Jay Jay

61 Comments

    • Desire for Safety Has Made the Financial World Risky [view article]
      Good article. Great comment by another poster that said the net effect of financial regulation was to get the flies to trust the spiders.

      Excess liquidity creates situation of more money chasing less opportunities. Worse and worse investments made as an example. Answer isn't more regulation on whats a fair investment, answer is less liquidity.       Aug 08 12:40 PM
    • Greenspan Blasts Housing Bubble He Helped Create [view article]
      Good article, right on the button.

      Addressing some other poster comments:
      JohnP- You said the GSE's needed more regulation. The thing is, they have grown big enough that they are able to buy off the bosses of their regulator- hence no regulation. The system is broken, and they shouldn't exist.


      User 209500- The home mortgage deduction simply inflates prices by the amount of the subsidy. To the renter, the tax benefits of renting are countered by the excess pricing due to the subsidy. Canada i a great example that housing market can exist with our this distortion. Phase out the HMD over a 10 year period.

      winslow- Greenspan abandoned his Ayn Rand and hard money views after he joined the politicians in DC. Had he stayed true to his earlier wisdom he would have been right, but he wouldn't have been offered the chairman job either. It would have been offered to someone else that would promise to do what his political masters asked of him regardless of the long term consequences to the country.

      Central planning is an ineffective at setting the prices of borrowed money as it is at setting prices of toothbrushes. Interest rates should simply be set by the supply and demand of savings. When savings scarce, as they are now, rates would be higher. This of course only works in a world where money can't be created from thin air.

      Abolish the Fed, go back to an asset based currency.

      Just because the politicians don't get the growth they seem to think the country deserves doesn't make it right to destroy the economic system. Being able to spend money without explicitly raising taxes is simply too seductive for the system to endure, regardless of the character of the people involved. This is why the original design of the country was the way it was. Unfortunately when the government came up against the restraint is was too easy to simply remove the restraint.



      Aug 08 11:29 AM
    • A Fed Rate Hike Won't Solve the Current Crisis [view article]
      This is an article that says you can help a drunk by keeping him in booze. You know, if you try to make him stop drinking he's likely to get very sick, so do the right thing and keep him drunk.

      I agree with the previous poster in that inflation doesn't have to be in the form of higher wages. It could be that its just making everybody poorer (the money you have buys less of the things you need to live).

      Low interest rates below what the level of savings would have naturally dictated is like taking human growth hormone. You can only get certain amoutn fo healthy growth, beyond that the HGH just creates tumors and other cancers. We've gotten to the point where the tumors have been able to buy enough influence in congress that they can keep the flow of HGH coming. Also, many people can no longer tell the difference between what is tumor and the original organism. So when the tumor shrinks they exclaim "our growth is stagnating, protect the growth"

      Author lacks any sense of economic justice, all about how to keep a messed up system teetering along. I've venture to guess he doesn't know what a healthy system is supposed to look like, and just knows what he's experienced in his lifetime.       Jul 25 11:39 AM
    • What the SEC Really Accomplished with Its New 'Short-Sell' Rule [view article]
      The rumor is just the trigger, the mismanaged company is the real cause. Jul 25 11:11 AM
    • Why the Housing Bill Won't Help the Housing Market [view article]
      gaels- The number of people living in a house can vary wildly. Take my neighbors.... please! Seriously, take my neighbors, when times where good, the kids moved out and rented apartments, when times are bad like they are now, they move home with mom and dad. Jul 25 11:06 AM
    • How Dumb Does the NAR Think Homebuyers Are? [view article]
      Wht does buiders cost have to do with anything? They sell it for as much as they can whether that means a 25% markup or 25% below their cost.

      Nobody really needs to own a house, the utility of renting one is nearly the same. Sure there are times that it would be advantagious to own, but not now.       Jul 25 10:59 AM
    • The Future for the Mortgage GSEs [view article]
      You're way to generous, they should be abolished. They've proved to be unstable and impossible to regulate. Jul 17 11:11 PM
    • On a Disastrous Jobs Number, Recession is Obvious [view article]
      I keep hearing the media say that the unemployment rate is low by historical standards. They'd don't seem to understand that they're making an apples to oranges comparison. Jun 08 11:43 AM
    • Should We Force a Housing Bottom? [view article]
      Its been so long, most people forget that interest rates aren't supposed to be set by a group appointed by politicians, they're supposed to be set by the market. When people have lots of savings, interest rates are low, when people are short of savings, interest rates are high. What we have today is the unnatural situation of low savings, and excessive debt, AND low interest rates. The restorative force has been broken by the short term outlook of politicians. May 11 11:47 AM
    • Gas Tax Holiday Is Populist, But Pointless [view article]
      I keep hearing people who use a lot of gas say that gas is an inelastic commodity. I call BS, look how sales of new SUVs and trucks are taking a nose dive. May 03 12:34 AM
    • Between Inflation and Interest Rates, Bernanke's In Deep [view article]
      The Fed is bailing peoples bad mortgage investments at the expense of everyone else. How is this helping the country? May 01 02:54 AM
    • No Sign of Bottom in Existing US Home Sale Prices [view article]
      Maybe we need to stabilize the market by hastening its correction downward to the long term steady price point.

      I occasionally hear this talk about people not being able to get loans. These are the people that shouldn't have been getting loans in the first place. When the prices finish correcting, more of them will qualify for the lower principle loan.       May 01 02:41 AM
    • Has the Federal Reserve Become Too Powerful? [view article]
      Good point made in the article- the Fed is reacting to circumstances that were created in part by earlier Fed action.

      The Fed benefits the banks at the expense of the rest of the economy. And no, the economy isn't the banks. They let banks, and now securities houses run their leverage up to the hairy edge to maximize profit, then when they fall down, they're hedged by the Fed.       May 01 02:32 AM
    • Unintended Socialization of the Housing Market and Its Consequences [view article]
      Great break down of Frank's misguided attempt at socialing the losses of the greatest housing bubble in history. Apr 16 01:24 AM
    • Misguided Calls for Activism [view article]
      The reflexive thing is to "DO SOMETHING". Its much more subtle to realize that less is more. Obviously more and more regulation isn't working. Einstein said something to the effect that you aren't going to solve a problem with the kind of thinking that got you there in the first place.

      Free the market. The oven is cleaning itself right now, only problem for some people had all their cookies in there and they're going up in smoke.

      Keynes and all the other central planners are horses patoots.       Apr 12 02:22 AM
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