In your article, you said "nobody on Wall Street has any idea how many bad loans are out there." and yet later on you said "But now several million Americans may lose their homes". My question for you is this, does anyone in the US knows exactly how many homes are purchaed using subprime mortgages? If not why not? What are the total values of these mortgages? How many are vulnerable to defaults? How many are speculative purchases? etc etc. Without those numbers, no one, including you, should not speculate how many people will loose their homes, by saying so will create "FEAR" in people's minds, which is exactly what is happening at this moment.

I have not read any real true numbers in the news and it is a sorry state of the banking industry if they can not come up with these number quickly. Because of this lack of information, it creates the turmoil in the credit market.

My personal belief is that, the actual loss due to mortgage crisis is small relative to the size of the US enconomy and should not result in any recession. As Mr. Greenspan pointed in a recent article, the crisis will play out when all the backlog of new houses are sold. There is no need for any action by the government with regard to the credit crisis. Just let the bankrupt banks be absorpt by the others to clean up the mess.

This whole mess is created due to lack of information and people speculate resulting FEAR in the market. All the economic fundamental(employment rate, inflation, growth and interest rate) are sound in all developed and developing countries.

jack tom

Terrorism is like cancer. If it has spreaded to an advanced stage, the treatment required must be serious, like radiation and even surgery. The cancer cells have to be removed by whatever means are required. When 9/11 happened, it was a very advanced stage of infection. There is no choice but to use the most serious treatment, In this case the use of arm forces to remove al Qaeda training bases in Afghanistan. The results are successful as demonstrated by there was no attacks on US soil for over 7 years. Treating terrorism like criminal activities will not do the job.

However, there are still many cancer cells remaining in many cities of the world. The incidents in Spain, England and now India demonstrated that not all cancer cells have been eradicated. Terrorists are picking on softer targets now, since the implementation of security measures in the US, Spain and England have prevented them from attacking these targets.

There is no doubt India is going to implement security measures similar that of the US. Terrorists will remain and create havoc every where in the world whenever possible. This will continue until all al Quaeda terrorists are eradicated across the world. Contrary to what this author naively suggested in a previous post that Obama should end the war on terror.(see http://www.salon.com/opinion/kamiya/2008/11/25/obama_war_on_terror/)

When most or all cancer cells have been eradicated, then we can talk about a rehab program to strengthen the body to prevent recurrence of this disease. When Muslim radical extremists have been eliminated, we can start assisting Arab countries to implement reforms to remove all radical jihardis.

This birth certificate issue has moved beyond being conspiracy theory. It has gotten traction and the attention of the Supreme Court; there might be some merits to the claims of those opponents of Obama. Simply ignoring them and wish them to go away is dangerous and arrogant. I think Obama should take this as serious and step up to clear this up before inauguration. He can do this simply by handing all relevant documents to the Supreme Court and let them declare his eligibility instead of fighting these lawsuits. If these birth eligibility issue is not cleared up and it will linger for the next 4 years. It is not good for him, for the US and not good for the world. It will have legal as well as moral implications.

Simply ignoring them is not the best tactic.

Reading all these posts here, I feel sad for America, the riches, most powerful and highly intelligent citizens and yet we have problem answering the question whether the person who is applying for the job POTUS, the most powerful person in the world satisfies the three basic requirements according to its Constitution. Worse, no one is responsible for checking the qualifications of all these presidential candidates when they enter the presidential race. What is wrong here? America is becoming a Banana Republic.

It is not healthy for these partisan debates to continue for the next 4 years. It will be good for Obama, America and the world for Obama to show all relevant documents to the courts to clear this issue up once and for all.