I Have This Plan

              I have this plan, see.             I’m going to walk into the lending institution nearest me, and tell the loan officer I want to borrow $500,000.             What am I going to use the money for?            Living expenses while I finish writing a book. The project will take me anywhere from one to 10 years. Each morning I shall pursue the correct nouns and verbs with due diligence. I will be more than happy to send out progress reports upon request.            What do you mean you don’t make those kinds of loans? Isn’t that what the sub-prime scam was all about? Weren’t you telling unsuspecting young people, “We know you can’t qualify for a traditional mortgage loan.  So we’re created this “sub-prime loan” with a little higher rate and a few rate mechanisms we don’t need to discuss right now.”            These young people were excited about life and its opportunities. They looked forward to getting in on the American Dream of a home, children, two cars, money in the bank. Then you come along and tell them you’ve created this shortcut. You can loan them the money to buy a $400,000 house with no money down. You tell them they can move in right away if they just sign here.            You kept at it until you talked them into a house that was on the very upper fringe of what they could afford. You lined up a monthly mortgage payment that left them enough for essentials. You pulled the wool so far down over their eyes they forgot all about the children and the money in the bank.            What you didn’t tell them was what they would be looking at the first time the economy burped.              You didn’t tell them if the mortgage contract triggers were pulled the monthly payments were soar to a level that was far, far beyond their means. You didn’t give them any history on how these sub-prime mortgages were performing – had there been any problem with monthly payments in the past?             You didn’t give them the real bottom line: If the contract triggers are pulled you will lose your house in six months to a year. That will create a credit report stain that will keep you out of the prime borrowers’ group for years.            I, on the other hand, do not carry that nasty luggage involving real estate. I carry everything I need right here. Right in the ol’ noggin.             I have to have collateral? What kind of collateral did those kids have when you loaned them the same amount of money? Isn’t the fact that they didn’t have any collateral, such as a down payment, why you guys lost $150 billion on your little sub-prime scheme? When you finally had to admit you were cash poor … didn’t that make the world economy tremble enough to start the recession talk? And don’t you have the big guys in this country worried because you went abroad and borrowed billions from Europe, China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and a pot of other places?How does that make you feel about yourself?Baloney.  Helping young people get established in the borrowing racket never entered your little pea brains.  The only thing on your minds was greed. You thought you came up with the perfect way to rake in even more billions in interest rate and late fee money. You won’t have any of those problems with me. I just want $500,000 for living expenses while I write my book. I’ll even let you charge me a little more interest. What is it the bookies call it? Vigorish? You can charge me vigorish.You’ll get back to me, huh. Sure.If this was your idea I bet you’d be on my loan application like ugly on a monkey.