HLS, appreciate your comments. Very reasonable, all of it.
Just thinking, I don’t know if the 10% down rule would have prevented all of this, as the fraud and poor risk-taking extended beyond ‘Joe the Flipper’ residential real estate into Wall Street, corporate America and beyond.
FYI, there was an op-ed in the LA Times today you might enjoy:
Pragmatic, directed analysis of the current economic, banking and mortgage mess. Critical of status quo. Author’s comments about debt and Keynesian stimulus are well-taken, parallel your remarks.
Rationale behind the stimulus and quanititative easing seems to go beyond old-school Keynesian economics though, and author glosses over this. On another level, it seems to me current direction is really about destruction of dollar currency value long-term, which may be our ‘least worst’ way out of this mess. Just my 2c.
