I've been schooled here. But seriously, when did the Japanese diet become so much like ours? That has to be recently. I'll admit the last time I was in Japan was 1989, but my travels through the country left me a distinct impression that beef and butter were uncommon. And the emphasis on fish (and lack thereof on dairy) is cited still today as to why Japan has one of the longest life expectancies on the planet.

So, this is a major issue in Japan then?

You're assuming full disclosure was provided every step of the way. We're a looooong way from assuming that.

You would have us substitute the judgement of a government agency that has no experience in the field for the 100+ years of experience Moody's, S&P and Fitch bring to the table. You can only make a case for the incompetence of the Big Three--which you in effect are--if you can prove they routinely get it wrong. In the case of the subprime MBS, yes, they did. But they prove quite capable of rating corporate bonds, municipals and various other debt instruments in that their ratings tend to be validated by performance.

You would create a bureaucracy, with the inefficiencies of government (how's the FDA these days, Andrew? The EPA??) at taxpayer expense. Or, if the government charges for the ratings service, those costs would get passed down all the way to the consumer. All just to give private business a sense of what's worth investing in.

Right now, the government simply prohibits fraud in describing investments. You would have a branch of the government endorse investments--what else could a Aaa rating from them mean? Have you considered the conflict of interest that might arise? Anybody want to guess what Halliburton bonds would be rated under this system??

Well put!

The best incentive to be accurate is reputation, followed by what you can charge investment companies and broker-dealers for ratings based on that reputation. If Moody's et al are providing inaccurate grades for bonds they won't be listened to very much--any more than you or I or your Aunt Sally will be listened to about the strength of XYZ Corp.'s subordinated debentures.

Obviously, someone over in these companies was much less than truthful, and the Big Three may very well suffer for it. But I can't see an incentive for these guys to be intentionally misleading over a few greased palms. The cat's out of the bag now. The ratings companies' biggest customers--the broker-dealers--lost their shirts trading those toxic MBSs and careers were destroyed. Heads will roll at Moody's if they haven't already. The Big Three will have to work twice as hard as before to re-establish credibility on the Street.

Your hypothesis is at least as presumptively valid as these researchers.

BTW, science proves it: needlepoint, not crocheting, is the key.

Buffet's right (of course). People will always crave candy (especially chocolate). Alcohol and tobacco also make good D stocks--the worse things get, the more people need a cold beer and a smoke. Just my observation...

...as it's like on the 36th page here, but I wanted to tell TCF I appreciate her thinking and fairness. The worst thing in the world is to lose a relationship because the girl sends out mixed signals.

I dated a girl in college who loved to tell me about how she was a virgin and saving it for marriage. Okay, I'm an old-fashioned guy, I can keep it in my pants. The only problem was she kept acting like she wasn't planning on saving anything. I eventually got dumped because I put her feet to sleep. A shame; had she been a little less misleading I would have been happy to giver her what she really wanted.

Yeah, cutting rainforests suck...but at least he's planting soybeans, the world's most important and versatile food crop, which enrich the soil, and allow for a more earth-friendly protein than beef or lamb. (Jeez, I sound like a hippie vegan.) With so much of South America being torn up only to be used as grazing range for cattle, causing slow dehydration of the land, a reduction of CO2 consuming plants and increasing methane/CO2 emissions from the animals (don't laugh, it is a factor), soy is better than the alternative.

Besides, you can hardly blame him for advocating Brazilian self-sufficiency and increasing the food supply.

If bostonMA is really from Boston, it is statistically improbable, given the results of both elections, that s/he voted for the Fool in Chief once, if ever.

My experience tells me that most vacancies are in the cities in less-than-desirable areas. This is generally the result of people having to rely on subprime loans to buy these houses. That, also in my experience, is because many of those buyers were minorities, who a) had limited credit/income/assets/whatever; b) wanted to buy multi-family homes to have renters help pay for the mortgage (although the higher prices for these houses negated the rental factor); and c) wanted to live in the cities near "their" people, as I've been told my several non-whites.

The result is that entire urban neighborhoods, such as Elmwood in Providence, Mattapan/Dorchester and Roxbury in Boston, and James Street in Springfield, are empty now. I have heard it's actually worse in Detroit, Gary, IN and St. Louis by mortgage brokers posting online. People bought too-expensive houses relying on flatlining rental rates to cover the adjustable mortgage--and then the tenants moved, bought their own homes, didn't pay up or the mortgage rate jumped. In any case, the owners lost the home.

You might consider buying a rental property now, as rent rates are going back up (the "renting population", as a group, can no longer get those great subprime loans to buy, or they used to own but got foreclosed). Of course, you'd have to make sure the plumbing wasn't stripped out with the boilers...