I especially like the comments.

Sir,

I met a man a few weeks ago with whom I obliged in conversation about his current untenable situation.  He owns a house in Sacramento, California which he has owned not more than 5 years.  His vocation asked for his relocation to Newark, New Jersey, which left him in quite a predicament.  You see, his employer also has an “office” in Houston, Texas, which to his eye is much more attractive an abode than New Jersey.  Ultimately, this man would like to move his family to Houston, Texas to live with great anticipation of his employer granting him a position in the Bayou City.

Thus begins the predicament.  As a result of the crisis surrounding the current housing market, the man paid more for his house than it is worth today.  His idea to rectify this situation was to become delinquent in his payments, and allow the bank to repossess the house, but not before he was to buy a new house in Houston.  When I queried him about his equity in the house, he mentioned he did, in fact, have some equity that he could retain once the house was sold at market value.  I asked him if he was concerned about his credit worthiness after allowing a house, which he has equity in, to foreclose.  He replied, “It does not matter, they are going to have to change the rules anyway.”  I was flabbergasted at this complete and utter lack of honor, order, and integrity.

When our nation was recovering from the Revolutionary War, and initiating what is now the Federal Government.  There was much debate in congress over the owners of war bonds issued to servicemen as payment for their service to us in the war.  Seeing as how the government had very little money, it was thought that bonds issued would spread the costs out over a period of years in order to keep the government from going bankrupt.  There was not much confidence in the new government, and the servicemen who held these bonds needed cash.  Enter the first form of American Capitalism:  Speculators would buy these bonds at 20 cents on the dollar from the veterans who were not so sure they would ever be paid.  These speculators would then redeem the bonds.  The veterans bet against the fledgling government, and the speculators bet on it.

Then, the debate in congress began.  Republicans at the time did not trust speculators, and did not feel they should pay the speculators who held war bonds.  It was Alexander Hamilton, a federalist, who convinced congress that if we as a government did not make good on the bonds issued, we could not expect financing from our citizens, allies, or private banks.  This, in effect, gave us the nations first “Credit Score.”

I ask the question, where would we be as a nation if we did not originally make good on a promise to pay our debts?  Honor, order, and integrity is what brought us this far, and must be what allows our great national economy to continue.

Ms. Silence Dogood

Albert Einstein defined, “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”  Let us take this definition, which I doubt many would disagree with, and apply it to history and the current debate over health care reform.

Medicare was founded in 1965 with the passage of the Social Security Act with its ceremonial first customer being none other than President Harry S. Truman.  This was the beginning of the Great Single-Payer Health Care System Experiment (my term).  From inception through 1980, costs had doubled every 4 years, and the outlays in 2007 totaled 16% of the federal budget to the tune of $440 Billion.  This amount of spending is second only to Social Security itself and Defense.

While one could argue over the priority of health care spending versus defense spending, the more concerning issue is cost control.  In 1967, the House Ways and Means committee predicted the entire cost of the Medicare program would be $12 Billion by 1990 when the actual spending was $110 Billion, almost 10 times the original estimation.

If history is any indication, the roughly $1 Trillion spending bill being discussed in congress can be expected to cost much more than is advertised.  Are we not insane to expect that our government can do the same thing for millions more Americans and NOT let spending get out of control, again?

Welcome to Poor Richard’s Postings!  My goal is to pen commentaries on current events with the historical perspective of the Founding Fathers and other important political figures.  I will write for myself at times, and at times the historical figures will write from their own perspectives, but the blog will reference history as a lesson in today’s world.