“Obama, are you listening?!” - Rick Santelli voices the frustration in the air of millions of Americans who have tried to do the right thing.

We do have a serious problem with housing in this country, and as a fellow neighbor, I am concerned for many who are in a bad situation in these difficult times. But the greed of several who purchased more than they could afford, for anyone to tolerate paying their bills, it becomes a very relevant question about how far we should go. Many of us have sacrificed to keep our expenses small and not to outspend our income. It has been difficult times all the time for those of us who have been conservative with our spending. For those who have not been conservative with their spending, this may be their first “hard time” and they will have to stick it out, as the rest of us have, year after year.

Yes, I wanted that larger house. I wanted that faster car. I wanted those better-looking clothes. My wife and I make a reasonable income between the two of us. We have two kids, and we have made the decision for our financial future to stay in our less than 1100 square foot house, three bedroom, one bath house for the time being. Was this easy for us? Not in the least. We are always cramped for space and trying to reorganize our living space. But these times are an investment in our future when we will be able to actually afford a larger house.

We have seen many people with hard times, some of them our friends, and we have been sensitive to their difficult situation. Some have lost their jobs and do not have sufficient income to pay a mortgage. For some of them, it has been more cost-effective to stay out of work because getting a productive job would have meant lower wages than government benefits. Would we rather pay someone the full unemployment benefits to keep them out of a lower-paying job that could at least provide some assistance and possibly boost morale? Yet when a person has a family that they must feed and put clothes on, they must do whatever is necessary to survive. We are all frustrated. There is no one who knows the solution, not the president, not the congress, not Wall Street or the banks. Yet many of us feel that we are taking the brunt of a bad deal for some decisions of a few very greedy people.