How Deception is Hurting America

Investor's Business Daily is not a publication that I peruse on a regular basis. Perhaps I don't meet their demographic - I invest, but not every day, and I certainly don't track my portfolio with any sort of rigor.

It's been atypical for a business or investment-focused media source to be blunt and truthful about many of the things that have led America to the brink, financially, socially, and philosophically. And when I started to read an article by Walter E. Williams on how deception is the root cause of America's ills, for a moment I believed someone was about to speak the truth to power.

I shouldn't have been so optimistic.

Williams essentially blames government in general, and Congress specifically, for what he deems wholesale dishonesty in dealing with issues such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and then takes the usual conservative jump to rail against healthcare reform and plea once again for his rich compatriots to opt out of social security.

How stupid is it of us to ask those who brought us "affordable" housing to now turn their attention to bringing us "affordable" health care?

I seem to remember all sort of bankers and brokers and traders and investors making tons of profit off of loans made to people who couldn't afford them or shouldn't have qualified for them, driving up home values to such lofty heights that foreclosure homes are being abandoned by banks because it's cheaper to walk away from the properties than to try and sell them.

I also recall brokers and dealers leveraging credit default swaps and collateralized debt obligations to extreme ratios, which is partially to blame for the collapse of many financial firms and the pasting folks like me took in our investments.

Where's the accountability, Mr. Williams, in your investor community for what they've done? You didn't seem to have a problem with government when they were relaxing regulation at your request, and it would be a neck-and-neck race between the investment community and Congress to see who might win a deception race.

I think I'm going to set up non-profit and begin to raise money to help out Mr. Williams and his cronies. With the funds I collect, I'll stimulate the economy by going to Target and making a large purchase that I'll distribute to him and his readers.

There's apparently a lack of mirrors in the investor community. That's the only reason I can think of as to why they don't spend any time looking into them.

Won't you please give to the Look In The Mirror Fund?

Deception Is Root Cause of America's Ills