This beautiful ship. This splendid ship we call America is in grave peril. She is not being seriously threatened by any foreign adversary. She is not under physical attack by any foreign power. Still, she is dangerously close to slipping beneath the gray and threatening seas with all hands clinging to the promise we will be rescued. The America is being battered from repetitive blows that would have been mortal to any other ship of state. She is strong. She is proud to wave the stars and stripes from her masts. But even Old Glory appears to be weary and tattered from the battering the America has endured. We can save her. To save ourselves,we must save her. But first, we must cease inflicting harm to the ship we are all embarked on. The greatest threat to the America comes from our fellow voyagers. Our derelict captain and our crew have failed to plot a course for the ship to safely transit the turbulent seas we find ourselves in.

The injurious and near fatal damages inflicted on the America were born from greed, corruption, and the endless pursuit of absolute power. The perpetrators of these illegitimate acts are blinded by their frenzy to enrich or empower themselves and their political parties to the detriment of all of us. Wall Street, the banking & insurance industries, Corporate America , and our political establishment are all co-conspirators in this great game of greed and consolidation of power. These are the harms threatening to propel our great ship into the abyss. Fortunately, we ordinary voyagers on this magnificent ship do have the power to save her. We must be united. We must be cohesive, resolute and unyielding in our efforts to save this great ship. We must be Americans. We must be the American Family, united and standing strong. We must stand arm-in-arm and shoulder-to-shoulder if we are to successfully confront the formidable challenges before us. Otherwise, this ship will perish beneath the waves of history while we witness her piteous cries of anguish, taking with her the dreams and aspirations of generations past and the generations yet to come.

Over the previous ninety days Corporate America, Wall Street, and the banking and insurance
industries have raided the treasury for approximately 750 billion dollars! With our economy continuing it's downward spiral, our elected leaders on Capitol Hill recessed for the holidays and left the keys to the treasury with President Bush. On Friday, 12/19/2008 President Bush circumvented the will of the people and approved a bailout request from the Big Three auto makers in the amount of 17.4 billion dollars, not including Ford Motor Company which has not requested any assistance from the taxpayers thus far. On Monday 12/29/2008, the Fed approved an additional $6B in bailout funds to General Motors and GMAC. Over a span of ten days, the taxpayers have been victimized for $27.4 billion dollars. This for an industry collectively valued at no more than $7 billion dollars, including Ford Motor Company!

This is only the beginning. More and more corporate predators will troop to Washington and promote their industry as vital to the American economy and walk away with billions more of our money. The auto industry will no doubt return to Washington demanding another $17B in emergency aid. The Congress and the White House will approve these requests with the only qualification criteria being the predators must drive to Washington in hybrid automobiles so as to not draw attention to themselves by flying their corporate jets into Reagan National.

We must act now to prevent any further predatory raids on our treasury and to begin to recover the billions previously looted. As taxpayers we involuntarily invested over $17B on 12/19/2008 in an industry valued at only $7B. The taxpayers just invested $10B more into the Big Three automakers than they are valued at. Our only question should be where to sign the ownership papers. The taxpayers could invest a few billion more dollars to consolidate, restructure, and retool this industry so that we can build the cars America wants and needs. Affordable, fuel efficient, high tech vehicles. These vehicles would be manufactured by the taxpayer-owned auto industry for the taxpayers to purchase and own. Future industry earnings could be targeted to providing health-care to the millions of Americans without health insurance and to servicing our massive foreign debt. Think about it, where would you buy your next new car from? Most of us would buy from ourselves so that we could begin to earn our way out of this very demoralizing and dangerous financial crisis and improve the lives of all Americans at the same time.

Nationalize this industry now! We can begin earning our way out of this crisis immediately. If we rightfully demand ownership and nationalize the Big Three automakers now, we will effectively put a halt to future corporate predator's attempts to rob the national treasure. It will put them on notice if they come to Washington with hat in hand, they may very well leave without a shirt on their backs. We must put these treasury raiding entities on notice that we will no longer sanction their greed and failures by privatizing public funds for their corporations and industries to devour. The taxpayers must reserve the right to nationalize any corporation or business entity demanding the government bail them out of their financial difficulties. The taxpayers have been preyed upon for far too long. The prey must become the predator if we are to reverse the current despicable and debilitating financial developments propagated by Washington and these failed corporations. If these corporations and institutions are so vital to our financial system and our national security to warrant a taxpayer funded bailout, they certainly warrant being nationalized to protect ourselves from the adverse impacts stemming from their potential failures.

