Home for the Holidays

Well, friends, now that the USA’s national election has been satisfactorily resolved - for me anyway - we can all turn our thoughts to important matters of concern to our nation.

In our town, that means resuming the yearly discussion about how to celebrate the holiday season with appropriate consideration for all religions, sects, creeds, and degrees of non-belief. You probably don’t recall this, but the solution our city fathers came up with last year was to have white lights, as opposed to colored lights, adorning all the trees in our quaint downtown neighborhood, Old Town. This was to celebrate the holidays without overt reference to Christianity so they wouldn't be forced to allow overt reference to some - and potentially all - other religion. I don’t know if our city mothers were involved in the decision. The city fathers (and, possibly, mothers) then backed off a bit and allowed store-owners to decorate their stores as they chose - on the inside. At that phase of this momentous debate, I sort of lost interest.

Before losing interest, I’d spent some considerable time trying to figure out why multicolored lights are religious and white lights are not. It’s important to understand the issues in a debate before weighing in on one side or the other. Now that the debate has resurfaced, I’m back to puzzling over the question of how a light bulb becomes religious. No success so far. If I come up with anything, I’ll let you know.

Meanwhile, other people in this and other towns are puzzling about other things almost as important. Things like how to keep their homes at least through the holidays and whether they have any relatives left who still own - or rent - a place that has room for extra beds. Now, being as that’s not as difficult a question, I came across what seems to me to be a good solution day before yesterday in an article by Dean Baker of the Center for Economic Policy Research. I’d like to share it with you, in case it interests you more than the lightbulb controversy.

Suppose the congress passed a temporary law that banks could not foreclose on homeowners without offering them the option to rent their home, at current market rates, for the next 10 or 20 years. Then the banks would have a choice: they could collect rent and maintain the home they acquire from the former owner(s). Or they could renegotiate the loan and let the family continue to purchase and maintain the home at a lower cost to the family. The bank would likely get payments above the rental market rate, and the family would pay for the home’s upkeep. (I think this is what’s known in the arbitration business as a not-lose – not-lose situation.) There’s even a law already running around to do this; Representative Raul Grijalva proposed such a change in the Saving Family Homes Act. At least I think it’s running around; it doesn’t seem to be doing anything else.

If we can get Congress to pass this law, then the financial wizards who got us into this mess will have something constructive to do with the money our Treasury folks seem intent on giving them. Maybe there’s a problem with the proposed law. Maybe it makes too much sense to be a law or something. If that’s the case, any number of legislators could fix it.

So what can we do? Well, since the three of you won’t email me, even to join my war on violence, I’ll just ask those of you who are citizens of the USA to email your congresspersons and ask them to support this law without changing the intent too much. Or at all, even.

Of course, I could be wrong in thinking this is a good solution. However, like most people, I don’t often entertain the possiblity that I might be wrong. And even though that possiblity entertains me pretty frequently, I think this is the best approach to handling the situation and I think you should contact your congressperson about getting this act out of the House Committee on Financial Services and into law.

LATE BREAKING NEWS: When we went grocery shopping yesterday, we saw Christmas wreaths on several buildings in Old Town.

Taken together with the election results, is this an indication that common sense can prevail and there’s a glimmer of hope for the nation’s homeowners?

Now I know what I want for Christmas. If there are any middle class homeowners left by then. I can’t wait to see Santa.