Chris Tomaras / Straight Talk / January 17, 2009

Let me ask you a question. If all of the props were suddenly removed from your life would you be standing on solid rock or would you be standing on sand?

It was recently reported that an out-of-work money manager in California loses a fortune and wipes out his family in a murder-suicide.

A 90-year-old Ohio widow shoots herself in the chest as authorities arrive to evict her from the modest house she called home for 38 years.

In Massachusetts, a housewife who had hidden her family's mounting financial crisis from her husband sends a note to the mortgage company, warning: "By the time you foreclose on my house, I'll be dead."

Then the caller shot herself to death, leaving an insurance policy and a suicide note on a table.
"She put in her suicide note that it got overwhelming for her," said her husband, John. "Apparently she didn't have anyone to talk to. She didn't come to me. I don't know why. There's gotta be some help out there for people that are hurting, (something better) than to see somebody lose a life over a stupid house."

A few weeks ago we talked about Adolf Merckle, one of Germany's wealthiest billionaires, who committed suicide after his family business empire began unraveling amid mounting debt.

The French financier, who founded Access International Advisors, was found dead in his Manhattan office just before Christmas. He reportedly lost $1.5 billion on behalf of customers in Bernard Madoff's alleged Ponzi scheme.
Earlier, an investment-fund executive at Olivant Ltd. in London and a veteran Bear Stearns manager in New York committed suicide.

And then there is Marcus Shrenker, the 38 yr old high flying, crooked and insolvent financier who tried to stage a suicide by parachuting to the ground in central Alabama before crashing his small plane, where he'd stashed a motorcycle with full saddlebags in a storage unit rented just the day before.

The point is that all types of people, young and old, male and female, good and bad, rich and poor from every walk of life are being tested.

Across the country, authorities are becoming concerned that the nation's financial woes could turn increasingly violent, and they are urging people to get help. Would you think? In some places, mental-health hot lines are jammed, counseling services are in high demand and domestic-violence shelters are full.

I was watching interviews the other night with a variety of people including surviving passengers from the plane that crashed into the Hudson River on Thursday not far from where the twin towers once stood and just a few blocks from Wall Street. This was very surreal for me to imagine, as this was where I spent many years of my career and where 9/11 is deeply ingrained in my mind. As the plane went down, surviving passengers, when interviewed said that many people throughout the plane just prayed as the plane entered the water. It was described as a miracle, with all the passengers and crew on board surviving. What does it mean when people say it was a miracle? And could it mean that God might just be there for us when we call out to Him? I’ll let you be the judge of that.

 Why is it that when most people are in dire, life threatening positions they cry out to God? Yet there are those whose self-esteem is all tied up in themselves and their money and possessions and when the rug is pulled out from under them, they cannot handle the despair and the humiliation.

As I was preparing for today’s show, I was watching the presidents farewell address and listening to him describe the horror of the experience as he reflected on 9/11. I hear people now comparing our current economic crisis to the tragedy of 9/11. You certainly can’t be serious.

Maybe we should build a monument titled “lost as a result of the financial meltdown.”

On Tuesday our new president will be inaugurated and the list of his falling cabinet members continues to be challenged. Initially it was Rahm Emanuel as chief of staff, and Bill Richardson, as Commerce Secretary, and now in jeopardy is the highly touted former president of the NY Federal Reserve Bank, Tim Geithner, as Secretary of the Treasury. Imagine the head of the US treasury and the IRS not paying his taxes claiming he forgot.

I’ve heard politicians and some reporters say that Tim Geithner is a very talented individual who brings a great deal to the table and the alleged accusations against him, reflecting his bad judgment, not to mention them being illegal are minor in scope, therefore they should be overlooked. Well, it seems to me we’ve had a boatload of these so-called very smart people who are considered very talented get us into one heck of a mess.

And let’s don’t forget, Illinois is about to be without its’ illustrious, smooth talking, Senate seat selling, governor and Minnesota and Alaska are short one senator each.  

While a record number of Americans are losing jobs and taking pay cuts in the worst economy we can remember in decades, lawmakers have voted themselves an annual salary increase. Well I’m sure they’re truly deserving of it. I mean look how hard their working to spend us into oblivion with an inconceivable amount of indebtedness. And gee whiz, they not only have worked very hard to spend our tax dollars but more importantly they don’t know where the money was spent. That’s a very unique circumstance wouldn’t you say? I can’t wait to see where the other $350B ends up. And God help us if they get their hands on another $825B.

JP Morgan, BofA, Citibank, Wells Fargo, AIG just to name a few, each got their mega billions and American taxpayers – wow!  each got enough to pay the interest on their latest credit card bill and dinner at McDonalds for a month. Why don’t we give these Washington buffoons another trillion? That way they can give themselves even a larger pay hike next year.

And by the way, remember the outrage when AIG threw a party for about $450,000 following their bailout. Well that looks like chump change compared to the $66mm taxpayers are paying for the upcoming inauguration. Now that’s one heck of a lot of party balloons.

In an editorial written by Patrick Buchanan this past September entitled “The Party’s Over” Buchanan says that The Crash of 2008, which is now wiping out trillions of dollars of our people's wealth is, (like the Crash of 1929), likely to mark the end of one era and the onset of another.

The new era will see a more sober and much diminished America. The 'Omnipower' and 'Indispensable Nation' we heard about in all the hubris and braggadocio following our Cold War victory is history.

Seizing on the crisis, the left says we are witnessing the failure of market economics, a failure of conservatism. This is nonsense.   What we are witnessing is the collapse of Gordon Gecko ('Greed Is Good!') capitalism.

What we are witnessing is what happens to a prodigal nation that ignores history, and forgets and abandons the philosophy and principles that made it great.

For years, we Americans have spent more than we earned.   We save nothing. Credit card debt, consumer debt, auto debt, mortgage debt, corporate debt -- all are at record levels. And with pensions and savings being wiped out, much of that debt will never be repaid.

Our standard of living is inevitably going to fall. For foreigners will not forever buy our bonds or lend us more money if they rightly fear that they will not be paid back, if at all, in cheaper dollars. We are going to have to learn to live again within our means.

Thus THE PARTY'S OVER!
So again I ask you, if you were to lose the props in your life will you be standing on solid ground or sand?

And that’s this week’s straight talk!