[quote=patientrenter]TheBreeze, I’d vote for Obama if I could. (I am not a US citizen.) I am hoping he pursues a Clinton-style fiscal policy, without the Greenspan bubbles. McCain doesn’t seem able to understand economics well enough to say no to someone like a Bernanke. Both appear very weak to me, to be honest, since they are still mostly talking about how much more they want to spend, and what they want to do to reward those who were irresponsible.
So it turns out we are not very far apart on key issues. Getting govt out of housing entirely would be the best thing for the economy in 30 years. I could take almost anything in return for that.
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Well I don’t think anyone would accuse me of blindly agreeing with TheBreeze (which, by the way, sounds a euphemism for farting) but he is dead on here.
You bemoan, PR, that we are considering stepping into moral hazard land by comparing borrowers to gambling addicts. However, our entire economy is riddled with institutional backstops to personal ruin (eg: bankruptcy, welfare). These are not there because of some sense of American Noblesse Oblige. These exist because they fit well with the goal of sustainable economic advancement. If mass amounts of ruined borrowers are in jail or in bread lines or beholden to creditors, then it is much harder to expand national wealth. Further it is almost impossible to get re-elected.
If the goals of an elected official are a) govern well and b)get re-elected, then moral consequence are not even in the first tier of considerations.
