Charity begins at home

My tryst with the 3 Rs was no different from what many Indian school children undergo. Reading, 'Riting and 'Rithmatic was rote learning. The rote didn't do much harm: I consider myself reasonably well read, reasonably able to write and reasonably able to add 2 and 2.

The rote, however, left some lasting impressions on my mind. Predominantly, it left some sayings seared in my memory.

As a 7 year old, I remember that stern looking teacher in a starched white sari, hair tightly wrapped in a bun, ordering us to learn 100 sayings "by-heart" over the weekend and come prepared to recite them on Monday. I remember spending hot Sunday afternoons, hastily reciting them aloud over and over, so I could escape the lashes on my open palm from the skinny, excrutiatingly painful cane on Monday.

Of all those hundreds of sayings that I learned "by-heart", the first one springs to mind with explosive force when I read about the hullabaloo being created by the Congressional Budget Office, the private health care insurers, the sundry uninformed junta and the republicans about the cost of the GREAT HEALTH CARE REFORM proposed by the Obama administration.

It was called, "Charity begins at home!"

And I FINALLY understand what that means. What it means is something similar to the Airline lifejacket rules: If you have a child or an elder sitting beside you, first place your own lifejacket and take care of yourself in the event of a disaster, before you help the child or the elderly. There is a good reason for this: if you become disabled, you cannot help anyone, so help yourself first. Before you give to Charity, first ensure that your plate is full.

And this is exactly what we, as Americans have failed to do. No one, not one senator or congressman really, truly, opposed the Bank Bailout or what is really the beautifully disguised Great American Transfer of Wealth. There were no rallying cries about cost and debt. Public opinion didn't matter. They gave to "charity".

No one really opposed Bush's built-on-sand war on Iraq that cost and still continues to cost us a big chunk of change.

No one opposed Bush's tax cuts for the rich that cost us and continue to cost us a bomb. There were no stentorian shouts of injustice, unfairness or unlevel playing fields.They gave to "charity".

But wait, when it's Charity for home

- When it is money for the Stimulus bill to help the unemployed who have been at the receiving end of the Banks deceit that brought the economy crashing?

- When there's talk about universal health care for everyone in the richest country in the world?

THEN, it's time to shout about debt, deficit, spending and cost.

When will we learn that Charity SHOULD first begin at home?

Obama's Housing plan and the Responsible Renter

There is a cry of injustice in the air.

This is from people who have been responsible renters. They question the fact that they are being asked to bailout irresponsible homeowners who have bought larger homes than they can afford and are now going into foreclosure. They point out the unfairness of Obama's housing rescue plan to people who have been renters . They aver that it is better for home prices to fall due to foreclosures, so that finally, they too, can afford to buy homes that they can now afford.

A completely fair question. A very fair concern. And a very fair free-market expectation.

Let me see if I can help address this concern. Before I start to make my point, I want to clarify: I do not personally stand to gain from Obama's Housing rescue plan. Not a cent. While I am not an Economics expert, I do try to see both sides of the coin and am trying to look at the economy as a whole.

This downturn has affected all of us and is a danger to this country's long term stability. From that standpoint, it is important to go to the source of what started off this cascading disaster. The subprime loan fiasco and the foreclosure of homes has been identified by experts as the root cause of this economic meltdown. So, it makes sense that we fix the cause and not the symptoms of the illness.

Job losses, failing banks and auto companies, unemployment lines, disrupted children and families, increase in number of people without health care... all these are symptoms of the disease that has taken hold of our economy. The root cause is the housing market collapse.

As long as most people were diligently paying their mortgages, the banks continued on their merry route to making more and more money. Everything was fine. The sun shone.

As the subprime market started to melt, we felt the first tremors of the housing market. Like any untreated illness, the disease soon spread to other areas and now we have otherwise healthy mortgages failing, sometimes due to a job loss, sometimes due to forces beyond a homeowner's control and sometimes due to the sheer irresponsibility of being overextended on debt. As more and more homes started to foreclose, it brought home prices down all across the country. Responsible homeowners were now upside down on mortgages that they have been paying diligently. They owed more than their house was worth. And so began more defaults leading to the avalanche of sliding home prices.

In order to staunch that bleeding, the Obama administration has correctly addressed the root cause: stem the foreclosures.

But what does that do for renters?

