Rekiwi's Blog

If people don't bear the costs of their actions, they impose a cost on society.

This quote in a recent San Jose Mercury News article called to the little Libertarian in me.

If you're a homosexual, more power to you. I don't care where you stick your penis as long as it's consensual and everyone is over the age of consent. However, if you go bareback with multiple anonymous partners, then I'm concerned about the affect your suicidal behavior will have on your partners, the incidence of AIDS, the further strain on the health system, and the safety of the blood supply.

If you regularly drink yourself to oblivion, I'm sorry. In the meantime, please be sharp when you're servicing the engine of the airliner I'll be flying in. And please don't expect to take the head of the line when your poor liver morphs into jerky.

If you pull down a 7- or 8-figure income, I would expect that your personal responsibility would be commensurate with your compensation. You fuck up big time, then you fry. Please don't ask me, my children, and my grandchildren to bail you out.

At least that was my first reaction.

We're likely all going to have a big hangover from the recent mortgage-backed securities and subprime excesses, but who should be bearing the costs of whose actions?

The captains of industry and finance who gambled the cash we handed to them in trust?

The brokers for writing dodgy loans?

Speculators for juicing the market?

Homebuyers for signing documents they didn't understand?

Bill Clinton for repealing the Glass-Steagall Act?

Should we be bailing out banks and skewing the basic principles of risk and reward? Or should we take the strong medicine and let some institutions implode?

In the spirit of full disclosure, the previous era of free-flowing credit enabled my wife and me to buy our house. My father-in-law wasn't in the mind to buy us a house to live in like he did his eldest son. My wife and I were young, childless, and not in the habit of lighting our Cohibas with Franklins, so we took a 4%-down first and wacky second mortgage on an old fixer-upper, tract-home rental. It still looks like crap after all these years and drives us nuts in a lot of ways, but as my wife noted, the best thing about the house is that we can afford it... and that we're not stuck in freaking Tracy or Stockton.