Cain and Abel's Mortgage Company

I agree with JohnBowers. An ad hominem attack on Santelli doesn't change the fundamental merit of his comments. We shouldn't be rewarding bad behavior. Okay, you say, Santelli should be looking in the mirror before he points to the splinter in his neighbor's eye. Fine, but guess what. A policy that taxes the winners to pay the losers, enacted mostly by the losers, is, according to Aristotle, a formula for the end of democracy. This goes beyond having the rich pay a higher percentage for public services: paying my neighbor's mortgage isn't even a public service except in the most abstract sense that is totally removed from all notion of social justice. And therefore, in my books, it is nothing more than theft. Santelli calls a moral hazard what it is, and I respect him for that, no matter his background.

If you could poll the readers of the Calculated Risk blog, or others like it, you'd probably see well over 90% agree with Santelli's sentiment.

Santelli himself may be a hypocrite and playing to his new audience, if what you say is true. That does not mean that his audience, or those who appreciate the sentiment, are also being hypocritical. They are just people who weren't enticed by the madness of crowds and seeked out dissenting points-of-view in blogs like Calculated Risk. They are, in a sense, the "winners" but in this topsy-turvy world they are being dissuaded (in pieces like this) from collecting their winnings. They should feel guilty for this lack of charity even though many sacrifices and risk were taken to get to a "winning" position?

I didn't move my 401K balance out of stocks 12 months ago. Other people did. Do they owe me anything?

Thanks to big, corporate builders and low interest rates provided by the federal government to keep employment up, too many shopping centers, office buildings, corporate centers, homes, condos and apartments were built. It was obvious to all but no one stopped it. We are now faced with glut of said structures. Oversupply leads to price reductions and reduced value of current said structures resulting in owners being saddled with homes they overmortgaged and now cannot afford or sell.

The Federal (i.e. we the taxpayers) government should no longer support builders and buyers with low interest loans but should now support the elimination of older portions of said buildings i.e. put people to work tearing down structures not building new ones. This includes tearing down New Orleans and surrounding parishes which will continue to cost taxpayers billions in humanitarian/reconstruction costs with every visit from Katrina- type hurricanes. Living below sea level is simply too risky for taxpayers to continue to support. Ditto for the rest of the hurricane regions of the USA.

As the keeper of my sisters and brothers, this I support. Add to this my support for creating green jobs i.e. more hydroelectric dams, more nuclear power plants, more wind/solar/wave farms especially off the coasts to include off the coast of Massachusetts where Senator Kennedy and his ilk have previously prevented because it would affect their ocean view from their many coastal properties.