and again until the mortgage ends up in the hands of a company that will package it with thousands of others and sell stock in the mortgages as if it were a company. You payment has just gone from being a bank loan to being a dividend on some holding company’s stock, and that stock has probably landed in your grandparent’s retirement fund where your house payment becomes a dividend supporting their retirement.

All this doesn’t sound like a bad idea, your bank is making money, the builder is making money, the holding company makes money, and so is Grandpa. Everybody wins. Except: the fine print of that mortgage is still looming over you.

Maybe you didn’t understand that your mortgage had a lower rate for three or five years, or a balloon payment. Maybe you took advantage of easy credit to buy a house you could fix up and sell. A few years down the road down the road a nasty surprise shows up in your mailbox. That rate that sounded good three to ten years ago just became your worst nightmare.

Maybe you did understand it but hey, the economy was booming, you were expecting to be doing better by now, or you had a touch of greed that made you think you could get a second or third house, fix it up, then sell it for more money than you paid. The mortgage would then be renegotiated by a new owner.

The builders got a little greedier, and built more houses than the market could support. In 2005 the market topped out and we have had three years of declining housing prices. Those builders that made lots of money are now in trouble. “Flip This House” is not an option any more, More and more houses sit empty while the owners still have to shell out mortgage payments. Defaults keep going up and those banking stocks supporting grandpa’s retirement cut or end dividend payments. Stock prices drop and one by one the mortgage lenders start going belly up.

Those regulations that FDR fought so hard to put in place are gone. Today, a sell off on Wall Street isn’t just going to affect two percent of the country. When the Great Depression started, your corner bank was trading in stocks, involved in investment banking, offering insurance and financing all of it through offering credit to itself. Sound familiar? Does the word “leverage” ring a bell? (SarahG: leverage=getting a loan based on a loan.) The answer is yes. The stakes are much larger today. We’re no longer talking about small independent banks, but huge conglomerates with customers across the world. Every time you hear the bell ring for the close of the Stock Market, millions in paper wealth has changed hands. The Wall Street Casino has closed for the day and the gamblers playing with your money have gone home to their mansions. After all, they make their money off of trading, not off your profits or losses.

Wall Street cannot police itself any better today than it did in the 1920’s. Only this time, when the Street crashes more of us will suffer. Those regulations against the excesses of a free market that McCain worked so hard to get rid of are looking more attractive now. I don’t blame him for not wanting to debate tonight. I wouldn’t want to have to defend his economic record, either. The Great Depression will be a footnote to what is about to happen this time: in 1929 we were not saddled with trillions in debt that is owned by other countries.

Kentucky Voices from the Convention, Part Two

X-posted from Bluegrass Roots.

We're doing our best to provide you with as many different perspectives from Denver as possible. Part of that effort is our "Kentucky Voices" feature. Here are some more Kentuckians speaking from their hearts about the Convention and the issues closest to them.

Obama delegate Reggie Thomas of Lexington gives BlueGrassRoots his reaction to Michelle Obama's speech.



Michele Thomas, an alternate delegate and Clinton supporter, gives BlueGrassRoots her impression of Hillary's speech at the Democratic National Convention.



Adam Platt, former Kentuckian and law school classmate, talks about a resurgent Democratic Party in the New West. Adam is Vice-President of Denver Young Dems.



Sandra Aniz Powell of Richmond on the importance of standing up for marginalized communities.




Clinton Delegate from the 4th Congressional District and Flatwoods native Tyler Murphy discusses his expectations for Hillary Clinton's Speech.



These and other videos can always be found on BlueGrassRoots' You Tube Channel.

Ice Cream Social in the 45th LD

Dan Shumer of the 45th schmoozes with Gwen before the meeting.

Most popular photographing spot in the room...

...but it was less popular than this spot! The ice cream was a huge draw.

Special guest Kathy Stein, running for the KY Senate seat in the 13th, explains why a strong Democratic voice needs to replace Ernesto's. Two words: David Williams.

Todd Hollenbach, the 'vertically challenged', delivers his speech from stilts.

Reggie Thomas, LD chair of the 88th, compliments everyone who helped set up the meeting. He should know, since the 88th hosted its meet-and-greet the month before. Overall, it was a great meeting, with an enthusiastic crowd.

Southside Meet and Greet photos!

The first meet-and-greet hosted by the 88th Legislative District took place last night in Hartland. We saw many familiar faces, but we also spotted a few new ones! Two people drove in from Mercer County, simply because they wanted to get more involved with the Democratic Party but didn’t know whom to contact.


Reggie Thomas, chair of the 88th, addressed the crowd and revved us up for the evening. He spoke about the respect America used to enjoy in the international sphere and our need to regain it. There were cheers when he proposed that electing Barack Obama would be a large step in the right direction.



Jeremy Horton, listening to David O'Neill speak. When his turn came, Jeremy stressed how important it was for Democrats to talk to their friends and neighbors. Signs and bumper stickers are great, but conversation is more effective.



Jonathan Miller spoke of having a different problem: his neighbors were all Republicans. This year, however, he senses a new excitement in the suburbs: Democrat excitement. He believes that Democrats can win in the suburbs, which goes against traditional expectations.



The final speaker, newlywed Dan Mongiardo. He reminded everyone of his close race against Jim Bunning in 2004, and how he had only lost by 1%. Every vote counts. He also spoke about the rumors and swiftboating (we have the GOP to thank for that neologism) he suffered during that campaign, and how important it is to combat smears and outright lying through directly challenging the rumor-mongers.



Chilling after the speeches were over! Dan Shumer tells us that the 45th is planning an ice cream social later this month. We'll be there with our spoons.