Say, "Thank you, President Roosevelt."

Whatcom County has a huge home-grown land development scandal. A Lynden attorney, James Wynstra, has been buying up farm land and turning it into housing projects and resort developments. Things were going so well for him that he brought in investors, mostly working stiffs who put in all the money they were saving for retirement and moderately well-off senior citizens who invested as much as their entire life savings.
Then came the housing bust and now the Homestead brand is scrambling to remain solvent. Apparently poor people weren’t the only ones to take out bank loans they couldn’t afford. Jim Wynstra is unwilling to go through regular bankruptcy because he doesn’t want the government in his business. And the rumor is that many of his investors are just as twitchy about audits and such.
(See, Lynden is a Republican town, a Ron Paul ‘stop ‘em at the border’ town, a ‘we don’t need the federal government to be our nanny’ town. Often purchases are made in cash and no receipt is necessary. But that puts me off topic.)
The subject came up at Sunday lunch. Elaine, a Republican friend of the family, had invested all her retirement money in Homestead. Of course I asked how she was living now that it was lost, but I already knew the answer. Social Security.
For all those seniors who lost all the money that they saved all their lives, Social Security ended up being their retirement income after all.
Nancy Sherer