Is Herman Cain Insane?

If you worried that any man who named his business after a mafia don would have inordinate sympathies for gangsters and crooks, you would be forgiven.  When listening to Herman Cain’s praise of the banker crooks who, in his view “only want to help,” those suspicions would be confirmed.  Unfortunately for Mr. Cain, the problems of the real estate market and the economy in general are a little more complicated than a B gangster movie or a pizza joint.

Herman Cain, the owner of Godfather Pizza and presidential hopeful, told CNN in an interview his solution to stopping foreclosures in the United States. He said:

“Here’s how you encourage banks: Remove the barriers that are keeping them from doing business the way that they would want to. Most banks would want to renegotiate with people on their mortgages, but I’m telling you there are restrictions that are more government driven that are keeping them — I’ve had bankers tell me this. They didn’t give me a list of all the things that, you know, could be done. They want to help people, they really do.”

Let’s see: The same banks that gave tricky mortgages to those they knew couldn’t afford it, the same banks who tricked people into negative amortizing loans, and the same banks that exist simply to make a profit “really care about people.”

It is stated that the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in 1999 (which removed barriers in the market among banking, insurance, and securities companies from consolidating and is said to have led to deregulation) and the Responsible Lending Act of 2005 (which was pushed by banks and removed strict state-level regulations against predatory lending) helped cause the housing crisis in the first place. 

When banks had the freedom to do as they wished, they qualified people for mortgages they couldn’t afford, required little or no documentation, and even approved people with bad credit.  Just in case you are confused like Mr. Cain, this was not done to help them.

Banks also hired so called robo-signers, a team people to sign off on hundreds or thousands of real estate documents a day without actually looking at any details of the particular real estate case.  Some of them didn’t even know what some of the terms in the documents meant. Again, this was not done to help the people; they were doing it clearly for a profit.  Banks have also lied about mortgage portfolios that they sold.

It is either that Mr. Cain truly has inordinate sympathies for gangsters and crooks (predatory lenders and unethical banks) or he is blind. Either way, this is not someone I want as the “boss” of the country.

Clearly, not all bankers are crooks, but all the wrongdoings in banks and on Wall Street help show us that capitalists are not all saints and that their actions have far-reaching effects. Common sense and a basic knowledge of this should show us the need for regulation; not a government takeover, but regulation. 

Banking was not the only sector to blame, however it doesn’t mean that it didn’t play a major part.

Mr. Cain, here is an analogy that may help you understand this:

Once upon a time there was a team of robbers known as the “Bank Crooks” who one day took a girls money and kicked her until she was down and severely hurt. The robbers were caught and put in jail. Then came a man named Sheriff Cain. He saw the girl limping and broke with no money. He quickly wanted to let the robbers out to help her.  

This is a simplistic view of a complex case, however it is simple logic. In the story Sheriff Cain is crazy and in real life, Herman Cain is crazy.

Suggestion for Mr.Cain:

1. Go to Google.com
2. Type in housing crisis
3. Do some research
4. Meet with experts
5. THEN go on national television and report

If your answer is still the same and you want to take away regulations from the banks, you may be known as Herman “Insane” Cain and you definitely should not be the president.