Licketysplit, with all due respect, I cannot abide by your request to bash only exotic lending. Housing and lending don’t coexist in a vacuum. To understand the housing market, to predict its effect on our economy, you must look to the credit markets, global trade, oil, war. At times, even war affects housing.
For example, if Iran’s threat to trade oil in euros could lead to a recession, wouldn’t that it a reason for Bush to go to war? Wouldn’t that be, to him, just as good a reason as WMD? Wouldn’t the threat of an Iraqi oil bourse be the same good reason to him? He would feel he’s saving the American economy and people.
Bush would not publicly proclaim he is using nuclear weapons to attack Iran’s underground facilites to avoid the fall of the petrodollar, so he finds another reason. He says we must stop Iran’s buildup of nuclear weapons. Possible? I’m just wondering, if Iran is such a threat, why aren’t our allies all over it? Why is the US consistently the most aggressive country, even though we are geographically the furthest away. What is Bush afraid of in Iran, and why do China and Russia not share that fear?
Anyone who is a Bush supporter and feels offended by these questions, you have the choice to skip this thread. (I assume that a Bush supporter feels defensive by questions about his policies.) For anyone else, who knows, or who sees the relationship between politics and the economy, I appreciate any insight anyone has.