There is a problem, a big problem, as we all know, in the housing industry today. The problem, however, isn’t just about housing but about Capitalism, or more succinctly, the American brand of Capitalism. We know by now that a great deal of the housing crisis was caused by greed; greed on the part of mortgage brokers wishing to make a fast buck, the loan originators and processors wishing the same and secretaries and countless others wishing to simply keep their jobs. And, of course the bankers and the Wall Street MBA’s, looking for the quick mega-buck, as usual, but, remember this, none of this could have happened if the system itself didn’t loan itself to this behavior. Most of these players had either seen this action before, in the late 70’s, early 80’s, during the Carter years, or knew somebody who had and also knew somebody who had struck it rich by using the system, for their ends. In the American brand of Capitalism most free-traders and entrepreneurs are followers of Niccolò Machiavelli, to say the very least, and they all subscribe to the feeling and philosophical leanings that the ends justify the means and have subscribed to that theory for centuries.

The trouble is when so many human beings decide to let their more Machiavellian side control their feelings and thereby lose their hearts in the bargain, which, of course, we all know, cannot enter into the market-place but, I say to you this: if it (the human heart) doesn’t enter into the marketplace then what will happen is what, in point of fact, is now happening: the marketplace, the free-market society, American Capitalism, is crumbling, crumbling right before our very eyes, as huge banks are caught not only paying mortgage brokers, as they have for decades that I personally know of because they paid me, to lie, it’s called yield spread and yield spread premium, and paying lawyers and others to fraudulently sign foreclosure docs that they knew little about and cared even less about. When you build a system on lies you have a Ponzi scheme and the only difference between Bernard Madoff’s and ours is this: in our brand of Capitalism the system can only sustain itself if the population accepts it by embracing it, or, as in the very largest slice of the truth of it, at the very least, by using it, in other words, buying goods and services, paying taxes, etc., which you can only do if you have the very commodity that is causing the system’s downfall: money. The problem is not only that we have this huge unemployment crisis but that the gap between the rich and the poor is ever-increasing as our brand of Capitalism keeps pushing those able to pay others to do so only when necessary and they have made a huge mistake; as has our entire educational system by inculcating into the heads of our children that to use their heads and not their hearts in their business dealings is not only proper but the only way that they will stay in business and so we produce a Bill Gates, as greedy and deadly a businessman as there ever was, who now has so much money he must dedicate his life to “saving the planet” when in reality he can’t even save his own soul. And I say that until we have politicians who stop preaching that they will not be hurt if the economy tanks because they are so wealthy and above it all but that if we don’t elect them we, the general public, will perish, than it is our system that will perish, as it is, perishing, at this very minute.

I don’t have the answer to our dilemma, I only know this: that until we stop embracing our dark side in every business deal, by using our heads, what we learned in our schools and colleges, and

start using our hearts, as we supposedly learned from our mothers and fathers and used as children, then our system is doomed and, I tell you, I see it every day where people are sick of the status quo, the politicians who are Democrats one day and Republicans the next and the wealthy businessmen and corporations and credit card companies who continue to attempt to teach us that the mafia has nothing on them, as they too can use double-digit interest rates but that they can do it legally because they have the politicians and thereby, the system itself, in their pockets. We have hearts, I personally know this because I see this also in my business dealings every day; the only problem is: are they so overwhelmed by our brains that we must hang a “temporarily out of service” sign on them because the temporary is now turning into permanent.

The banks cannot start foreclosure proceedings anymore without the wrath of lawyers who have located a long-ago missing heart, there are still a few left, and they cannot continue to act as if nothing has changed when everything has changed. They must forgive loans and reset loans and make loans at reasonable interest rates, the fed-funds rate is zero percent, they are getting money at no interest from the fed, but will they pass this on to consumers and give us—irrespective of our F.I.C.O. scores and previous credit history—3% or less loans—or will they simply go back to their old American Capitalist ways that they have lived by for so many years. My heart says that they will change and we will become what the founders meant for us to become: a Democracy, but my head tells me that they will not change and we will continue as a Capitalist nation; one on its last legs.

I sure hope my heart is right!