Now, there are two types of renters: ones that will probably always rent their whole lives for a variety of reasons - maybe they are nomadic, or they love the freedom of not being tied down to a home or they choose to rent for a variety of economic reasons. The housing meltdown does not affect them significantly, other than the fact that their rents probably came down a bit - they now have more bargaining power because there are many more homes for rent in the market.

The second kind of renter is the one who, with the falling prices, can now finally afford to buy a home. These are the people who have protested Obama's Housing rescue plan vociferously. They feel they can now finally afford a home because home prices are where they should be.

Nobody is arguing the validity of their point.

But here is my opinion: if a renter can now finally afford to purchase a home, there is no dearth of foreclosed homes to purchase. Allowing foreclosures to continue unchecked will cause great danger by letting the markets go into a free-fall until the entire economy collapses. And a collapsing economy will certainly hurt everyone. Even though a renter can finally afford to purchase, he/she may not be able to get a loan as banks which have been singed by defaulting homeowners will now be extra careful about giving loans to new homeowners. In addition, even if banks are willing to lend, they do not have the money to do so.

This situation reminds me of the "dog and pebble" story that Indians love to tell - When one finds a stray dog and wants to aim a pebble to chase it off, one cannot find the right sized pebble. And if there is a right sized pebble, a stray dog is nowhere in sight.

Likewise, this feeling of being able to take advantage of the foreclosure market. Homes are now available and affordable, but loans are harder to get. And with more homes being foreclosed, the cascading effect on the economy as a whole, is terrible to contemplate.

So, Renters! The govt. is not just using our hard-earned tax dollars to benefit irresponsible homeowners. The dollars are actually being used to prop up our economy by fixing the root cause of the disease, so that we all may have jobs, stable homes and health care.

Foreclosures are a lose-lose for EVERYONE - homeowners, lenders, banks, renters and new purchasers. If we take a step back and look it from a bird's eye view, we will see that Obama's plan, while not perfect, will eventually help prop up the economy, IF carried out without interference from vested interests.

But that's a big IF.

Obama's Housing Rescue Plan and the Responsible Homeowner

There is an uproar in the air.

Rants like the ones by the (in)famous Rick Santelli, has people up in arms, about not wanting to pay for their neighbor's mortgage. Rick's rant reminds me of the Sudanese people who protested the International Criminal Court's arrest warrant for their President, who has been accused of committing war crimes and genocide against the people of Darfur. The depths of ignorance that encourages such great manipulation is stunning. That the very same people whose friends, neighbors and relatives have been the target of genocide, now protest the arrest warrant of the person who is responsible for the genocide, is at best very sad and at worst, another crime of exploitation against the ignorant. Like the Sudanese, some of our people are being misled, once again, by the likes of Rick Santelli. I know the example of manipulation and exploitation I gave above is hard-hitting, but the point is this: we shouldn't miss the forest for the trees. Let us not cut off our noses to spite our face.

Obama's plan to rescue homeowners who are stuck in high interest, fancy mortgages that they are unable to pay has gotten a lot of people's (especially Republicans!) knickers in a bunch. Many have said that they do not want to rescue irresponsible people who have taken out a larger mortgage than they can afford or bought a larger house than they can afford.

For one second, lets set aside the fact that the taxpayer is rescuing irresponsible banks and financial companies to the tune of many billions, even though many have knowingly sold bad mortgages to people by misleading, mis-stating or misinforming them. That is a debate for another blog post.

Even if the American taxpayer was not rescuing the banks and financial industries, I would still recommend we stand by Obama's plan to rescue the distressed homeowner.

Why do I say this? It is not because I stand to gain personally. No, I will not benefit from Obama's plan, so there is no vested interest here. The reason I support Obama's plan, even though it is not perfect, is this: If there is ever a chance that the housing market recovers and by virtue of its tight interconnection, the financial markets recover, the only hope is to stem the foreclosures.

The banks which are opposing or dampening the extent of Obama's homeowner rescue package are continuing to exhibit the very same behavior that caused this collapse: that of greed, selfishness and short term mercenary avarice. What they do not understand is this: foreclosure benefits no one. NO ONE!. Not even the neighbor who has been very meticulous is paying his mortgage, very responsible in buying the home he can afford and who now resents having to rescue someone he considers irresponsible.

When a home in a neighborhood goes into foreclosure, all the bank is interested in, is to retrieve the principal they put into it. The homeowner might have had about 10% or 20% invested in the home. But the bank will very easily price the home down to get it off its books. What does that do to a neighbor's home, the one who has been responsibly paying his mortgage? It automatically brings the value of his house down to match that of the foreclosure. In the end, as more foreclosures hit a neighborhood, the value of all the properties go down - it no longer matters if they are foreclosed or not.

