Rip Off the Band-aid

This has been a long time coming

This isn’t local, but is something that has been rolling around in my brain lately. Let’s be real, nothing rolls in my brain, it’s more like a squirrels on a wheel fighting for first place while the music is blasting and the strobe lights are going.

In the evenings, I spend too much time on X. I have to admit, I’m kind of a junkie. Right now there is a lot of fighting going on between the generations. Most of the times, my generation is left out, forgotten if you will.

For years, I really thought the whole thing was pretty funny. I too thought, get a second job, don’t go to college for underwater basket weaving, buy a cheaper house, buy a used car. Then my community changed and my children became young adults.

My first apartment was in an old house in a college town in Cedar Rapids IA. It was $275 a month for a one bedroom. Not the best neighborhood, but I wasn’t going to get shot either. The city was about 135k people and not too exciting. We moved to Seattle in 1996 and our first apartment out there was $675 for a two bedroom. We were in North Seattle at that time. We moved to the suburbs in 1997, and our rent was going up to $850/month for two bedroom, so we bought a house. It was no where near Seattle, but it was only $125k for 3 bedrooms on a 1/3 of an acre.

Fast forward to 2025 and an apartment in White House TN is roughly $1300/month for a one bedroom. But Nashville is popular you say. So was Seattle in the 90’s. What has changed? Some of you will say corporate greed. Some of you will say inflation. Some of you will say housing shortage. You are probably all right.

We could start with some of the depressions back in the day, but I only have some basic understanding of those, so let’s start with the dot com bubble. That happened when I was about 25. Were there large scale bailouts, not quite.

There was at least one. Let’s move on shall we. All I had to do was give Grok a prompt, and it found seven major bail outs in the last 25 years.

• The Airline Industry- 2001- $15 billion (grants and loans)

• TARP- 2008- $426 billion (they did get most of that money back)

• Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac- 2008- $191 billion (it’s ongoing but money has been paid back)

• Bear Stearns- 2008- $29 billion (too big to fail)

• Federal Reserve Emergency Program-2007-2010- trillions in liquidity (repaid, but the reserve was propping up the banking sector)

• Silicon Valley Bank- 2023- Screenshot on this one

  

• Covid Relief-2020-2021- $4 trillion (airlines, banks, private industry)

When this started, I was 26 and my husband was 31. The people in control were Boomers and Silent generation. The people still in control are Boomers and Silent Generation. There are some younger people up there now. (JD Vance, AOC) For the most part it is run by the 65+ crowd. They have continued to put off the pain that we need to reset as a nation. I’m not talking about the “Great Reset” where we all become socialists, I’m talking about letting the markets adjust. In the 1800’s there were several “panics” that ended in a recession or a depression. The govt at those points in time did not intervene and allowed the market to reset. Was it painful, yes, but that pain was short term, 4-7 years. That is the pain that these people seem to be avoiding.

Why? Why don’t they want to rip off the band-aid and let the markets reset? Why don’t they want to let the banks and businesses fail that need to fail? Why don’t they want to shrink the govt and let people keep more of their money? The bottom line is power and lack of family values.

People in power want to keep that power. No one is going to vote for the candidate that says we are going to cut welfare, medicaid, social security, foreign aid, and all other funding not outlined in the Constitution. These people keep getting elected because they are funded by the very companies that are listed in the above bail-outs.

These people don’t care about the future, just themselves. Politicians especially don’t seem to give a rat’s ass about their children. But then again most of them were out drinking, partying, re-marrying, house hopping, job hopping, and “finding themselves,” while their children were carrying keys around their necks after school. (again, if you are one of the good ones, thank you) The only future they seem to care about is theirs. You can see that in the protests around the nation. They are filled with people aged 65+. They are worried about their stocks and their social security. Maybe you should have ripped the band-aid off while you were younger and let these banks and companies fail.

So here we are. At another crossroads in our nation. I’m seeing many posts out there from people my age and younger saying rip the band-aid off. No more foreign aid, no more forever wars, no more bail outs, no more fraud and waste, shrink the govt and let us keep our money. We are ready for the pain now so that our children can afford homes and grandchildren. How do we do that? I have no idea, I’m just a writer. I do know that I cannot continue to vote for anyone any more that wants more govt. They are NOT the answer, they are the problem.

Thank you for reading my rant. That’s been on my mind for a while.