[va_coder]

I just took a walk on a sunny day to the bookstore to browse the magazine rack, stopped by the coffee shop to get a Latte and bought a cupcake at the new bakeshop.

Things are pretty awesome in the U.S. of A as far as I'm concerned.

Oh and last year I attended John Stewart's Restore Sanity gathering at the mall (and I wasn't shot at!)

[watmough]

You may not have been shot, but beyond a few 100's of thousands of people being a bit happier, absolutely nothing was accomplished. Nada. Zip. Zero.

Last year, 2010, 3 million homes received a note that they were in some stage of foreclosure. 1 million homes were repossessed by lenders.

Granted all those homes may not be occupied, but most likely were. Think about what a million families actually look like... homeless, in motels, in cars, at in-laws.

US citizens need to start addressing some of these issues.

[va_coder]

I rent. There's no shame in renting. Most people whose home was repossed aren't homeless - they went back to renting.

I didn't buy a house because I educated myself about the 3X rule. You should only buy a house that is worth 3X your income.

Did Wall Street screw a lot of vulnerable people? Yes. But people like Elizabeth Warren, who leads the new Consumer Protection Bureau are making substantive improvements to the system.