If you provide a marginally successful thief the tools and assistance needed for his trade-craft, he will become both prolific and wealthy. Our elected leadership in Washington must shoulder a major share of culpability for the highly demoralizing and perilous crisis confronting all Americans. Both major political parties have consciously contributed to the financial dilemma confronting this country. A little known piece of legislation was promulgated during the Clinton Administration officially referred to as the "Community Reinvestment Act". This legislation and the passionate support it received from certain members of Congress significantly contributed to the sub-prime mortgage crisis. Banks and lending institutions came under intense government pressure, under the auspices of the CRA, to provide affordable mortgage loans to individuals who were not even remotely qualified for those loans. Banks and other lending institutions were directed by the Fed to accept monthly welfare payments and unemployment benefits as "valid sources of income" to qualify individuals for a mortgage. It almost appears that anyone with a warm body temperature and a faint heartbeat qualified for a mortgage loan. No income, no job, no assets, no problem.

This little known legislation coupled with institutional and systemic greed within the banking industry led to the collapse of the housing market. Congress provided the thieves with the tools and the thieves became extraordinarily proficient at exploiting them. Our senators and representatives will tell you they were simply trying to ensure any American desiring to buy a home would have the opportunity to do so. As unfortunate as it is, we all know that there are many Americans that simply do not possess the financial means to meet their monthly rent obligations. How could the Congress, the CRA notwithstanding, believe these same people could meet their monthly mortgage obligations? At best, the more plausible explanation is that certain members of Congress with large urban constituencies yearned to increase the number of voters in their base, thus assuring success during subsequent re-election campaigns. It worked out very well for them. Consider the number of incumbents returned to office over the previous sixteen years. Meanwhile, the CRA has unarguably become a nightmare for taxpayers. The sub-prime mortgage crisis cost the taxpayers of America over $700B in bailout funds for the institutions participating in this perverse and predatory program. Not only were the taxpayers victimized by this bizarre program, many of the very people this program was supposed to provide affordable mortgages to are now without a home. Our Congress was conscious of the looming housing industry crisis years before it matured into a credit crisis large enough to potentially destroy the largest and most robust economy on earth. Congress did nothing even as warnings were sounded as early as 2004 that there were systemic risks to our financial system as a result of the sub-prime lending practices. Congress and the Fed continued to prod lending institutions to approve these ill-advised loans, all the while proclaiming the housing industry was financially sound. As late as September 2008 Representative Barney Frank (D-MA) Chairman Of The House Financial Services Committee, was reportedly telling us that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were not experiencing any financial difficulties. Representative Frank can take comfort in the knowledge he is not alone in shouldering the burden of blame for this crisis. Many more members of the House and Senate from both parties must step forward and accept their fair share of the condemnation that is sure to be applied to all of those that contributed to this crisis.

The severity and longevity of the mortgage crisis might have been minimized if our elected leaders would have used common sense and applied simple logic to the problem. Why did Congress not explore the option to purchase all of the matured sub-prime mortgages from the lending institutions early into this crisis? Could the Congress not have forced the lending institutions, as early as 2004 when the initial alarms were sounded, to freeze interest rates on the sub-primes at the initial contract rate? These mortgages might have been converted into lease-purchase agreements. Monthly payments could have been frozen at the original mortgage contract amounts allowing many the homeowners to remain in their houses. We could have intervened earlier at a cost to the taxpayers of approximately $300B. That is $400B less than was authorized by Congress in the giveaway November TARP program!

Now for the really bad news. There is an enormous tsunami building in strength and on course to strike the USS America broadside while she is in a weakened and vulnerable position. Reportedly, a second and third wave of sub-prime style mortgages are contractually scheduled to reset to higher interest rates in the very near future. The lending institutions and banks refer to these mortgages as Alt-A and option Arm loans. The option Arms attracted prospective home buyers with extremely low initial interest rates. Some rates were initially set as low as 1%. After two to five years the introductory rates were scheduled to automatically reset to a much higher rate. Resetting of the rates could cause some monthly mortgage payments to double. We are beginning to see significant numbers of homeowners that assumed option Arm and Alt-A loans default on their mortgage payments. These defaults are in addition to the defaults and foreclosures resulting from the sub-prime mortgage crisis that devastated the mortgage industry earlier this year. The looming Alt-A and option Arm crisis has the potential to exceed one trillion dollars in the the number of mortgages predicted to default. Collectively, the option Arm and Alt-A mortgages total approximately One Trillion, Six Hundred Billion Dollars! Up to 70% of these mortgages are predicted to default over the next three years. As with the sub-prime crisis, Congress and the Secretary Of The Treasury have been sluggish to provide preemptive initiatives designed to minimize the impact on our economy. While this should not surprise anyone, it is totally unacceptable and a deplorable breach of their legislative duties.

