No One Asked Me But… (April 4, 2012)

By DR. LARRY MOSES

No one asked me but… I mowed my lawn today. I have not mowed my own lawn on a regular basis for years.

Our neighborhood has had, what I thought would be, a never ending supply of teenagers who would be willing to handle that task for me. The first was a young lady who set a very high standard for the boys who followed. The last was a very tall young man who gave up the task to take up football.

There is no explaining what goes on in a teenagers mind. How could he select football over the opportunity of mowing my grass? Where are these young people’s values?

In compensation, I offered these youngsters an opportunity to study at the feet of a master and to learn about all of the great mysteries of the universe. They, however, demand financial compensation. This rebuff may partially explain the glee I took in the reading of the Hunger Games, a book where teenagers are pitted against teenagers in a “last man standing” battle royale.

My neighborhood is made up of homes set on half-acre lots. Many of my neighbors foolishly use their lots for mundane things like gardens, trees, places for motor homes, chickens, goats and, part of the year, pigs.

I grow grass on mine. Not fancy grass but good old make your nose run and eyes water Bermuda grass. Now that is not to say there is not wild clover, dandelions and something I call clump grass mixed in. But it is mostly good old rough Bermuda.

I do. however, hire a young man to come and kill all the broad-leaf plants that inhabit my yard. He pretty well cleared them out last year, but they are back with a vengeance this year. He, has been invited back. He too, when offered the wisdom of the ages, demanded payment in cash.

As I came to the five-foot chain link fence that separates my yard from my neighbors. David, the four year old that lives there, waved me down.

Shutting down the mower, I heard David ask, “What are you doing?”

I explained that I was cutting the grass.

With alarm in his small voice he said, “The wishing flowers too?”

The wishing flowers?

Then his mother explained that he had climbed the fence yesterday and when she discovered his transgression, he was picking the dandelions that had gone to seed and was blowing the seeds to the wind. Then I remembered when I was a kid we used to do the same thing in Des Moines, Iowa. We spent many an afternoon making wishes as we blew dandelions seeds across the Midwest.

The thought that I should have wished for a dandelion free yard never crossed my mind. It is interesting what time does to a person. What the seventy-year-old sees as a weed, the four-year- old sees as a “wishing flower.” Oh, to be four again when there were chain link fences to climb and wishing flowers to blow.

I told David that he was free to come and use my wishing flowers whenever the spirit moved him. However, I also told him a man was coming to kill the dandelions.

“Why would you do that?” he asked.

I explained that they killed the grass and I grow grass.

He was not overly impressed.

I did, however, make a deal with him. When he turns thirteen, he will mow my grass. I locked in my price at $15.00 per mowing with the option of lowering the price if the economy continues to tank. There is no cost of living or insurance involved in the contract. I know I will lose him to football before he is out of high school. I wonder what my neighbors are going to say as my grass grows for the next eight years while I wait for David to have his thirteenth birthday.

No one asked me but… The United States Government used $745 billion tax dollars to bail out the banks. Realizing a bank crisis would be a major factor in destroying the country’s economy Congress decided the best way to avoid this would be to funnel the money to the banks with the intent that it would be used to help people renegotiate their loans and stay in their houses.

As often happens, when the government is involved, best intentions are lost in the translations. The Banks took their money, paid off their creditors, and failed to pass the benefits on to the consumer. The bankers quickly figure out how to maximize their profit at the expense of the homeowner.

With the most recent turn of events, the bankers are looking at a threefold benefit from this economic disaster. First, they took the bailout money and did not pass the benefits on to the person paying the mortgage. Second, they foreclosed and now own the homes. Third, they are now renting the home they foreclosed on to the previous mortgage holder. When the economy recovers, the bank can again sell the home. The bank not only has the money the mortgage holder paid while buying the home, they will have the money from the rent. Since the bank has the capability of holding the homes until the market improves, the bank will see an additional profit when they sell the home for a second time.

Why not just drop the house payment to the rent level and allow the mortgage holder to maintain the mortgage. The people would still be in their homes and the bank would still get the money from the original loan.

However, that would not maximize the banks profits. The fact that the bank would have gone under if it were not for the mortgage holders taxes covering their mistakes has no bearing on their thinking.

When people see this as a reason for more federal controls of banks, they forget those bad loans would never have been made without the interference of the federal government. Congressmen Chris Dodd and Barney Frank headed a group of liberal Congressmen who insisted loans must be made to people who had no hope of paying the mortgage, all in the name of fairness and equity.

Many of those people are now paying rent to live in the very homes they once made payments on in hopes of home ownership. How fair is it to raise false hopes in individuals? Where is the equity in this?

Thought of the week…The average teenager still has all the faults his parents outgrew.

–– Author Unknown