Hello from Kansas City

It’s stormy here. Just like it’s been for three days. Just like it’s supposed to be for the rest of the week. The Weather Channel’s map of Monday conditions still has that big red blob indicating potentially severe weather over the middle of the country.

But even with the threatening weather, about two dozen of us on the shuttle into town from the airport got a nice little tour. As the bus went from hotel to hotel, dropping a few of us off at each lodging, the older gentleman driving us also served as our ad hoc guide.

He pointed out the massive World War I memorial, of which I have a great view from my hotel room. The gray day, unfortunately, didn’t make for good photos (that and the fact that I left the digital camera at home), so I borrowed this one from the memorial/museum’s Web site.

This evening, a feature even cooler than the structure’s sheer size (217 feet tall) is apparent. Atop the tower is an eternal flame, first dedicated in 1921, glowing orange despite this wet night. 

We also drove by a former home of TWA with a replica rocket still on the roof, as well as the Folgers Coffee building. It’s been a working roasting plant since 1908 and the ready-to-be-fresh-brewed aroma was strong enough for us to catch even with all the bus windows up. According to our driver, it was truly a "breath of fresh air when the stockyards were still downtown."

A quick note from the time marches on file. Folgers may have been in KC for almost 100 years, but my hotel’s restaurant announces, "We proudly brew Starbucks coffee."

And I gotta mention the ground-level water vs. the falling from the sky type. We got a nice look at the Missouri River when we crossed from its namesake state into Kansas. I’m sure the latest round of storms has added greatly to its volume.

Lending a hand to homeowners: As you would expect, the local paper, the Kansas City
Star, was full of the distressing story of the former town of
Greensburg. I say former because the city manager says that 95 of the community is now gone.

But another Star article also caught my eye. It, too, is about people who lost their homes, but to lenders, not nature.

Columnist Paul Wenske makes an impassioned argument for stronger consumer-protection laws when it comes to subprime loans. As so many of these loans are now coming to bad ends, Wenske says that many people view the mounting foreclosures as failures of personal responsibility.

Now I agree that when you’re making a major purchase, especially one that’s probably the major purchase of your life, you need to learn all you can about the process. But Wenske says that "cult of personal responsibility … dissolves into goo, mainly because it fails to account for the complexities of life and
assumes we all start out with the same financial, social and educational
opportunities."

And that misperception, says Wenske, allows some businesses to sidestep their
responsibility to treat consumers fairly. He notes that many other consumer protection laws have been passed to keep less sophisticated consumers from being taken advantage of.

Now, argues Wenske, because the pro-consumer laws aren’t as explicit for subprime lenders, we’re watching too many of these loans crumble. That’s not good for the homeowners who lost their dreams, or for the rest of us who ultimately have to deal with the reverberations in the economy.

A little regulatory help could only help. Or, as a former assistant attorney general told Wenske, "Every transaction should not be an exercise in self-defense."