Where is the Stimulus?

A small dose of reality crept into my closed mind the other day. My 15 year old son told me of an online friend who was suddenly becoming flush with money. The friend, as the story goes, obtained a tele-communicator job calling applicants to relay the bad news that, “No, there is no Stimulus help for you.” As my son told the story, his online friend was relishing the power of shutting down the protests of the Stimulus hopeful. At this point in the conversation, my son was impressed that his young 20s something friend was making a whopping $17 per hour while enjoying the power of telling people, “Sorry, sucker!”

Let me ask you this: Can you turn on your computer, enter the internet, and not be barraged by promises of Stimulus money? “Obama wants mothers to go back to college!” and “Mortgage interest rates are at an historical low!” Egads, maybe that Stimulus Plan is going to save the world.

My daughter recently lost her home. Yep, it was probably a stretch that shouldn’t have been made. But nope, she did not obtain the mortgage based on an adjustable rate mortgage. She got the good old fashioned kind of loan with a fixed rate based on being a first time buyer attributed a certain income. The mistake? Well, the bank included “child support” as real income. Unfortunately, in the real world, a biological father doesn’t actually have to pay child support, unless they’re honest and genuinely want to support the children they sired. In any event, should the support not materialize, the assumed income is not there. Not “there” means insufficient funds to pay one’s indebtedness. That’s not the government’s fault, nor is it in any stretch of the imagination the taxpayer’s liability. Still, if this Stimulus Bill is designed to help those who are struggling get their feet underneath them, maintain stability for their children, and continue moving away from the road to poverty and welfare, would it be worthy of consideration to have one’s loan rate be lowered a percentage point or so? Apparently not.

In querying several people of desperate circumstances, I’ve not found any person who has received, or been given any hope of, the potential of debt relief. I have run across one person who is a well-to-do investor who has been given easy loans to buy rental homes on speculation. Why? He is not a risk. At all. While I can’t fault this person for his excellent judgment which enabled him to get where he is, I thought the Stimulus Plan was going to help, not only the economy in general, but struggling people who had a chance of recovering.

Lest this sound like a personal grudge about my daughter, allow me to get back to the online friend. What disturbs me about this story? The bank which hired this young woman created a job. That job will then be reported as “job growth” in the face of unemployment statistics. What tangible commodity is being created by this job? Nothing. She calls people in crisis and tells them the bad news (relishing in the power of doing so). Where is the bank obtaining the money for this new job? I could be wrong, but common sense tells me they are using Stimulus money to finance it. What will become of this job? It will vanish when the applicants for Stimulus relief have been extinquished. From where does this Stimulus money come? From you and me, the taxpayers. So, in summary, we are taxing ourselves to tell ourselves we can’t have our money. Not only that, despite seeing the obvious effects of unemployment all around us, we cling to the hope that Washington tells us there was an increase in job creation.

Granted, my reflections are not based on a wide-based study. On the other hand, I cannot ignore my own intellect. With my ear to the ground in my community, I know of more and more people who are unemployed and struggling. I know of not one person in need who has received assistance or the promise therein, of Stimulus money. I hear that the Administration is claiming victory in “new jobs” although all accounts - conservative and liberal - cite government jobs as being those created. In the private sector, a new job created? I guess so. One in which the employee gets to tell people in need, “No.”