Housing
Part of the American Dream is owning your own house. The definitive irony of the concept of home ownership is made manifest in this ironic observation that for most Americans home ownership is a phrase that refers to circumstances in which it is actually the bank that owns the house while they are dependent on meeting their monthly payments by whatever means necessary.
“Too Big to Fail”
The phrase “too big to fail” was the justification for bailing out the biggest financial institutions during the 2008 economic meltdown. The concept revolved around the fact that these banks were so integral to the economy because they had loaned so much money to so many smaller companies that being forced to go out of business would cause the American economy to utterly collapse. The irony, of course, is that every one of these lenders operates on a strict policy of no borrower being too big to fail and will gleefully push any borrower out of business if they don’t get their money back.
The High Cost of Campaigning
Elizabeth Warren has staked her claim as a major player in the Senate primarily on the basis of defending consumers against the excesses of unregulated business interests. This reputation would seem to naturally imply that Warren possesses a comprehensive understanding of the excesses of big business. Ironically, she confesses to being exceptionally naïve when it came to understanding the economics behind the business of campaign financing that is running for Senator in the 21st century. She is quoted as saying “Back when I was first thinking about running for the Senate, Guy came to see me. He told me that I’d probably need to raise $20 million to $30 million. I was stunned. I’d never run for office, and I was ready to stop right there. I looked at Guy and said, “Thirty million dollars—are you kidding me?’…By July 2012, our campaign had already raised $24 million, and we weren’t even in the homestretch yet. We were headed for a number that was a lot bigger than $30 million.”
