While we're wringing our hands over the "bailout," the NYSE asset value fell today well over a trillion dollars. For the year it's several trillion. Credit is freezing up. It's not freezing up because of a collapsing economy (yet, but soon) but because of the absurd "mark to market" accounting standard. The "bailout" (which it is not) was to allow these performing assets to reinflate to a real market value.
If you love the "free market" to work, you'll love what's going to happen without this. Read what loan terms were before the first great depression. We're about to have our own if we're not careful. We'll then start making 60% loans for 10 years to buy a house. Interest rates will be about what you'd pay for a non-subsidized used car loan. Care to think what the value of your house will be with those types of terms available to borrowers? Care to think what the impact will be to the economy?
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The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane -- Marcus Aurelius
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