Our financial system is crumbling this week.

[Popeye_Card]

I don't blame the 64%, people like ghostrunner. I blame the other people that went beyond their means...

The problem is now, they're all in the same boat now. Whether they made responsible decisions along the way or not.

That said, I don't think the government needs to prop them all up by any means with special programs. Try to get the banks working again, and let everything sort itself out. Most people will land on their feet. EDIT: And if they suffer a bit along the way, the bright side is that "suffering" in the US is still pretty comfy compared to how most of the world lives.

[planet planet]

I don't blame the 64%, people like ghostrunner. I blame the other people that went beyond their means...

The problem is now, they're all in the same boat now. Whether they made responsible decisions along the way or not.

That said, I don't think the government needs to prop them all up by any means with special programs. Try to get the banks working again, and let everything sort itself out. Most people will land on their feet. EDIT: And if they suffer a bit along the way, the bright side is that "suffering" in the US is still pretty comfy compared to how most of the world lives.

So you don't buy into Obama's assertion that all these foreclosures are adversely affecting responsible neighbors' property values? I don't understand how bank lending will help with the foreclosures unless mortgage companies are willing to adjust mortgage terms and so far, it doesn't look like they're willing to do that.

[Popeye_Card]

I don't blame the 64%, people like ghostrunner. I blame the other people that went beyond their means...

The problem is now, they're all in the same boat now. Whether they made responsible decisions along the way or not.

That said, I don't think the government needs to prop them all up by any means with special programs. Try to get the banks working again, and let everything sort itself out. Most people will land on their feet. EDIT: And if they suffer a bit along the way, the bright side is that "suffering" in the US is still pretty comfy compared to how most of the world lives.

So you don't buy into Obama's assertion that all these foreclosures are adversely affecting responsible neighbors' property values? I don't understand how bank lending will help with the foreclosures unless mortgage companies are willing to adjust mortgage terms and so far, it doesn't look like they're willing to do that.

I'm sure that it does adversely affect it. I'm just not as certain if there's a way to correct that problem while being fair to everyone.

It'll be ugly in the short term. But in 5-10 years, everything will eventually sort itself out.

[TimeForGuinness]

I don't blame the 64%, people like ghostrunner. I blame the other people that went beyond their means...

The problem is now, they're all in the same boat now. Whether they made responsible decisions along the way or not.

That said, I don't think the government needs to prop them all up by any means with special programs. Try to get the banks working again, and let everything sort itself out. Most people will land on their feet. EDIT: And if they suffer a bit along the way, the bright side is that "suffering" in the US is still pretty comfy compared to how most of the world lives.

So you don't buy into Obama's assertion that all these foreclosures are adversely affecting responsible neighbors' property values? I don't understand how bank lending will help with the foreclosures unless mortgage companies are willing to adjust mortgage terms and so far, it doesn't look like they're willing to do that.

I'm sure that it does adversely affect it. I'm just not as certain if there's a way to correct that problem while being fair to everyone.

It'll be ugly in the short term. But in 5-10 years, everything will eventually sort itself out.

I would say it depends on the number of foreclosures in the area...a few won't harm you too bad...a lot and it can be a longer road to ride.

[Hungary Jack]

LOL at Freed's exchange with the economist. I especially liked this one:

What has been going on for some time is a new lesson in the fact that booms are not good because they are always followed by busts.

Understatement of the century.

[sighyoung]

LOL at Freed's exchange with the economist. I especially liked this one:

What has been going on for some time is a new lesson in the fact that booms are not good because they are always followed by busts.

Understatement of the century.

So the guy says it was a boom, not a bubble. What's the difference? Whether you fart above or below water?

[Freed Roger]

LOL at Freed's exchange with the economist. I especially liked this one:

What has been going on for some time is a new lesson in the fact that booms are not good because they are always followed by busts.

Understatement of the century.

So the guy says it was a boom, not a bubble. What's the difference? Whether you fart above or below water?

C'mon Sigh, this guy is a professor AND he has his own website.

on this note. I haven't followed the guy much at all, but I really do admire the economists like Charles Kindleberger and historical commentator Kevin Phillips (author of Wealth and Democracy)

[SHOW]

