NoFX and My Sub Prime Mortgages Rant

Cross-posted at thinkyouth.org:
I was just listening to one of my favorite songs by the punk band NoFX, “The Irrationality Of Rationality”, and apparently I haven’t listened to it in a year because I’m only just now realizing how perfectly it fits with the subprime mortgage crisis. It could be that NoFX traveled into the future, but I’d say it is more likely that history just repeats itself much quicker than we like to admit.
Here’s the song. Have a listen, but be warned, the lyrics could be considered explicit.
The first verse, about Frank and the shareholders, explains very succinctly how these sub prime mortgage problems started. To simplify it a bit, the financial institutions that created the subprime mortgages were told by their shareholders “We want more money! Get us more profits!” Then, the financial institutions say, “How do we make more money?” and they realize that they need to innovate. Innovation takes risk, but they were big companies, so taking risk is part of what they do.
So now, all these “innovators” are sitting in their 2nd or 3rd homes saying, “We didn’t do anything wrong. We just innovated. Businesses innovate, and innovation takes risk, so we took risks. You can’t blame us for taking risks or following orders or industry trends. I mean hey, everyone was doing it. We needed to make as much a profit as the other banks. And it isn’t our fault that the government needs to help us out. Our innovations helped the economy while they lasted. If the government doesn’t help us out, we won’t be making any more profits and we’ll go out of business.” And trust me, they are saying it. They've said it to me. Of course, this fits in well with the second verse of the song and the line, “The guilty don’t feel guilty, they learn not to.”
And now then the media goes on saying nothing important and just rambling on about stupid suggestions like, “Hey middle class! Have you thought about a staycation?” Instead, they should be talking about how these people, and the fed, screwed us over big time. Now the idiots who caused this problem are begging for, and getting, government bail outs which you and me are going to have to pay for down the line even though all these bail outs do is postpone the inevitable collapse of our economy to levels where prices aren’t so inflated by speculation.
Of course, I don’t advocate people who have lost their homes go out and shoot people who still have homes, but the third verse of the song is important too. We all know that there are people who have lost their homes, and more people are going to lose homes. Even the middle class is becoming homeless. Maybe, for just one day, the media could focus on these issues that will actually affect our everyday lives in terms of do people have shelter instead of Obama v. McCain, which is important, but doesn’t deal so directly with questions about such basic needs.