Thank you, Maxine Waters, for finally addressing the issues

[JDPriestly]

that matter to ordinary Americans. What happens to the families whose homes are being foreclosed, to the communities blighted by abandoned properties? Bernanke and Paulson talk about liquidity. I have visions of breaking pipes in the homes abandoned to the ravages of a Buffalo, New York snow storm.

What happens to the folks who were working in the mortgage industry and who are now unemployed? Many of them are women and members of minorities.

Maxine Waters was the first person I saw in these hearings who thought to raise human issues.

The Paulson/Bernanke package is not acceptable because it is not clear enough and not focused enough on solutions for homeowners and ordinary people.

When I watch Paulson and Bernanke, I understand why this crisis has happened. They seem to have their heads in the clouds. They are incapable of talking in human terms. They speak in mathematical formulas and cannot communicate in language that can be understood by anyone without a degree in economics.

Paulson and Bernanke and their ivory tower solutions are not what America needs now. We need solutions that offer hope to homeowners, to those who earn low wages and to people whose meager life savings are in pension funds and their homes. Paulson treats the concerns of those people as secondary. He seems to think that if the top guys get to keep their golden parachutes and princely salaries, everything will be OK because the big guys on Wall Street will stop withdrawing OUR money from our money market accounts in their financial institutions. His plan is vague as to how it will benefit ordinary people. Somehow if he is given total discretion over $700 billion dollars, Wall Street and foreign investors will behave as if nothing happened and our futures will be rosy. Paulson has not convinced me. Not for a moment.

When Maxine Waters asked Paulson what he would do about the REAL PROBLEMS of REAL PEOPLE as opposed to the abstract financial markets, what the magical mathematical formulas that he is waving around Congress will mean for homeowners in low income neighborhoods, he just said, "Oh, we'll take care of that somehow." Baloney. Paulson's and Bernanke's primary focus is on saving the "financial institutions" that have made them rich. Paulson and Bernanke seem to think that if you save the institutions, us guys down here on Main Street will be OK. The devil's in the details, Mr. Paulson, Mr. Bernanke. Until you answer Maxine Waters' questions in very specific terms, your grandiose plans look like just another scam to those of us who have been here before.

Here is what Paulson said: "This is something that all of us need to own." I do not own this mess, sir. I got my Social Security card when I was 14. I am now 65. With the exception of some years during which I lived overseas, I contributed to the economy of this country constantly over the course of my life.

When we got our mortgage on our small fixer-upper house 20 years ago, onterest rates were 9-10%. We worked. We received very low salaries for people as well educated as we are. But we never missed a payment on our house. We saved money during our earning years.

I went back to school in the 1990s, came out with a huge student loan debt on which we paid interest of 7 1/2 -9 1/2 percent. Now I am being told that my savings and my future are in jeopardy although the return on our savings is, when we're lucky 3.5%. And this, at a time when we are considered by employers to be too old to compete for good jobs.

Mr. Paulson, you earned millions over your career while I earned a relative pittance. Yet, after listening to you yesterday and today, I can say with confidence that I am just as smart and hardworking as you. Your plan stinks. It puts all the control in your hands and in the hands of inhuman, greedy machines just like you.

Put the money for the bail-out directly into the hands of the homeowners -- by buying their mortgages directly and giving them new ones that they pay over a longer time. Don't bail out the financial institutions that got us into this mess. Don't blame the homeowners trapped in these mortgages. The financial institutions are to blame. And they have no excuse. They are advised by teams of accountants, lawyers and economists. The people who owe on these mortgages had no competent advice.

Organize a program that puts the foreclosures on hold and allows people facing foreclosure to refinance their loans and owe the U.S. government rather than the banks. The banks will be fully paid and now. That will rescue the banks and eliminate all the money that will go to the management of the big Wall Street firms and to you personally under your plan.

The Paulson plan is the Predators' Protection Plan. We want a plan for families on Main Street, a Family Values plan.

Thank you Maxine Waters for bringing a human focus to at least a few minutes of the hearing this morning. Sorry you were cut off and could not finish your questioning.

[DCKit]

1. Hope you're submitting that as an LTTE...

after you spell check.

"...20 years ago, onterest rates..."