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GLENN: The other part of personal responsibility that I would just like to point out. If you went and borrowed money for a house, you might have to leave the house and rent an apartment if you can't make your payments. Now, I know that's been turned into something harsh and ugly and hateful. I like to call it personal responsibility yet again.
There's a story in The Wall Street Journal today about how there's this guy, I don't know, I hate these stories. Bill Muckenfutch, hard working, makes shoe leather. That's all he does. Skins cows, makes them into shoe leather. All day long cow blood comes home every night, buckets of cow blood in his boots and yet he feeds his children. He works hard making shoe leather out of cows. Lately things have gotten so bad for Bill Muckenfutch that, well, he's had to make shoe leather out of cats, neighborhood cats. But that's all right because many of the houses have been abandoned and so like, homeless cats are now living and they're like, they're tramp cats. They're coming in on the boxcars and the empty trains and the cats have been setting fires trying to warm themselves. So Bill Muckenfutch thinks he's doing them a favor by pounding them into little cat head and making them into shoe leather. Well, Bill used to take home a monthly salary of $2100. Every month Bill would make $2100 and for the first time Bill was afforded the opportunity to buy his own home. This is in a time when he didn't live in a neighborhood full of cats. He took advantage of his right as an American to own his own home. So he went to his local bank and there Bill Muckenfutch filled out an application. The bank said to him, "Bill, you make shoe leather. You're trying to buy a $400,000 house." Bill said, "That's right, I'm making shoe leather, work hard every day. And at night just so I can have my right of a house, I spend my night on a second job making cats. Making shoe leather out of cats later if things get bad. So I'm good for this loan." The bank said, "Well, we can get you into a 100% loan and you can do interest only for the first five years." And Bill said, "That's great. How much is the loan?" The bank said, "$1800 a month." "But I only make $2100 a month." "That's right. You may get down to some point where you have to eat those cats." "Well, I don't want them to go to waste." "That's right." I mean, why just make them into shoe leather when you could eat them as well." "Yeah. And I can drink the buckets of cow blood that's in my boots, too, if things get really bad. This sounds like a good deal. What happens after five years?" "Well, then you'll have to pay the interest and the principal and as it stands right now, that payment would be $2200 a month." "But I only make $2100 a month now." "Yes, I know. Be kind of tough, huh? You might have to round up more cats." "Oh, I'm sure everything will be great. That's five years. Ha, I'm a gambling man, although I never go to Vegas because gambling's wrong. But I'm sure everything will work out okay. Thank you, Mr. Banker. Where do I sign?" "Right here." "That's great. Well, I've got to go drain some cows full of blood and also round up some cats just in case there's a hard time right around the corner, but I'm sure there won't be because things always get better. There's never a down turn in anything."
Now, I've elaborated a little bit on the story of Bill Muckenfutch that I read in The Wall Street Journal today but now Bill is blaming the banks. Apparently Bill was not smart enough to figure out when he had to pay the interest and the principle. It was over what he was making in the good times. "I mean, I thought there would be an end supply of cats." Unfortunately for Bill he now knows there's an endless supply of hats. It was a simple misunderstanding. Bill says he was misled. He swore they said cats and not hats. So Bill would like you to bail him out.
Now, I don't know about you but I don't think so. I mean, I think it's fantastic that Bill had the opportunity to own his first $400,000 house. I think it's fantastic for a guy who makes shoe leather out of cows and cats, that he had the opportunity just to do that. But now that people are saying, gee, I don't want my shoes made out of cats; maybe Bill should take some personal responsibility, downsize his life, get into an apartment. I'm just sayin'.
Why is it we're responsible for everybody else's -- and I know that's hate mongering. Talked to somebody just the other day and they said, "Glenn, you can't let people -- what, are you just going to let them lose their house?" Hang on. Is this a trick question? "You can't let them lose their house." Well, I mean, I'm not really the one deciding that. I don't know about you. I'm an innocent bystander in Bill Muckenfutch's mortgage. I mean, Muckenfutch signed the contract. It's between him and the bank. How am I involved all of a sudden if you -- "You'd just let him lose his house?" Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know there's this crazy thing called "Apartments" that are available now. I don't know if you've ever heard of this. "It's like these people are going to lose their house. What are they going to live in? Garbage cans?" No. They will probably do what my parents did and file for bankruptcy. That's what my parents did years ago, had seven years of hell. Lived in a lower standard of living, couldn't get a loan, drove old cars, reset, and what do you know. They're okay. They made it. "You're just going to let your parents file for bankruptcy?" Well, I didn't have the money at the time to stop it as a family member and, gosh, I didn't think it was right to ask all the neighbors to bail them out of their bad decisions, but I'm glad I'm learning the new personal responsibility in America where if your vote doesn't turn out the way you wanted it, you just go vote again. Even though it's a decision you made, just do it again and then somebody else foot the bill for it. And that somebody else might just be Bill Muckenfutch who is out at night every night catching cats to make shoes (whispering). Life in America just isn't fair.