Bailout is wrong
Responsible homeowners should be angry at news that Congress is working on a massive bill to stem the tide of foreclosures resulting from the housing bubble gone pop.
Why?
If it passes, it promises $300 billion in cheaper, government-backed fixed rate loans for homeowners in trouble of losing their homes due to the current subprime credit crisis. That’s unfair to the millions of Americans who have worked hard to do the right thing and are not in danger of foreclosure - responsible Americans who didn’t buy homes they couldn’t afford or use their homes as ATMs by taking out home equity loans on the "market" value of their property.
It also sends the wrong message to an industry which - no matter how you look at it - got too greedy. Whether it was speculators 'flipping' properties, lenders easing payment requirements or borrowers who either didn’t know or didn’t care they were entering into agreements they couldn’t keep, there’s plenty of blame to go around for the crash in the market and plenty of reason to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen again.
Bailing these folks out isn’t a step in that direction.
Jeff Whitten for the Bryan County News
June 28, 2008
Make every effort
No matter your stance on growth, no matter how you feel about the way things once where as opposed to how they are now, there's no denying one thing.
More growth is coming. It may not happen overnight, it may be temporarily slowed by the faltering economy, but it's coming - in one way, shape, form and fashion or another.
It is a byproduct and necessity of our way of life in a free market, capitalist society, which has to find new areas in which to spread out.
That is a lesson all of us need to learn, and it's a lesson reinforced last week with the news that Dicon Technologies - a New Jersey based manufacturer of biomedical goods such as bandages for troops - will build a facility in the Interstate Centre.
While it is good news for a community badly in need of high-tech jobs and more industry to help ease the tax burden on homeowners, it also is another sign of a changing community.
We got another look at change this week, when the builders of the huge Water Ways Township development invited the media along while they moved a live oak. From what we gather, all the care and know how available - at considerable expense - was used to safely move that tree, estimated to be 150 years old, from one spot to another on the 2,300-acre site. Other trees have been moved as well as the land is steadily manicured into what ultimately will be an 'upscale' retirement and second home community, complete with a golf course.
It is impossible, of course, to develop land and leave it the same as it was. But we applaud those developers - past and present - who have worked hard to preserve our trees, our wetlands, our wildlife and the natural beauty of our home.
We urge all who choose to build here in the future to do the same.
Jeff Whitten for the Bryan County News
June 28, 2008