<\/p>\n
Yesterday morning CNBC anchor Rick Santelli exploded in a Mr. Santelli may believe that the mortgage crisis is the Mary (not her real name) is a widow who lives in Arizona, When her husband died, she faced a number of unexpected Now, just a few years later, she is too ill to work and Mary is not a loser.\u00a0 Mr. Santelli, where was your outrage when your Shame on you, Mr. Santelli. \u00a0<\/span>Shame on you.<\/i>\u00a0 <\/span>For calling widows greedy losers–for As for your rant, I could care less.\u00a0 <\/span>I don’t hear the whirlwind you have <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Yesterday morning CNBC anchor Rick Santelli exploded in a rant on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange against President Obama’s housing proposal.\u00a0 He attacked the “losers” who got suckered into bad mortgages, shouted that the proposal rewarded “bad behavior,” urged the banks and the President to foreclose on those mortgages, and force the myriad…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-media"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nrant on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange against President Obama’s
\nhousing proposal.\u00a0 <\/span>He attacked the “losers”
\nwho got suckered into bad mortgages, shouted that the proposal rewarded “bad
\nbehavior,” urged the banks and the President to foreclose on those mortgages,
\nand force the myriad of newly homeless citizens onto the streets.\u00a0 <\/span>Santelli’s rage was bad enough, but the
\ntraders behind him started to cheer him on–becoming more verbally abusive as
\nhis vitriol increased.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The
\nvideo immediately went viral resulting in more than 140,000 emails to his
\nBlackberry (he claims they were 99% supportive) and instant television and
\ninternet fame–the rant that went around the world.<\/p>\n
\nresult of greed on the part of “losers” who bought $800,000 houses, but he
\nhasn’t met my friend, Mary.<\/p>\n
\nwhere the housing crisis is acute.\u00a0
\n<\/span>She is a member of the much-extolled white working class, those folks
\nwhose values and virtues form the basis of American values.\u00a0 <\/span>She has worked her whole life in
\npink-collar jobs, raised three children, is active in her church, helps
\nneighbors in need, and lives in a modest townhouse in Arizona that she and her
\nhusband purchased in 1980. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
\nbills for medical and funeral costs.\u00a0
\n<\/span>At the top of the market, an unscrupulous lender offered her a new
\nmortgage–on the house she nearly owned–to pay off the unpaid expenses and
\nrelieve the pressure from debt-collectors.\u00a0 <\/span>Too embarrassed to trouble her children, and full of that
\nnoble sense of middle-class pride, she listened to him, signed the papers, got
\na check, and cleared the old bills.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
\nlives off of Social Security and help from her children.\u00a0 <\/span>Because the housing market in Arizona
\ncollapsed, her mortgage is worth more than her house and she is
\n“underwater.”\u00a0 <\/span>Her own medical
\nbills are difficult (due to the thoughtless prescription drug “benefit”
\nleft-over from the last administration).\u00a0
\n<\/span>Every month, she sits at her kitchen table and cries over the bills while struggling to pay the mortgage
\nto keep a roof over her head.<\/p>\n
\n<\/span>Mary is a victim of the greed of members of Mr. Santelli’s business
\nclass–people who made money off the plight of a grieving widow and, as I can
\nonly imagine, thousands and thousands of good people like her.\u00a0 <\/span>People who believed that if they worked
\nhard, one day their neighbors might take care of them if they were in
\nneed–people who both made and believed in the American dream.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
\nbrother-banker took advantage of Mary?<\/p>\n
\nstirring up other rich people to believe that they are guiltless and only the
\npoor are guilty.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Shame on
\nyou for kicking people who are down.\u00a0
\n<\/span>You are a schoolyard bully.\u00a0
\n<\/span>And shame on CNBC for keeping you on the air.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n
\nstirred.\u00a0 <\/span>I hear only Mary quietly
\nchoking back tears.\u00a0 <\/span>And, in the
\nstill of her kitchen, I hear the words of Jesus, “Truly I tell you, just as you
\ndid it to one of the least of these, you did it to me.”\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n