my road to virtue and back-understanding

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Chapter 24

 my road to virtue and back-understanding

The first bank fell quickly. 

I was becoming an irresistible force against my creditors.  I would also become irresistible to her.  I did not realize the power I had.  It would not be till after it was gone, till I had left the road of virtue that I could look back to see what had happened.

But the results might have been obvious were I to have known.   The banks caused the real estate collapse.  Most people accepted that.  After all, we had cooperated.  The difference was that the government was willing to bail the banks out.  They had no interest in the small people, at least not yet.  Eventually, the government would realize that if all of the small people lost their homes, the banks would fail on a level that the government could not subsidize, only then did the government realize how significant the problems were.  But not yet.

And I challenged the first bank as being equally responsible and it folded.  This did not result in the recovery of money, I did not plan to recover any money, I was much too virtuous for that, but I saw a great injustice in making me and making others pay for the mistakes of others who were better able to take care of themselves, who better understood and in some cases for their own selfish short term benefit responsible, who were, in some cases being bailed out by the government despite their culpability.

Perhaps the government is not as evil as it seemed, but the book I wrote determined the government was that bad.  This is the government that destabilized the middle east without understanding or a back up plan, this was the government that deregulated the banks and allowed the banking crisis tied to realestate, and, personal to me, this is the government that pumped so much money into multi family units in the area I held property without considering the effect on existing units.  This is the government that turned its back on the poor until it became obvious to the banks, who made it obvious to the government, that they had to not only bail out the banks, but the middle class or the entire home ownership system on which the banks based their own wealth, would collapse.

I had lost millions.  How many millions?  Enough so that if it had been in cash instead of real estate, if it had been in cash instead of investments, if it had been in cash instead of opportunities, it it hadn't been lost due to the criminal acts of banks, the importation of Chinese Drywall, if an oil company had not decided in 2010 to allow oil to flow in the gulf all summer, I could have lived in luxury for the rest of life.

But it was lost and being lost it seemed as if there were no way to get it back.  I gave up hope for a while, then giving up on despair I began to write, I began to live my life for the first time in years, and I began to fight back.