Scrooge and the Mortgage Crisis

[Lars Jensen]

I just *had to* comment on this one:

Leo Schulte wrote:

> Scrooge would never have gone bankrupt by investing in subprime mortgages,
> which were mainly about political correctness in getting mortgages to
> people without the means to support a house or pay a mortgage, and then
> "bundling them" to be sold to investors higher up the food chain in an
> irrational bubble market.

Let me get this straight: the current financial and economic crises which
are causing lots of firings, factory closures, loss of pensions,
bankruptcies etc. etc. all over the globe are *not* primarily caused by
irresponsible greed in the financial sector in combination with
international political instability and failed economic policies... but
rather by "political correctness"?!?! (Whatever "political correctness" is.)

I'm stunned.

> If Uncle Scrooge comic books were read by more Americans, and by more
> Europeans, our economies would be in much better shape!  Uncle Scrooge is
> all about hard work, personal pride in accomplishment, individual freedom,
> and the absence of whining about how awful things are!  If you think
> things are awful, then you get to work and make things better!

If people are hurting due to no fault of their own, they have the right to
whine. And I refuse to base my financial dispositions on a fictitious
character who stores all his cash in a glorified piggy bank.

Lars