It is time for Americans to realize we are all on-board the USS America. Our appointed crew, including the captain have failed miserably in their obligations to protect us. We are on our own, but don't be frightened. As Americans we have been through many tough situations during our brief history. We will get through this one if we come together as the American Family. We must reject and abandon the institutions, beliefs, and the prejudices that divide and polarize us. We must discard onto the trash heap of history the blue state/red state labels the mainstream media have applied to individual states. These beliefs, prejudices, and labels serve no purpose other than to divide us. Remember, to divide a people is to defeat them. Unfortunately, we have permitted our political parties to divide and polarize the electorate to the point where there are no clear majorities on either side of any issue. I give you the 2000 general election that was eventually decided by the U.S. Supreme Court as an example of how evenly divided we have become. Even the mainstream news media has become so partisan it is difficult to determine what is factual and what is only more political rhetoric. Regrettably, the electorate has largely bought into the partisan and polarizing rhetoric offered each day from inside the beltway and enthusiastically delivered to us by the partisan and headline seeking mainstream media. Until the electorate realizes that our elected leaders have intentionally divided us so that they cannot be held accountable for their performances, nothing will change. This of course permits both major political parties to concentrate on achieving their self-serving individual and party agendas without having to be concerned about a majority of the electorate removing them from office. We must understand, party power and the accumulation of power is an all-consuming priority for our elected representatives inside the beltway. We must get past the democrat and republican labels each representative places on themselves, and we place on ourselves. We are individual families first but we are all The American Family. Somewhere down the list of life's sub-priorities, we may want to call ourselves democrats, republicans, or independents. I will continue to refer to myself as a father, grandfather, husband, and an American who loves America. Let's get past the politics and hate-filled rhetoric so that we may effectively deal with the dangers confronting all of us. We must stop electing our leaders based solely on party loyalty. You need only to stop for a moment and consider where blindly adhering to those loyalties have gotten this country. We should consider scrapping the two-party political system we all seem to have become servants to in one way or another.

Candidates for political office should be chosen solely on honesty, integrity, knowledge of the issues, and love for country. For too long, candidates have won elections by amassing huge campaign war chests that can total into the tens and sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars. They will spend every dollar in the war chest to win an elected position paying an annual salary of $200K or less. If that sounds reasonable or rational to you, we probably have nothing further to discuss. There are 435 members in the House of Representatives and 100 members across the hall in the Senate. In the House there are an estimated 123 millionaires. The Senate is made up of an estimated 30 millionaires, approximately one in ten members, some Senators have a net worth exceeding hundreds of million of dollars. The Millionaires Club is non-discriminatory with respect to party affiliation. Liberal Democrats and Conservative Republicans are accepted into the club based solely on their net worth. "Members of the House and Senate are recruited from lucrative jobs", said Thomas Mann a Congress expert at the Brookings Institute, a Washington think tank. It has been suggested a potential candidate for a U.S. Senate or House seat must amass a minimum of $5 million dollars in campaign funds in advance to being considered a serious candidate by either of the two major political parties. Perhaps it is time the American people recruit candidates for both houses of Congress from Main Street with one of the qualifying criteria being the candidates must be a non-millionaire. Main Street candidates would better understand the difficulties and challenges ordinary people face every day providing for their families and would not be focused on maintaining or augmenting his/her millionaire status. If you need a lesson in frustration, try calling any of your Senators and Representatives and demand a reply to any question on any issue you might have. You will be shocked by the condescending remarks and comments from their staffs as well as the obvious aloofness these Congressional representatives feel. Most of our Senators and Representatives have installed zip code and area code filters in their email addresses and phone systems. They will not accept emails and phone calls from anyone outside their Congressional Districts even though they are spending tax funds from every district in the country. In some cases you will not have an opportunity to send an email to a Congressional Representative from your home state if you live outside that Representative's district. I believe these restrictions epitomizes the age old declaration of "Taxation Without Equal Representation".

If you are holding your breath waiting on our captain and crew to chart a course permitting this ship to smoothly transit these treacherous waters, say farewell to the USS America, for we are doomed. We must rely on ourselves and each other to navigate our way to the safety of shallow water and calm seas. We must captain and crew the America ourselves. Call your elected representatives and tell them the taxpayers demand ownership of the Big Three Auto Makers. Tell them the taxpayers will no longer accept the substandard level of representation that has become the hallmark of performance on Capitol Hill. Remind these elected representatives they work for you. You are their boss, not their servant or subject. Tell them if they won't work for you, you will replace them with someone who will provide intelligent and honest representation. Tell them explicitly that you will replace them with Representatives and Senators that embody your dreams and aspirations for this great country. Hurry...call them today. We do not have the luxury of time for we can almost hear the roar of the approaching Tsunamis, to Port and Starboard.