Posted 8:05 PM by steve

When anybody accomplishes something, or for that matter, when someone fails to accomplish something, a question that is often asked: 'is the result because of this person's efforts... or despite their efforts?'

This is applicable to business where some people succeed because of their hard work and talent while others fail despite having put in a lot of effort. And there are those who succeed despite their (apparent) lack of effort or talent and of course there are those who fail because they don't have the necessary talent and commitment to succeed.

It's applicable to any parent who wonders if their kid getting a 'B' in physics was because they didn't put in the effort to get themselves an 'A' or whether their kid just isn't that smart but put in the effort that kept them from getting the 'C' they would otherwise have gotten.

And it's applicable elsewhere, such as with the people who find themselves at risk of losing their house to foreclosure. How many of them are in this situation despite having done everything right (with 'right' being defined as reading the fine print, buying only as much house as they could afford, not lying on the mortgage application and not counting on rising house prices to rescue them)? Or how many of them are in the situation they're in precisely because they did what anybody with a ounce of smarts would never have done?

It would be one thing if Obama was proposing to rescue only those people who find themselves in trouble because of conditions not of their making. For example, I could see lending a hand to someone who put down 20% and took out a mortgage that added up to no more than 35% or so of their pay, only to lose their job and be unable to sell the house because housing prices in their area dropped by 30%.

On the other hand, I have no patience for the person who lied on their mortgage application, didn't put any money down, took on a mortgage that equaled 75% or so of their pay, figuring they'd flip the house for a profit as prices continued to rise.

And Obama's rescue plan doesn't distinguish the former from the latter. It treats all in-trouble homeowners the same. There's no attempt to keep the latter group from getting a bailout. In attempting to help out those who (allegedly, as they are some people who argue against helping out anybody) deserve some help, Obama is rewarding those who not only should have known better but those who consciously tried to game the system. And that's wrong. And unfortunately, Obama doesn't care.

And we shouldn't expect anything else from him. He's a Democrat and Democrats have never been interested in holding people responsible for their actions... at least not anyone who doesn't have CEO in their job title. Sure, they'll excoriate CEOs whose lack of common sense resulted in their companies going down the toilet but they'll never hold Joe and Jane Public to the same standard.