Tell them you want financial reform

I'm just a nobody. A middle-aged homemaker from a middle class town. But I try to stay informed about what is happening in our nation and in our world. And here's an ugly truth I can no longer ignore: our country is corporate owned and operated. Our lives and our government have been under the thumb of big business for many decades.

Most people are finally realizing this because they are seeing and feeling its effects firsthand. People who have lost their job, lost their home, and lost or nearly lost their faith in America have been burdened and insulted by having to bail out the very corporations that stole their jobs and homes.

Lawmakers' decisions to let corporations operate without reasonable rules simply to make more and more money for themselves is what got us into this mess. Now the teenager needs to be reined in and given strict limits.

President Obama has initiated the first step toward financial reform, which would set some of these much-needed limits on lenders, and make big businesses - not you and I - solely responsible for their own losses. It also creates an agency to help the little guys when the big guys try to take advantage of them.

Of course we are going to hear scary caterwauling from those who won't like reform. Don't believe their lies, folks. Please, act in your own and our nation's best interest by writing or calling your representatives (it's easier than you think) in Congress and simply tell them that you want them to support financial reform.

Lori Fagan

Crystal Lake