Congressman Cleaver to respond with the usual form letter (things for any concerned citizen to consider)

(the following is an e-mail sent to Congressman Cleaver after the telephone town hall on 1/27 regarding the new "Stimulus" package.)

Thank you for the telephone town hall.

My concern, as always, with a bill like this, concerning loans and the banking sector, is that the problems created by the inherent natures of the services of the banking industry.

In Obama's Inauguration speech, he mentioned foreign leadership being judged by what they create, not what they destroy. I would hope that we can apply this litmus test here at home.

What the banking sector does create is Debt and Inflation. Both are very destructive. While I appreciate the need for the services a banking industry provide, and the need for investment, especially in a financially unstable time, I fear what can happen when Fractional Reserve Banking is not placed in check, but instead is encouraged through these government spending programs that essentially feed money to the banks that caused this issue.

We blame the subprime mortgage industry and the debt securitization being packaged into these bundles for the problem. But the banks can only profit when new lending is had. My fear is that the offered solutions to this problem will cause any government and taxpayer funds to wind up in the hands of the banking sector and a new bubble will be created through the encouragement of new lending.

That money, when created, will cause inflation, then filtered through the Fractional Reserve Banking time and time again, using this money to create more...and more inflation arrives....

All the while leaving taxpayers with the bill with one edge of the sword, and the borrower with the bill with the other edge.

I see the businesses, taxpayers, and other borrowers who pay their loans and taxes faithfully having to pay for these government packages multiple times over. First through paying back their loans, then through taxes, then through interest on the debts both public and private, then through interest on the exponential creation of dollars through the banking sector.

I hardly see how borrowing more money to create more investment opportunities (debt opportunities) could outweigh these negatives.

Please, Congressman, I urge you to take an aggressive stance on the Inflation and Debt problems that become the roots of these bubbles.

I say the roots, because we only need to ask ourselves how someone could encapture theirself insubprime loans with the inability to pay....My argument would be the rise in living costs.

We're often given GDP and the Consumer Price Index as economic indicators. The consumer Price Index is a joke, when determining living expenses of the country because it doesn't address the basic fundamental costs of living.

First, loans (interest rates) are excluded from the CPI, so one's own housing, transportation, and educational costs are not accurately configured.

Secondly, Government Subsidized Programs (taxes) are excluded from the CPI, so public transportation, food, utilities and other tax-subidized programs aren't accurately figured in as costs to the taxpayer in the CPI

Third, and this is the most important, our trade deficit. When a job goes overseas, the cost goes down, yet, the person performing that job, has a chance, to find other employment. Usually as our manufacturing sector whittles away, that next job winds up in the service sector.

While services have value, wealth is determined in tangible assets. When we do not create these tangible assets here at home, the real wealth goes out of the country. So while the price of a particular good may go down when manufactured overseas, the CPI fails to address the fact that there are other built in costs to money leaving the country.

This is why the United States borrows so much foreign debt. This is money we have willingly seized to foreign manufacturing through our trade deficit. Foreign nations profit off of our consumerism, then loan that money back to us.

Please ponder this one question before you respond....What happens when an entire country defaults on its loans?