Was Having the Republican Convention at Quicken Loans Arena Really Such a Good Idea?

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Was having the Republican convention at Quicken Loans Arena, a place named after much of what is wrong with America today, really such a good idea?

Quicken Loans.

That is the name of the arena where the Republican Convention took place.

Quicken Loans Arena.

Great choice of location. Really bad choice of name to have a political convention associated with.

Quicken Loans

Does it strike anyone else as ironic (or moronic) that the conference center of the biggest event for the right wing Party was held at a place named after a company that makes its living embezzling home-seeking Americans? Of course, one must say, that is the same sort of thing the Republicans do themselves, right?

Quicken Loans is the name of a mortgage loan company that like so many others of its ilk caters to the segment of our population that ain’t makin’ it so good in this New World Disorder that has evolved of late. Or rather than say ‘caters’ maybe it would be more accurate to say “rips-off.” These sort of companies have been cropping up a lot since the start of the Great Recession in 2008.Their whole purpose is to siphon off what little money the working and middle class earns by making them big loans at high rates so that the borrowers can attempt to live what is left of “The American Dream” (this term doesn’t even deserve the quotation marks I am giving it).

Sorry, but the American Dream became The American Nightmare some time ago.

Once upon a time (Say the 1950’s well into the 1980’s) a working father could save up and buy a house, a car and raise a family on his weekly wages. Times have changed – big time. In the 2,000’s the house would be foreclosed on (after the father and his now working wife lost their jobs to off shoring), the car would be repossessed, stolen or taken for scrap after the insurance-less accident they had and the grown kids would have to move back in with the parents or the parents with the grown kids due to the economic trickle down being recycled back into the piggy-banks of the upper elite. They do this so that they can afford to send their kids to the finest private schools where they will be taught to avoid all the hidden dangers that cripples the lower echelons of our society better than any Afghanistan land mines ever could.

Looking at the reviews Quicken gets from across the country on Yelp.com, most of them give the company a one star rating out of five. Those ratings are followed by a tirade of how the star voter got ripped off or cheated by the company. The few positive ones always give the company the full five stars and a glowing report of how great they are, and is suspiciously written quite professionally making one suspect it was planted by Quicken themselves.

The Consumer Affairs website (of which Quicken is not a member) also had predominantly one star ratings with lengthy complaints with occasional smatterings of rosy 5 starers that succeeded in bringing the over all average up to 3 out of five stars.

The Department of Justice accused Quicken Loans of improperly writing loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration between 2007 and 2011. The CEO of Quicken himself appeared on CNBC disclaiming it. He wasn’t convincing.

It should be noted that Quicken is based out of Detroit Michigan, the foreclosure capital of the U.S. where Quicken hatchet men probably got a lot of their combat battle time tearing houses out of peoples dying hands. Also to be noted is that the Department of Justice lawsuit was filed in none other than the District of Columbia where you would think at least half-way conscious law makers would have noticed it. Apparently the Republican ones didn’t.

A similar problem exists with regular loan companies that pay out against a future pay check, the title on your house or the one on your car. They are another sort of shark looking for live flesh. They have popped up in the last eight years or so across the country. They always have big, gaudy, attention catching storefronts and splashy ads. They also always pop up in poorer neighborhoods where the residents are more desperate and needy for cash. Also more gullible to their ads.

These loan chain stores grow like dangerous mushrooms near the entrances to our military bases where they wait to prey on the young recruits who have just had their lives uprooted and transplanted and they need funds to start their existence in a new environment. They are also unfortunately very naive to the business ways of these predators. They loan out the money at outrageous rates knowing that the soldiers and their families are getting a regular government check and that they will be stuck there at the base for years. Obama tried to pass a law aimed at cutting down on the operations of these near-human piranhas, but met resistance from whom? Why, the loan business lobbyists in Washington, who else! Having millions of dollars on hand from poor peoples money the loan companies invested it wisely for their future – in lobbyists who would find weaselly ways to keep their vampirish businesses legit.

So the Republican Convention turned out to be so historic in so many ways. A maverick outsider (anybody can be an outsider and a maverick when they have 4 billion in personal income) became the Presidential candidate which few expected to survive the first run down the gauntlet. The convention was laced with turmoil as many Republicans didn’t even want to be in the same building as him, much less have him as their main Fuhrer. But the best of it has to be that they held the convention in a building named after so much of what is wrong with American economics today. And so much of what passes to the Republicans as fair business practices.

Roger Freed
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