I went off on this also. It's one thing to do something about those retirees getting into predatory circumstances with 2nd mortgages and home equity loans, which has happened, did happen in masse, but it's a whole other ball game to force the U.S. taxpayer to pay for complete irresponsibility that went on in these home equity loans.

We all know they were used to prop up our great "consumer economy" with massive debt, prolonging a middle class lifestyle one could no longer afford....

and so this punishes people like us, those ultra tightwads, who bypassed the entire bubble because they could add up the reality one could not afford a half a million dollar home...
now, we're getting left out of the free money party!

Believe me, pisses me off too. I certainly could have gotten a mortgage and I did not because I knew it was a bubble and I also knew no way in hell could I afford a half a million dollar home or a 3/4 of a million dollar home...

so I'm not too happy about this...it's rewarding the irresponsible and punishing the ones who were responsible..
at least so far in my reading of the details (in the original Instapopulist, a link to the details of the plan).

a way for many mortgage brokers to push No Downpayment loans and avoid PMI.

First mortgage would be for 80% of value and second mortgage would be for the remaining 20%.

the borrow achieves 20% equity in their loan.

Some seconds were taken out to put a down payment on a home purchase. After that though???

It has always been about class warfare.

1. Protectionism (TARIFFS! were the primary method of funding US Federal Government up until the Income Tax), and progressiveness (increase in technology).

2. I'm not at all sure the poor in America DO live better than the wealthy did 100 years ago, and they're certainly worse off when you remove the thin veneer of technology than certain Native American tribes were in the 1700s, at least in terms of real security and being able to count on your kids having a better life than you did. The wealthy 100 years ago didn't need to go to the bank to beg money for every little expenditure, they didn't have to budget their food stamps to make it through the month, they had trains, steamships, and chauffeurs to travel. In many ways, the wealthy 100 years ago were much better off than the type of unemployed yokel you'll find in rural America today. Perhaps you've just lost touch with what it *really* means to be poor and in debt you can never repay.
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Moral hazards would not exist in a system designed to eliminate fraud.

This is the last post I enable as an anonymous drive-by. If you wish to participate, create an account.

The answers to these questions are obvious, technical innovation. The invention of the sewing machine increased the productivity of cloth, the invention of the automobile increased mobility, commerce, transport, fresh produce, etc...

Finally, there is no statistic evidence the poor in the United States are "better off" than the wealthy 100 years ago.

On EP, you need to back up your claims with accurate statistical data....
or suffer the consequence.

What I'm implying is they threw all of this U.S. taxpayer money at Citigroup to avoid outright nationalization and they could have saved the taxpayer a ton of money and nationalized it, cleaned it up, head on.

The issue they are trying to avoid is systemic risk...

and if you see any projected analysis out there on scenarios of what would have happened if they just let these institutions fail, or simply nationalized certain banks, put them in a Resolution Trust Corporation and many of the alternatives....

That would be really enlightening...

because what I see is they are trying to salvage the shadow banking system, all of these derivatives, CDSes, CDOs, etc. from causing a domino type of economic collapse...

but I am wondering if they should have let the entire thing implode, just plain shut down the entire global financial system....let the fiction money disappear, the entire shadow banking system evaporate and then "reboot" the real financial system after some restructuring by governments.

One thing seems obvious, the current strategy is not working out too good and the justification for the current strategy are doomsday scenarios if they did not do things this way..

but it seems it will happen that way regardless of their efforts...

that's why we have all sorts of economists, experts from the far right to the far left all calling for bank nationalization akin to the Swedish action taken.

OK, so a couple of questions:

1. To what do you attribute the increase in living standards in the US prior to the New Deal?

2. Considering the poor in America live better than the wealthy did 100 years ago, how does laissez-faire 'drive the rest of society towards poverty?'

As for this quasi-nationalization, ownership without control is a recipe for disaster.

Because the majority of outstanding Pay out ARM are scheduled to reset in 2010-2012. And with unemployment increasing Jumbo loans are starting to default.