OmegaMom

I watched Obama’s half-hour TV ad.

Then I bop online, and find people who were moved to tears.

I wasn’t.

I was irritated.

We saw families “down on their luck”…but not really down.  I’ve got to say, if my husband’s job were cut to one week out of every two, and I were laid off, why on earth would we be going out to eat?  Equally to the point:  why on earth would Obama’s campaign film a family in such straits doing such a thing??

Then there’s the fact that…um…look, I know they were playing to the moderate white vote, but my overwhelming feeling in this ad was…it was very white.  I suppose it wasn’t PC enough for me, har.

Then Obama says he voted for the bailout and is hoping to Do More.  Aaarrgghhh!  Right now I feel like the financial gurus are busy pulling cards out from under one side of a tottering house of cards to shore up a different side.  What we need is for the U.S.–and all the other countries who joined us on the drunken binge of borrowing and spending over the past ten years (dear lord, I am using Dubya’s very own phrase, just shoot me now)–should stop trying to get banks to loan and people to borrow, and start encouraging savings and investment in real goods.

Over the past six months, at an increasing tempo, the U.S. has flung fictional money this way and that, to the tune of:

• $700 Billion – The bailout bill; U.S. Treasury to purchase toxic mortgages and other non-performing assets from financial institutions.
• $50 Billion – To guarantee principal in money market mutual funds.
• $10 Billion+ – Treasury purchases of mortgage-backed securities (MBS) in September.
• $144 Billion – In additional MBS purchases by Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac.  (With a limit of $850 billion…whoop-de-do).
• $85 Billion – AIG bridge loan giving the Fed a 79.9% controlling stake in the firm.
• $87 Billion – Repayments to JP Morgan for providing financing to underpin trades with the now bankrupt Lehman Brothers.
• $200 Billion – $100 billion capital infusion for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by the Treasury.
• $300 Billion – Provided to the FHA to refinance failing mortgages into new, reduced principal loans with a federal guarantee as part of the housing bill.
• $4 Billion – Provided to local communities to purchase and repair abandoned homes due to foreclosure.
• $29 Billion – Financing for JPM’s takeover of Bear Sterns. The Fed takes $30 billion in non-performing assets as collateral.  (Goodness only knows how much those “assets” are worth now.)
• $200 Billion – Currently outstanding loans to banks through the Fed’s Term Auction Facility.
• $150 Billion - Stimulus checks.  Remember those?
• Not to mention a whole slew of additional multi-billion-dollar chunks o’ change being handed out to GM and foreign countries…

Just where is all this money going to come from??  A hundred billion here, a hundred billion there…That’s almost two trillion dollars.  And now they’re talking about another $50 billion to guarantee up to 3 million mortgages where the mortgage-holders are underwater (more than a month late).

Look.  My husband and I aren’t poor, but we’re not rich.  We’re not the best money managers around, but we managed to put a fair amount down on this house, pay off debt, purchase two cars outright, and keep up with our mortgage payments.  We won’t see that help.  And that makes me angry.  Yes, there are people who were bamboozled into bad mortgages at the last minute, but the majority of the folks who are in foreclosure used funky mortgages to buy more house than they could really afford based on teaser rates and the assumption that their houses could only appreciate in value.  They get help; my husband and I, who deliberately looked at houses where we could afford the payments on a plain vanilla fixed-rate 30-year mortgage (even though we’d have loved to get more house) won’t.

I think I was looking for more of a “Fireside Chat” approach.  Something with more substance, and something that came straight out and said “The next few years are not going to be easy.  We’re all going to have to tighten our belts.”  What we got was fluff, violins playing, and warm-hearted shots of Obama shaking hands, giving and getting hugs, and holding babies.

It didn’t move me to tears.  Or at least, not in the way that the ad writers wanted.  And I’m voting for the man.