So it is in the best interest of ALL of us, even those who have been religious about paying our mortgages, to stem foreclosures. The money spent will eventually benefit EVERYONE, not just the ones who are being rescued.

And Obama's plan, tries to achieve some of it (provided the banks don't lobby the House and Senate to add their riders to mangle the plan.)

Cliff hanger

Found this cartoon on the Miami Herald site and couldn't resist sharing. :)

We still have the GOP telling us what we are doing wrong. And some of us are still listening!

Walk the walk, Mr. Geithner!

I confess, I do not know much about Timothy Geithner, except that he is President Obama's nominee for Treasury Secretary. I have heard that he is highly qualified to head the IRS and lead us out of this economic mess.

I have also heard about his "innocent" (quote Sen. Max Baucus) mistake in not correctly paying his own taxes for 4 years in a row, which makes me wonder how credible he would be as the head of IRS. After all, this is the position to which we are all ultimately accountable to, for filing our own taxes!

As a country, our strength lies in the fact that we respect our leaders very much and entrust them with enormous leeway to make decisions on our behalf. Maybe because of this and because our leaders have the ability to impact so many lives with their decisions, we hold them to higher standards than we would an average Joe. We expect them to have earned the right to make decisions on our behalf. That right comes with an enormous responsibility. While I agree that no one can be infallible all the time, just look around and see the havoc that has been wrought in these past 8 years because we have not held our leaders accountable to walk the walk.

Granted that there were extenuating circumstances to Mr.Geithner's oversight. Granted Mr. Geithner is an upright, forthright and very knowledgeable individual. Unfortunately, the mistakes made are not only very recent, they are in direct correlation to the job he is seeking. And that job is of enormous importance to this country, especially at this period in history.

Life is such...There are some mistakes that cannot be rectified because they are so context-sensitive. If a fighter pilot loses concentration for a split second, his plane can crash, killing him and others. There is no condoning that mistake. But if a desk worker loses concentration for more than a hour, it wont matter at all. Mr. Geithner's mistake must be viewed in the context of the job he is being asked to perform. It could probably be condoned were he to apply for any other position in the Obama team. But, Treasury Secretary making this mistake? Its like the babysitter pinching the baby first and then rocking the cradle.

Nothing personal Mr.Geithner, but as an average citizen, I think its time we held our leaders to the same standards they expect of us.

Pardon Mr.McCain, your slip was showing! :)

I like John McCain. I think he's cool. But wait, I think he's cool now! Not during the long-drawn out election battle.

That was the time I was dismayed by him. He didn't seem authentic. Everything around him seemed contrived and it showed. His slip, unfortunately, showed. In British parlance, a slip is what a lady wears under her clothing... the chemise, the petticoat. And McCain's slip showed, embarrassing him and us!

As a brand new US citizen, I was completely, devoutly and mesmerizingly obsessed with the election. When I first started following the election on CNN, I wasn't really clear about the difference between the Republicans and Democrats. I wasn't sure what each party's special vices were.

As an Air Force brat, I was a prime candidate to vote for John McCain. My childhood was spent in Air Force camps all around India. My father was a decorated war hero, a man who considered honor above his life and a fighter pilot like John McCain. John's story resonated with me. I knew what it meant to be live in the midst of war. I know what it means to lose a family member in the service of the nation. I know first-hand what it takes to keep a nation safe.

But then, I watched in fascination as the election battle heated. I didn't miss a single debate, a single SNL episode and my TV blared CNN 24/7. I watched as McCain lost his focus, his very integrity, as he chose Sarah Palin as his VP.

I was an Obama fan right from the start. In spite of that, because of McCain's stature and the stories I had read about his honor and integrity, I was willing to suspend judgment and give him a chance before I made any decision.

And then McCain chose Sarah Palin as his VP.

My origins are from a country that had elected a female Prime Minister in the 70s. I was happy about the fact that US finally had a woman in the top ticket. But, I watched in embarrassment as Sarah Palin stumbled through Katie Couric's very fair and relevant questions. Then I watched as she made misstep after misstep - the ostentatious wardrobe, paid for by the RNC, her war cries against Obama, her instigation of the crowd with tasteless innuendos... McCain, no doubt, did the right thing by supporting her staunchly, but as Sarah Palin showed her true colors of being totally unqualified for the role she was seeking to play at leading the nation, I began to question McCain's judgment. I wondered what motive he had for selecting her without vetting her credentials first.

