It never made sense to me that Keynes could've fallen out of intellectual favor. Decades of human experience showed that Adam Smith's invisible hand worked no better in practice than communism at producing ideal social & economic conditions. Markets need to be overseen in order to maintain the necessary competition to produce efficient results.

Anyone who thinks we live in a totally free market is intellectually dishonest. Political corruption is rampant in this country and constantly skews incentives away from efficient market outcomes... toward whoever has their local (or national) politico on the payroll.

I see why Friedman would be so popular with the pro-business crowd. I don't see why policy makers should've ever agreed to loosen regulations.

I guess the stars like McCain. I wonder if she talked to Ronnie. He misses her so...

There's a big difference between slaughtering livestock, and slaughtering dogs. The latter have been domesticated and brought into intimate personal relationships with human beings. It's like slaughtering a family member in my opinion.

Furthermore, it's disloyal. Domesticated dogs are so dedicated to their owners, they'll take a bullet for you, they'll stay up waiting for you... they'll sit by the front door to guard the home like it's their job. No other species has shown the same dedication to their human masters. I think they deserve a little more loyalty from humans than we'd show to chickens or pigs.

So I'd argue dogs, Canis lupus familiaris, are specially deserving of a more honorable position than "dinner," based not on any real physical difference in the pain and suffering of the species, but on the basis reciprocal loyalty.

I posted this letter in a thread on the Warroom's board earlier. The original link was here, but it's been changed: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080319/pl_nm/usa_politics_dc

The first time I read the headline to this article it stated that Obama "Belittles McCain" for his mistake, both in the headline and the body of the article. Weird, huh? I've never noticed them use the term "belittle" for a political response. Normally, you see headlines like "McCain attacks XXX" or "So-and-so Attacks XXX for YYY Comments." Belittling someone sounds so petty and unserious. Not tough and aggressive like "attacking" someone!

So Barack "belittles" people? I guess he's just not your average candidate...

Thankfully, I checked the link again before posting here (same link) and noticed the headline has changed to say Barack and McCain are in a "crossfire" over this. Odd.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080319/pl_nm/usa_politics_dc

I don't know if I'm allowed to post links here, but note how they say Obama "Belittles McCain" for his mistake. Weird, huh? I've never noticed them use the term "belittle" for a political response. Normally, you see headlines like "McCain attacks XXX" or "So-and-so Attacks XXX for YYY Comments."

But Barack "belittles" people? I guess he's just not your average candidate...

We're not talking about the same thing here. Banks sold other banks crap products (securitized mortgages unbacked by any collateral). It's not necessarily fraud; this is more of a matter of a failure on the part of many of these banks to conduct proper due diligence.

You're really asking the government to step in and regulate all aspects of commercial deals. I cringe to think the government should step in and start prosecuting one party to a business deal because the other side simply made a bad deal. Think of the political abuse this could lead to. It's a horrible idea. A private course of action exists to sue for common law fraud, and this is MORE than adequate.

And I specifically said I am against government bailouts. Quit using straw arguments to make your points.

Why not just let the companies that got defrauded sue those that defrauded them? Why do we need to spend more money enforcing laws among those that are in the best position to oversee the risk themselves? Someone above mentioned the moral hazard in the case of gov't bailouts. To some extent, that could be the case here. If Goldman Sachs sells Morgan Stanley a bunch of junk bonds passed off as investment grade, does the Fed need to step in and hold Morgan Stanley's hand?

Look, I'm not some free-market hack, I believe gov't regulation is necessary where consumers are involved. But that isn't the case here. These were sophisticated investors who sold other sophisticated investors bad debt that wasn't backed up by any collateral - but had convinced them it was AAA grade stuff.

I would agree there should gov't oversight on the consumer end... but I don't think we really need more enforcement among (supposedly) sophisticated banking entities. The cost to enforce this (more gov't oversight, manpower, resources) is unnecessary, and will be ineffective as the time to intervene has long passed.

Everyone has a theory, from a lack of "green industry" (how could that POSSIBLY prevent morons from buying worthless collaterized debt?) to the Democrats taking power in 2006 (I don't even know what to say to that...)

I don't think more regulation is necessarily the answer to the subprime mortgage meltdown; when you have supposedly sophisticated investment banks ripping eachother off by calling "BAD" debt "GOOD" debt (I guess they fooled the credit rating agencies like Moody's, S&P too), there's little the gov't can do. This is just a case of CAVEAT EMPTOR not being followed prudently. Maybe the market for this is small enough that it wouldn't require too many resources to police, but come on - investment banks and mortgage lenders are "big boys" - they should be taking care of themselves.

The last thing we need is bailouts or more regulation. Just make them take their proverbial medicine, and move on... poorer... wiser.

I still maintain that the inflationary pressures / weakness of the dollar have nothing to do with this, and everything to do with profligate gov't spending (as I said in my previous post).