Silly, Silly Bankers

I rang up my sponsor this morning.  After we exchanged pleasantries I said: "I have something I want to run by you.  This is going to fall in the category of Problems of Prosperity."


"Yeah, excuse me if I don't hold my breath until you have a problem that doesn't fit in that category," he said.  I'm not sure why I call that smart-ass on a regular basis.


I have been casually looking to buy a home in The New City.  I placed the equity from the house we just sold into a savings account, resisting the urge to buy another stupid car or another stupid piece of electronics or something else stupid.  Nevertheless, I had hoped to take out a mortgage if we find something appropriate to buy, especially since interest rates are so low.  I assumed that the fact that I had enough in the savings account to pay cash for something much less expensive than my last house would earn me some Banking Good Will, should such a thing exist.


Here's the funny thing about that: because banks were so eager to loan money during the recent big bubble boom in the real estate market -- literally throwing cash at any warm body who alleged anything positive financially, with nothing in the way of factual documentation -- that they lost a lot of money on bad loans.  Hard to imagine that happening with such a solid business model.  Now, because they're so familiar with residing illogically on one end of the spectrum, they're finding it comfortable to swing wildly to the other end of the spectrum.  Ergo, they don't want to loan money to anyone.


They keep asking me how much money I earn, not how much money I've saved.  I have had no luck whatsoever convincing them that the savings part is more important than the earnings part.


"Who cares?" I say.  "I have this money saved up."


"We care," they say.  "Go away until you start to make a lot more money."


"I don't want to make a lot more money," I reply.  "That takes a lot of work and there's a lot of pressure involved."


"Go away," they repeat.


I feel like I'm in some Kafkaesque nightmare alternate reality.  These bankers must all be drunks.  They must be fucking with me.  They're having a drink right now, and a good laugh.


"Have you ever considered that there's a middle ground?" I wonder, watching them fill in little blanks on their little forms.


"Security," they say, pushing a red button on the intercom on their desk.  I half expect a trap-door to open up under me, revealing a tank of sharks or boiling oil or sharks swimming around in boiling oil.  Special sharks, obviously, to handle the boiling oil.


I don't even know if I WANT a mortgage.