Numbers show bleak picture

Re Feb. 1 column by Issac Bailey, “Time to sell mass refinancing”

I don’t usually read articles written by Bailey since most of his columns are slanted on how great this administration is turning the country around, but I did read his column on refinancing.

True to form, Bailey loves the populist view that because 30 percent of homeowners don’t or can’t pay their mortgage because of underwater values, the government needs to step in and rewrite an existing contract while the other 70 percent of us foot the bill. In Bailey’s world, contracts are meant to be broken just the way General Motors’ was in 2009 by leaving the shareholders to swing in the wind. If we follow this logic, how would Bailey feel if his employer, The Sun News, decided to rewrite his contract and pay him less money? Or how would the same employer react if readers demanded the paper to lower the monthly rate since all of us are receiving less of a newspaper than we did several years ago without the benefit of a TV guide and a classified section on Monday or Tuesday?

I think Bailey is living in a fantasy world if he believes this government, or any government for that matter, is the answer to any problem facing the country today since they have an abysmal record of solving or managing anything. Bailey pointed out that for almost two years the private sector has created jobs. The last six months of the Bush administration saw a loss of 700,000 a month. This administration loses 350,000 a week according to the BLS figures released every Thursday morning at 8:30.

No matter how many jobs are created, if you lose more than 1 million a month and have a false 8.5 percent unemployment rate (It is closer to 15 percent according to some economists) we still won’t come out of the same recession that supposedly ended almost two years ago. Obama touted the success of GM regaining the No. 1 spot in sales last week as proof that his policies are working. The same president that blamed the tsunami for hampering the recovery is now suggesting that his policies are the reason GM has rebounded to profitability over Toyota and Honda? Anyone that has the slightest idea how profit/loss works would be quick to point out that GM’s IPO was $44 a share, rose to $45 and now is at $22. In a liberal’s view, that makes it a success.

The writer lives in Little River.