unintended consequences

After the wonderful Olympics passed through Atlanta, and shortly after my wedding my wife and I bought our first house...The process was arduous for both of us: myself a daytime pizza cook, and musician by night, and my wife a secretary/underwriter for Northwestern Mutual. We needed to have 20% down to buy our first house, or we would be denied the loan, or have to pay PMI ( personal mortgage insurance).

My mother in law offered us a wedding gift of 10,000$ to buy our first home. But when she found out we wanted to live in the 'ghetto', she reneged, and took the money back. Nonplussed, we went ahead with the purchase, and paid 2 years PMI due to the fact we did not have 20% down.

Then, something interesting happened. Local 'activists' began complaining about 'redlining', and about making poor/minority first time homeowners carry PMI insurance. They argued that mortgage lenders ( Like Countrywide, for instance )were being 'racist' and 'elitist', so they 'loosened' the underwriting and lending process.

Suddenly, our neighborhood exploded with growth. Young people of all stripes began buying up the houses here, the 'East Atlanta Village' went from having one restaurant ( the Heaping bowl ) to multitudes of restaurants, pubs, music bars and clothing shops.

Then, the unscrupulous mortgage bankers and thier ilk began offering 100% no $$ down loans without following through with basic lending protocol...I started hearing ad's about 'refinancing your home' from a fixed to an ARM as being 'the biggest no brainer in the history of man'.

Now, who is paying for this monumental screw up? We are. Now we have to bail out these businesses that followed the advice of 'community activists' and loosened standards, and the umitigated greed of the mortgage loan officers that fraudulently gave too much money to complete morons.

I wan't my 2 years of PMI insurance BACK before I have to pay one dime in bailing out these crooks.

Also, what happened after the ridiculous 'dangling chad' episode in Florida here in Georgia? All of a sudden, local 'activists' claimed we had to get rid of the 'butterfly ballot' voting machines in lieu of something better.

Enter Cathy Cox, the democrat Sec if State. Faced with this sound and fury, she brokers a deal to bring in 'touch screen voting' ( via evil,eeeeeevvvvil Diebold! )in response.

Nnow, she's a pariah! 'Paper trails!! Must have paper trails!!!!' local 'activists' scream! Heelllo~ dumb masses. We had a 'paper trail', it was called a 'butterfly ballot'! That's made OUT OF PAPER! That wasn't good enough, remember?

Just read this link to the HuffPo for more 'insight':

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-gumbel/americas-next-election-n_b_7940.html

So now, after 54 million dollars to 'upgrade', we are going to have to spend much more to make sure the 'e voter' machines will come with a 'paper trail'...Which we already had! AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH!

It reminds me of voting for GWB the second time around, on the 'belief' he was going to cut spending and reduce the size of Government. The unintended consequence of that was more dead American soldiers so that he could settle a 'deathgrudge' he had against Sadaam, the guy who tried to croak his Dad...

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/09/27/bush.war.talk/

The law of unintended consequences at work.