Mabon Tarot Card

Before I begin this Mabon reading I would like to extend a big thanks to Tarot Girl for the image of the Page of Pentacles. I just placed her site, which does a one card reading everyday, on my blogroll. I'll probably be pilfering her Ryder-Waite tarot pictures from time to time.

The Tarot card I drew for this coming Mabon was one I would never have suspected I would draw, but the more I think about it in the context of the recent housing and sub-prime mortgage crisis, the more sense it makes. I will elaborate somewhat without falling into the usual habit of throwing a political based tantrum, which is something I fully intended to avoid for the duration of the Sabbat.

The Page of any suits represents a fragile new beginning, and in the case of the suit of pentacles, this new beginning is basically of a physical nature. It can have to do with health, fertility, or money, among other things.

Naturally, we are entering a period of grave uncertainty due to the housing crisis. Steps have been proposed tentatively to deal with the problem, but if these steps are taken, it will be at considerable expense, and it is by no means certain an agreement can be reached. Even as Congress speaks of bipartisanship in an effort to meet the problem head on there are those who even now express disagreement on the extent of what the government can and, for that matter should do.

We are all going to pay the piper regardless due to the reckless actions of a few who have been aided and abetted by certain members of Congress.
You have Democrats who have twisted the arms of banks to issue loans to people of questionable at best credit for political reasons in an attempt to insure access to home ownership to the poor and minorities (whether they actually had the capacity to pay off the loans or not).

You have Republicans who have with almost religious zeal dismantled the regulatory system which should have put the brakes on the system before it got too out of hand.

You had corporate honchos of the two largest mortgage firms, who were in fact quasi-government agencies in their own right seemingly created at least in part for this purpose, who took advantage of both parties as they doled out the bribes to high-ranking politicians and even the chairman of the committee assigned to be their watchdog.

You have predatory lenders and banking establishments who took advantage of housing laws and who approved as many loans as they possibly could, and then sold them as bundles to Wall Street brokerage firms who seemed to be as clueless as anybody as to what they were pushing on their investors (or maybe in some cases they were not so clueless).

You had the investors themselves who had no idea of what they were letting themselves in for-they just knew if they acted quickly enough they could make a quick buck and maybe even get filthy rich. Finally, you had the private homeowners themselves who leveraged their homes to a ridiculous extent, taking out mortgage after mortgage for everything from new automobiles to expensive vacations and unnecessary toys.

For every homeowner that took out a mortgage on their home in order to renovate or otherwise improve said home, or who paid off other bills or invested in college funds for their kids, there were seemingly as many or more who used them to buy trips to the Bahamas and five foot plasma screen televisions and a second or third automobile-more than likely a Lexus as opposed to a more moderately priced vehicle.

Many of them, fairly unsophisticated in the ways of finance, were seduced by the prospect of low interest loans, whose interest rates were not fixed. When things started getting out of hand and the rates rose to astronomical heights, most of them were left holding their dicks.

I warned about all this quite some time ago, and the dangers of our credit card economy in general. Unfortunately I'm just one small voice mostly unheard and rarely heeded when I am.

To be sure, this is not all bad. This is probably one of the best times in a good many years to invest in a home, if you have reasonably good credit. The artificial bubble has had a good lot of the air let out of it that had been causing hardship for a lot of elderly, fixed income and working class homeowners. They were facing ever increasing property taxes through no fault of their own, depending on the area of the country and the neighborhoods in which they lived.

When house values reach up to four times higher than their original worth, and more, you know you are looking at an untenable situation. It had to come to an end, and however cathartic, it is a good thing that it has. In my opinion, the government should do nothing aside from repeal the law that forced bankers into making what they knew to be bad loans, and then they should apply reasonable regulations on the industry-and enforce them to the letter.

What the government is doing is a short term fix that is geared toward the present political season. What both parties are doing is trying to stave off the well-deserved wrath of the American public that would soon come down upon the heads of both parties.

I started writing this post as an encouragement to remember the poor and the homeless this Mabon season, with a donation to some worthwhile agency such as the Goodwill or the Salvation Army, or to some local Christian church or mission that feeds the homeless and poor. Perhaps you know somebody yourself to whom you could perform some personal act of kindness, someone less fortunate than yourselves.

After all, if you are in a position to give, it is obviously because you have worked hard and managed your money and other resources wisely. A good many others might not be so fortunate. Or, they might have let their greed and avarice get the better of them, not realizing that they were contributing to a problem that could very well be more profound than we even now suspect it will become.

Come to think of it, you owe it to yourselves and your family. Go out and buy yourselves that big plasma screen television you've always wanted.