From Publishers Weekly
The influence of money on government is now, more then ever, a hot political issue. With a grand historical sweep that covers more than three centuries, Phillips's astute analysis of the effects of wealth and capital upon democracy is both eye-opening and disturbing. While his main thrust is an examination of "the increasing reliance of the American economy on finance," Phillips weaves a far wider, nuanced tapestry. Carefully building his arguments with telling detail (the growth of investment capitalism in Elizabethan England was essentially the result of privateering and piracy) and statistical evidence, he charts a long, exceptionally complicated history of interplay between governance and the accumulation of wealth. Explicating late-20th-century U.S. capitalism, for instance, by drawing comparisons to the technological advances and ensuing changes in commerce in the Renaissance, he also discusses how 18th-century Spanish colonialism is relevant to how "lending power began to erode... broad prosperity" in 1960s and '70s America. Finding detailed correspondences between the giddy greediness of America's Gilded Age (complete with a surprising quote from Walt Whitman "my theory includes riches and the getting of riches") and the "great technology mania and bubble of the 1990s," Phillips (The Cousins' War, etc.), noted NPR political analyst, notes that "the imbalance of wealth and democracy in the United States is unsustainable," as it was in highly nationalistic mid-18th-century Holland and late-19th-century Britain both of which underwent major social and political upheaval from the middle and underclasses. Lucidly written, scrupulously argued and culturally wide-ranging, this is an important and deeply original analysis of U.S. history and economics.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

- they take the long view on economics, rather than getting mired in quarterly data and finding statistics to satisfy crackpot theories of the day.

The old guys took a look at world economic dynasties from Rome to Holland (tulip bulbs) to the British Empire etc. (note all fallen dynasties). They realized that no matter how diverse economies are and complicated financial instruments become, the laws of nature still apply as much then as they do today. They had same symptoms of bubbles manias panics centuries ago that they do today (overconcentration of wealth, overextended military expenditures, lack of domestic production, and financialization- belief that you can simply tweak financial factors to maintain economic dominance).

Many of today's economists confused themselves into thinking the laws of nature and past histories don't apply to today's complicated economy. Its the same old trap if you study history.

Honestly, I don't know enough to comment like this, but what the hell I'm tired and two beers puts me on a tipsy ramble. I just was miffed that some self-annointed expert was using Kindlegberger name to support a view (no housing bubble) that was apparantly contra to what Kindleberger himself believed.

[greenback44]

Honestly, I don't know enough to comment like this, but what the hell I'm tired and two beers puts me on a tipsy ramble. I just was miffed that some self-annointed expert was using Kindlegberger name to support a view (no housing bubble) that was apparantly contra to what Kindleberger himself believed.

These events have been a potpourri of offensive behavior. If it makes you feel better, I just happened to read this tonight from Michael Lewis:

Back in April 2006, however, an emeritus professor of economics at the University of Chicago named Bob Aliber took an interest in Iceland. Aliber found himself at the London Business School, listening to a talk on Iceland, about which he knew nothing. He recognized instantly the signs. Digging into the data, he found in Iceland the outlines of what was so clearly a historic act of financial madness that it belonged in a textbook. “The Perfect Bubble,” Aliber calls Iceland’s financial rise, and he has the textbook in the works: an updated version of Charles Kindleberger’s 1978 classic, Manias, Panics, and Crashes, a new edition of which he’s currently editing. In it, Iceland, he decided back in 2006, would now have its own little box, along with the South Sea Bubble and the Tulip Craze—even though Iceland had yet to crash. For him the actual crash was a mere formality.

Somebody understood Kindleberger. It's not like he's LifeOfElias or anything.

[Freed Roger]

Honestly, I don't know enough to comment like this, but what the hell I'm tired and two beers puts me on a tipsy ramble. I just was miffed that some self-annointed expert was using Kindlegberger name to support a view (no housing bubble) that was apparantly contra to what Kindleberger himself believed.

These events have been a potpourri of offensive behavior. If it makes you feel better, I just happened to read this tonight from Michael Lewis:

Back in April 2006, however, an emeritus professor of economics at the University of Chicago named Bob Aliber took an interest in Iceland. Aliber found himself at the London Business School, listening to a talk on Iceland, about which he knew nothing. He recognized instantly the signs. Digging into the data, he found in Iceland the outlines of what was so clearly a historic act of financial madness that it belonged in a textbook. “The Perfect Bubble,” Aliber calls Iceland’s financial rise, and he has the textbook in the works: an updated version of Charles Kindleberger’s 1978 classic, Manias, Panics, and Crashes, a new edition of which he’s currently editing. In it, Iceland, he decided back in 2006, would now have its own little box, along with the South Sea Bubble and the Tulip Craze—even though Iceland had yet to crash. For him the actual crash was a mere formality.

Somebody understood Kindleberger. It's not like he's LifeOfElias or anything.

EDIT - nothing I said in my 1am zombie state made any sense. so redacted. thank you have a nice day.

[TimeForGuinness]

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/busine ... enDocument

Wow...and here we all thought that "OIL WAS RUNNING OUT...$200 A BARREL"

*groan*

Traders have always played a game of store and sell, bringing oil to market when it can fetch the best price. They say this time is different because of how fast the bottom fell out of the oil market.

"Nobody expected this," said Antoine Halff, an analyst with Newedge. "The majority of people out there thought the market would keep rising to $200, even $250, a barrel. They were tripping over each other to pick a higher forecast."

Now the strategy is storage. Anyone who can buy cheap oil and store it might be able to sell it at a premium later, when the global economy ramps up again.