The Mortgage
Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Clinton. Welcome to EZBreeZee Mortgages.
I'm Alan Greenspan.
No, no relation, sorry to say. May I call you Bill and Hillary?
Fine, first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and Bill it is.
So you want to buy the old Rye Brook place, 4-something
acres, as I recall. That's $2.2 million, and, with the
customary 20 percent down - that's $440,000 - that leaves a
mortgage of $1,760,000.
No problem. We do these kinds of deals all the time.
Now let*s just have a look at your financial statements.
Let's see. Mr. Clinton, you are the president of the United
States, of course, and your salary is - oh, dear - $200,000 a
year. We usually recommend buying a house that costs no
more than two-and-a-half times your annual salary. That
means you should be looking for something around
$500,000, perhaps a nice brick rancher on a quarter of an
acre, not too fancy a neighborhood?
And I see here that you'll be out of a job in 16 months or so.
What will you do then? Open a library. In Little Rock,
Arkansas. Wow! I bet that will be some kind of
money-maker.
Mrs. Clinton, you're running for Senate, right?
Let's see. Senators are paid $130,000 a year - assuming, of
course, you're elected - so even with Bill's pensions, you
should still be looking for a house in the $325,000 range.
Maybe a nice center-hall colonial where the schools aren't so
good.
Mrs. Clinton, you haven't worked outside the home since
1991, correct? But you did some volunteer work, I see. You
came up with a plan to overhaul the entire national health
care system?
I see. It flopped, in other words.
But I see you had several business ventures back in
Arkansas. How about this Whitewater Development Corp.?
It went bankrupt.
And Madison Guaranty?
Bankrupt.
And Castle Grande?
Bankrupt, too.
If you had gone to Yale Business School instead of Yale
Law, you could probably get your money back.
Now, don't get upset. It was just a little joke.
A little bad luck with the law, too, I see.
Three of your business partners went to jail?
Maybe you could get your money back.
This is an embarrassing question, I know, but we have to ask
because it does, after all, affect your ability to pay:
Any problems in your marriage? No? Fine.
Let's look at your assets: $1.5 million.
Not bad.
Yes, yes, Mr. Clinton, we're not forgetting your Mustang
back in Little Rock.
But oh, those liabilities. You owe $5.5 million. That means
you're $4 million in the hole.
How do you expect to pay that off?
You're hoping people will donate to a special fund.
So basically, you're relying on the chartity of strangers.
You also have some serious expenses. A kid at Stanford has
got to be setting you back $30,000 to $35,000 a year,
probably more with the air fares. And she wants to go to
medical school? Ouch!
And Mr. Clinton. There's a little matter of a $90,000 fine for
lying in court. I guess that rules out putting your law degree
to work. Say, now, how do we know you're not lying on your
loan application?
Good point. It would look a lot better if you were lying.
Are there any other legal matters we should know about?
You say you're in the clear, Mr. Clinton, and the first lady is
'pretty much in the clear indictment-wise'. What does that
mean?
You don't think - don't think - she's going to get hit with a
perjury or obstruction of justice rap.
But we're not totally sure, right?
That means there's the remote possibility - note that I say
'remote'- that you could be trying to pay off a $1.76 million
mortgage while making 12 cents an hour stitching mailbags
for the feds and he is trying to make a go of a library in Little
Rock.
Let's review the situation.
One of you is now unemployed and the other one soon will
be. You have these whopping great debts that you're hoping
someone is going to come along and pay. You have a
financial history that can only with great charity be described
as 'checkered' plus a bunch of serious financial demands and
ongoing legal problems. Your tangible assets seem to
consist of an old Ford. So, congratulations! Welcome to the
EZBreeZee family of home-owners.
You've got your mortgage!
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