Mortgage bailout is the object of my ire

Ok, I know it's been a while--more than three months since my last post. In that time, I've welcomed a new daughter into the world, passed another test on my way to a Chartered Financial Consultant designation, and scrambled to find and buy a replacement car for my Sentra, which unexpectedly died on the Pa. Turnpike. So I've been busy.

What prompted me to write today? Outrage. The culprit? The Bush mortgage bailout plan. It's even made me do something that I've never done before: write to my congressman and senators. (That would be Jim Saxton, Frank Lautenberg, and Bob Menendez--and you didn't even think I knew who they were, did you, Dad?)

Wish I had the government in step in to freeze the rate on the ARM I took out on my first house back in 1999, when I didn't know any better. Would have been nice to pay the low initial rate I got for an extra five years.

Better yet, wish M and I had used an ARM to buy that oh-so-nice $464,000 house we looked at a few years ago. We knew we could never afford it with a fixed-rate mortgage on our five-figure income. What were we thinking? We could still be living there, sitting pretty with an affordable rate until 2012. And who knows, by then I could have turned this blog into a money-making machine, become CEO of my company, or hit the lottery, so we could afford the payments when the rate resets then.

One anonymous poster on Real Time Economics sums up my feelings about the Bush plan pretty well, plus gave me a chuckle:

"I would like the government to help me out with my gambling debt in Vegas. The casino didn’t explain the rules very well. And I didn’t realize that the house had the advantage. I would like my life savings back. If you could just give me a little more time, I think I could win it all back. Please help me!"

Shhhh, anonymous...Don't give Washington any more bright ideas.