The Way Back Home

Dear President Obama,

I’m sure that you get a ton of mail offering advice on how to run this country, on curing the economy, on winning the war on terrorism, and a whole lot more. Like most Americans, I read the news and try to decipher the complexity of it all. But I am left with more questions than answers. Like many small business owners in this country, I am left asking, “where’s the money?” While I’ve read reports that Goldman Sachs has paid a settlement of some $550 million to the federal government, I was amazed to learn that Goldman earned more than that figure on the appreciation of their stock when the settlement was announced.

I’m not sure how that works, but it would seem that they came out with little more than a bruised ego. For all of the harm they helped cause to our general welfare, I hardly believe that they have justly compensated Americans. With the bank bailouts worth some $700 billion of public funds, which saved the largest of this country’s financial institutions from the ruin of their own making, do you suppose that you could influence them to loosen their belts a notch and start lending again to the small businesses of this country rather than investing in Wall Street again? Remember, we are the ones who hire majority of the workers, not the banks. I mean,if you are truly dedicated to decreasing unemployment, stimulating the economy and putting Americans back to work, you have to prime the pump with something other than the fumes from British Petroleum’s oil spill on the Gulf Coast!

I continue to hear your critics talk about balancing the budget and that we can’t spend what we don’t have, yet you have asked Congress once again to pass an emergency war expenditure of some $35 billion for Afghanistan. As many others, I have read about the public corruption in that country and their reliance on the opium trade to fuel their economy. But what I don’t understand is how you can continue to prop up this kind of regime while letting state and local governments in this nation falter, some teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, who then are forced by lack of funding to cut jobs and programs, cut back on parks and libraries, affecting our schools and in some cities, police services. This just doesn’t seem right. If you can spend this kind of money in someone else’s country, don’t you think we deserve the same or better here? I have also been reading about the banking reform legislation that was just passed by Congress and believe, as you do, that banking reform is absolutely necessary. Yet, I was reminded recently when I visited my insurance broker to pay my home owner’s policy that this insurance company also promotes itself as a banking operation, too.

When I go to my bank, I realize that they think they are stockbrokers and financial consultants, as well as bankers. I can only imagine that one day I’ll go to my local hospital and see that they are selling health and life insurance. Now I don’t have a degree in economics, finance or even law, but from the common man’s perspective it seems like the banks, the insurance companies and, in the future, health care providers have a conflict of interest in selling services that are not part of their core business. Banks need to be in the business of loaning money to people and businesses, not acting as stockbrokers. Yes, they do need to reinvest their deposits to get a return on those dollars, but we all know that the most stable investments in the history of banking in this country has been long-term mortgages to average citizens who benefit from ownership.

Right now, a significant number of people can’t even refinance the properties they own to get a lower interest rate because the banking corporations underwriters fear that they don’t make enough money. Well, if people are currently paying on a higher rate mortgage and are requesting a lower rate refinance, with little or no money cashed out, how is it that they can’t afford to pay a lower rate mortgage? Something just isn’t right.

I know that the majority of citizens of this country voted for you and your message of “hope and change,” but right now, America is running out of hope and the Main streets of this country are operating on spare change and dwindling savings. Do suppose you could loan me a small portion of that Goldman Sachs settlement until the banks figure out how to loan money to average citizens again? If you think that this would be a topic for your “beer diplomacy” in the backyard of your place, just give me a call. I’ll see if I can break away from my hectic schedule of treading water.