Then, as the days passed, McCain seemed more strained, more lacklustre and more rudderless. He had lost the election even before the election came around, simply because he had lost his moorings.

McCain lost me the minute Sarah Palin displayed her inadequacy. Then he lost my vote over and over again as I saw how he conducted himself. I was especially dismayed when I read more about his wonderful reputation prior to the election. He was admired. People thought well of him. And now he had lost all that.

In my eyes, McCain's saving grace was his wonderful concession speech on the night Barack Obama won. He was gracious and large-hearted and sounded like the man people had been writing about. I was glad.

I am glad now too when I read this post on CNN's ticker: Ex-Obama foe plots comeback. I am ecstatic. I can admire John McCain again. And I do admire him. At 72, if I had the 7 houses, 11 cars and the money that John McCain has, I'd probably be lounging on a beach somewhere, ready to attain nirvana. Not John McCain. I truly believe he is working to serve the country.

The real John is back. Welcome Mr. McCain!

Even a cat has Karma!

Barack Obama and I have something in common - Our "change is coming" theme! Resist it as we may, life is all about change. Good change, bad change - we categorize it, but change is just change. If there was no change, life wouldnt be as exciting, as fun, and the wild careening ride until death releases us to God knows where!

As I connected this in my head I pondered about Subbu, my cat. He is a gift from my son. As I delight over him every morning and literally every time I catch sight of him - lolling around, begging for treats, sitting by the french window but with his head twisted back to see if I would come by and let him out, digging up my carpets, lying all day with paws up in the air under my son, Karthik's desk, I start thinking about how his life has changed in this past year.

Subbu was born as Sebastian, on a Wisconsin farm in the depths of winter. He was transported by Karthik's friend to their college residence when he was just a few weeks old. As a kitten, he adjusted very well to the drive - sleeping draped around the boy's neck for 3 hours.

Back in Madison, he was confronted with the dregs of an in-campus home - a deep, dank home filled with cigarette stubs, video games, dirty carpets, unmade beds, and dishes all over the place. His house mates consisted of another cat called Alistair and 5 young college males, who proceeded to pet him whenever they noticed him; feed him at a fairly regular schedule; but cleaned out the litter box only when even their friends who came drunk to their parties noticed the stench.

Subbu's sole contact with outside air for those 6 months, was when he was let out into the tiny deck, once in a long while. The rest of the time, he learned to play with Alistair and meow outside the boys' doors when he wanted to be petted.

When my son Karthik moved out of the house to live by himself, in the final semester of his college, Subbu was donated by Karthik's roommates to a girl who also lived in campus. We know not how Subbu's life was that semester; what we do know is that in a short span of a year, Subbu had moved 3 homes and had had 3 different set of living conditions - every change was out of his control.

When he finally came to me, he was again transported 8 hours - but this time, since he was older, we tried to put in a cat carrier. His fear of being locked up made him meow so pitifully and so loudly that we took our chances of being scratched and clawed and let him loose in the car. Cool cat that he is, he slept peacefully at Karthik's feet for 8 hours, his gorgeous gray fur merging seamlessly with the gray car mat.

Now he lives with us and he has been rechristened Subbu - simply because I cannot pronounce Sebastian very easily. In addition, the name Sebastian doesn't lend itself well to baby talk. :)
Subbu's life has changed yet again - I think its his Karma! Here he has access to the great outdoors - we live in a single family home in a sparsely populated neighborhood. There are no homes on one side of ours. Besides, ours is a lovely neighborhood - we have the deer, the racoons, bald soaring eagles, and even the peacocks, visit us regularly. There is a lake in the neighborhood, so Subbu gets to revert to his roots and pretend he's a tiger on a hunt! He crouches in the tall grass around the lake, seeking prey. He chases bugs around, and climbs on trees to pander to his true cat's nature. He gets to stay out as long as he wants to and when he comes back home with his fur laden with wild flowers, leaves and thorns, he gets groomed and petted.

Now Subbu is also due for another change when we move. He'll probably lose his great outdoors especially if we move into a more urban home.

So, what does this simple life story say about Karma?
Even a cat has his Karma. And that Karma drives his life in this birth. I guess the difference between a man's Karma and a cat's Karma is probably an element of free will that man has, that an animal does not. Beyond that, there's something to be said for Karma!