EDITORIAL

If someone walked up to you and offered a brand new automobile free of charge, would you take it?

Most folks would lunge at the opportunity and think that they were just plain lucky.

But, when it comes time to pay for the insurance- which can cost a lot of money—shell out some dollars for the maintenance of the auto, fill the tank with what has become liquid gold and deal with other expenses connected with owning a car, the luck doesn't seem so good.

The same set of circumstances has taken place in the housing markets and it has helped to create a financial mess that is causing fear in the stock market, the collapse of large investment companies and a request for a bailout at the taxpayers' expense to pay for stupid investments.

Mortgages by investment companies were approved with little or no money as a down payment. Potential homeowners were given interest-first mortgage payments that were artificially low. When the actual figure kicked in, they were unable to meet the payment, so they walked away from the debt.

Many were families who could have afforded the purchase of a house if they had the kinds of jobs that once made homeownership possible.

But nobody is talking about that.

Elected officials in Washington are acting as though they are high-finance wizards, but they are the same people who were clueless three weeks ago, before the financial panic began to spread.

They were the geniuses who made it possible for goodpaying, middle-income jobs to leave this country. They voted for trade policies that have decimated the work force and taken away the opportunity that previous Americans had—the ability to buy a house and raise a family.

Well-paying factory and manufacturing jobs were replaced by lower-paying service jobs in restaurants, hotels and fast-food places.

Recalling the construction boom that exploded across the country, its labor needs were filled, to a great extent, by illegal immigrants. They would work for lower wages and make no demands for their safety, being more concerned with making money that often was sent back to their homeland to support their families.

Given this scenario, how could those whose incomes were on the lower economic scale afford to buy a house and pay for its upkeep? They were sold a bill of goods by investors who had no business in the mortgage business.

Now the waiter has brought the check and nobody has the money to pay the bill—except the taxpayer, who is being asked to underwrite failing Wall Street brokerage firms and others to the tune of $700 billion.

These firms are worse than the college kid who runs up a large bill and expects mom and dad to bail him out.

Let the market find its own center of financial stability.