Friday October 30, 2009, 6:28 pm
Our current economic downturn has been an eye opener for me. It has help pull the covers off rampant greed within the private business sector. Revealing gross misconduct in our banks, insurance, medical, stock brokers, auto makers, auto dealers, credit card lenders leaving in it's wake a massive amount of our citizenry unemployed. Stealing daily from those who can least afford it.

For decades the auto industry has overcharged citizens for sub-quality products turning a deaf ear to what the American citizens want and then bellyaching when we buy from overseas competitors. Can we still not produce a vehicle that lives past it's purchase contract? Automakers still have not changed their commercials, blindsiding the consumer with the newest in bells and whistles, and not one offers an auto lasting more than four years with better gas mileage.

Airlines claim that they've reduced prices by not charging for our luggage. Hello...that charge was added during the last gas fiasco, and now that it's over the luggage charged should have been removed.

Our media glorifies the cartoon antics of politicians and liars to sell copy, feed the frenzy masking the true disarray of our medical and insurance companies.Pharmaceuticals are panhandled on television pushing consumers to get prescriptions from their doctors, even though some of side effects include death.

Our banks and mortgage lenders misleading their investors approving, buying and selling of billions of dollars of risky subprime and adjustable-rate mortgages. The largest violator was Countrywide Mortgage.

This entity promoted a program known as it's "Fast and Easy" conventional loan program. Those of us in the business called it the "Fast and Sleazy" program. Included in their roster of products was the 80/20 mortgage product, in which borrowers would take out two loans to cover the entire cost of the home.

Both products were very toxic to the mortgage industry. The Fast and Easy would allow borrowers to qualify for a 95% purchase loan requiring no more than a 680 middle fico score and verbal verification of employment by Countrywide personnel. No written proof of salary was ever verified on these loans thereby allowing loan officers and brokers to apply whatever income made sense to the application.

The 80/20 program allowed buyers or borrowers to qualify with less than idealic credit history, with middle ficos as low as 620. Now on these particular loans income verification was needed in writing with pay stubs and W-2 to verify income. But alas these too became easy for some to falsify and secure loans for borrowers who could ill afford the purchases.

Madoff, Petters ran successful Ponzi schemes under the ever watchful eye of SEC. UBS traders in Britain duped rich clients, insider trading in the Galleon case, the 'Too Big to Fail" AIG, Bear Stearns and the list goes on.

Cell phones, PDAs, iPods everybody's got to have one, individuality has been kick to the curb. With our new technology we've become a nation of lazy, greedy slugs who feel entitled. This downturn has given the nation a wake up call, pull your heads out of your collective butts and smell the coffee.

Hopefully, we will learn from this experience not to take all for granted, and to care about our fellow man. Stop greed in it's tracks, recover our lost morals and become the truly blessed humans that we're meant to be. Owning a business is a blessing and should not be used to fleece people who have entrusted their hard earned dollars to you.

We are destroying our environment, reputation, morally corrupting our children and no one cares. We are all looking for the next best shiny object to entice our tiny attention spans and offer nothing in return except empty souls and pockets.

It's during hard times such as these that our entrepreneurship blossoms and new companies are formed, hopefully this time around we will breed a better stronger private business sector than the last.