BANKERS IN THE CROSSHAIRS

I know everyone in America is on board with hating the banking CEOs.  They took big bonus' and bought airplanes and redecorated their offices.  Yes, that was excessive and evokes a gag reflex because they didn't even seem to be aware it was inappropriate.  But they were not the only greedy ones.  Dangle free money and watch what happens in banking or government or Wall Street...or on my street.

Nonetheless, this week I watched that row of bankers sit there in the crosshairs of Barney Frank and Maxine Waters and the rest of the Congressional Finance Committee.  The bankers were accused and harrangued and humiliated ("raise your hand if you...") until I felt sorry for them.

Why the compassion?  Barney Frank and the Congress passed laws to MAKE those same bankers lend to unqualified folks.  Community Organizers marched outside banks threatening lawsuits to intimidate them if they didn't.  So the banks made the high risk loans.  Barney said not to worry, that Fannie and Freddie would cover them if the loans went south.  Right.  Maxine said Fannie and Freddie were in good shape.  Right.  Unbelievably, Barney Frank is on record saying "the private sector got us into this mess, the government will have to get us out".

http://www.jeffjacoby.com/433/whose-mess-congressman-frank

Well, maybe those institutions (FM/FM) COULD have helped if THEIR head guys hadn't siphoned off millions.  It is disgusting for the ones who started trouble to be sitting in judgment of others.

And for Maxine Waters to ask repeatedly why the banks charged a fee for taking the TARP money...and two different bankers answered her but she didn't "get it"...so she just ratcheted up the gestapo tactics until the Chairman put a muzzle on her.  Someone please pull her aside and translate what those big words were.  You could see the bankers look at one another in wonder.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylufIKArbfk

I just don't know why the Democrats are not held responsible for the Community Reinvestment Act.  They passed it.  It worked about like you thought it might...giving money to people who didn't have to prove they even had a job or a way to pay back the loan.  Common sense banking practices were declared discriminatory.  "Redlining" (identifying areas hazardous to banking good health) was now politically incorrect.  And THAT governmental tinkering...not the free market system...began our economic woes.

But somehow now the bankers are in the black hats and Barney is the sheriff.  It would have been fun if the bankers had been on the other side of the tables, and they were grilling the Congressmen.  Sometimes life is just not just.  But if the Bible was ever perfectly illustrated, our culture has shown that...

"the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil"  1 Timothy 6:10

P.S.  An interesting disclosure about what the original TARP money went for can be found at

http://www.twincities.com/ci_11722986?source=most-viewed .

LET ME CALL YOU SWEETHEART, 

I'M IN LOVE WITH YOU!

In this "perfecting" process called marriage, Mike and I have had thirty-eight years of trial and error.  We are worlds away from our oblivious beginnings in 1970, but still things can sneak up on your blind side. 

Mike has a personality whose comfort zone is in doing just the right thing.  When occasions are coming up (like Valentines) he starts getting uneasy.   My personality leans more toward the creative side, and with a large dose of empathy.  So usually when I see his angst, we have a conversation about how I don't like to have to do something just because Hallmark declared a special day to act a certain way.  Still, we trade cards and go out to eat.

But it wasn't always that easy...

When the kids were in junior high/high school, Mike was bringing home a rose in a bud vase at Valentines.  Now you may be thinking...that's good...he remembered.  Doesn't he get points for that?  Yes, but there's always a story and here's the rose story:

Mike's mother liked roses; I'm the wildflower type.  So I coasted a couple of years and then I was goofed enough to tell him that I really didn't so much LIKE roses.  That took a lot of energy from my harmonizer side, but I thought it was worth it to get things straight.  The next Valentine's, I got three roses in a bud vase.  I flounced off to the bathroom, slammed the door and burst into tears, then pulled the heads off of each rose.  That felt good...but so much for "love is not touchy or resentful".   Mike was clueless, but he was desperately trying to figure out what had set me off.  Don't women like it when you give them flowers?

Well, this woman likes it when her husband listens.  And I count it important that Mike thinks of who I am and what would please me...not just check off the "to do" list with an oft-repeated and automatic gesture. 

The Cruses have lived through probably fifteen Valentine days since that bumpy one.  I can still tell that Mike dreads thinking something up.  And this year was more complicated because I'm on Weight Watchers, so chocolate wouldn't be helpful.  I've found that loving your man is loving who he is and speaking your needs.  So I said..."what I'd like more than anything would be for you to sit down and write me a letter about why you love me."

Best Valentine's EVER!

"Love is patient, love is kind...love is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it pays no attention to a suffered wrong...love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person...love never fails."  

1 Corinthians 13

ONE GOD 

(written December 2007)

One God calls us to love and       forgive

The other god calls for    intimidation and submission by 

force

One God adopts us into His family

The other god is master who permits servants

One God says sin is inside of man...and offers a Solution and a Helper

The other god sees sin coming from the outside and designed burkas

One God honors women; they are equally part of His story

The other god subjugates half his flock

One God pleads "come, let us reason together"

The other god does not stoop or promote the free interchange of ideas

One God offers a place to be with Him forever

The other god reduces heaven to carnality

One God is the Author of second chances

With the other god it is "one strike and you're out!"

One God sees man's disobedience and the Bible says it grieves His heart

The other god's woodshed is brutal

One God is a tender Shepherd who carries His lambs

Is that in the other god's book?

One God had a Son who came down to save

The other god's people reach up and hope they have done enough

In these last days and in His forbearance, the One True and Living God

Stands in stark contrast to the other god....

As He waits for all men to decide.

"Blessed art Thou, O Lord God of Israel our father, forever and ever.  Thine, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, indeed everything that is in the heavens and the earth, Thine is the dominion, O Lord, and Thou dost exalt Thyself as head over all."  1Chronicles 29:10,11