Letters to the Editor
cdunlea
Published Letters: 153 Editor's Choice: 35
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I have to agree
[Read the article: Closing the mortgage barn door]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]with Andrew on this one. The Fed's announcement is reminiscent of the Church's pronouncement in 1988 that--gasp!--Galileo was right after all! Well, thank you, Mr. Obvious.
Not only have the lenders writing these loans already crashed, the states have already jumped well ahead of the Fed in mandating escrows and banning prepays. As for "evidence of income" requirements, that won't happen; there are far, far too many self-employed people using legal, GAAP-approved means to minimize their reported income that deserve credit who would be shut out of the credit market if they had to prove their income under conventionally accepted means. The banks must still have the leeway to approve a loan for a person with 720 FICOs, a substantial dowmpayment, several months of post closing reserves and a track record in their business.
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This is why I would never vote for Ron Paul.
[Read the article: Death to the Fed! A Ron Paul manifesto]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The idea that gold has an inherent monetary value apart from what a state actually produces was discredited by the Physiocrats of the 18th Century. Our money, and presumably the money of any developed nation, is based on the value of production of goods and services, land, and the improvements thereupon.
Gold (and silver) are not wealth by themselves; the Spanish found this out the hard way earlier in the 17th century. The discovery of the rich Mexican silver mines brought fabulous wealth to Spain, allowing it to buy (yes, "buy") the best army and navy in Europe (like the Armada of 1588). The Spanish kings married the Hapsburgs, put themselves on the Imperial throne, and spent a century fighting religious wars with the rest of Europe, while the silver went to buy wheat to feed their people as they could not grow enough for themselves. When the silver mines started tanking, Spain could no longer buy enough food to feed their people AND their military commitments were way too expensive to pay for. They, like the Soviets and, increasingly, the US, were caught in the "guns vs. butter" problem because they failed to plan for the long term.
The abolition of the gold standard brought modern economies more closely in line with reality.
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Whaaa??
[Read the article: Death to the Fed! A Ron Paul manifesto]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Economists who fantasize that they can "manage" the economy are insane. The FED governors should be committed for even trying to pretend that their judgement is wiser than 303 million Americans operating in a free market.
Ron Paul's point is not that he could manage it better, but that government has no "business" even trying to run the economy: that's fascism (private ownership under government control)."
Are you kidding? That's like saying trained physicians are no wiser about medicine than Johnny Steamshovel. Some of those 303 million Americans wonder why they keep bouncing checks--they still have some left in their checkbook. I'll keep the somewhat flawed perception of the Fed governors over people who can't balance their checkbooks, thank you.
And fascism is not an economic model but a political one. The "fascist" ecomomic model under Hitler most resembled pre-1929 America, except you had Albert Speer coodinating industrial war production with the German industrial cartels. Simply having a central banking structure--something the English have had since 1690 (Bank of England)--does not make something "fascist".
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Yeah, "elite" works
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Given the fact the Pat beat more playoff-bound teams than anyone else in the league, I'd say, yeah, they beat the elite teams; or, better put, they beat whatever passes for elite in the NFL.
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But in the real world...
[Read the article: Ben "tough guy" Bernanke puts up his dukes]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]....Bernanke has little choice.
We are in an election year. The Repubs are terrified of losing the White House AND Congress and getting eight years of bad karma pay them back. No administration, even a lame duck, want to turn the government over to the other side, especially if it is obvious a recession started when they were still in power. Bernanke needs to keep those hack traders on his side and their confidence in the market up because otherwise fear will create a vicious circle of panic and we WILL be in a full-blown recession by November.
Unfortunately, from where I sit, I think he's in a bind and dropping interest rates won't help the housing market. I agree with Boston Fed president Rosengren's position. The fear of unknown mortgage losses will keep Wall Street from loosening the credit spigot; reduced availability of mortgage credit, and the mortgage agency price adjustments on loans they will grant, will keep housing supply high and the number of qualified buyers low; the lack of buyers will force prices to drop further, stranding people who bought in the last few years with adjustable rates because they cannot make the payments OR sell a house they can't afford, leading to further foreclosure losses. Too bad Bernanke can't do something more significant.
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Huh?
[Read the article: Ben "tough guy" Bernanke puts up his dukes]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Now as to the underlying problems in credit? Sure, they'd love to see inflation take off. Credit problems evaporate that much faster when you're paying off last month's loss with next months' cheaper dollars."
Because that worked so well in 1920s Germany. :)
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Garbage
[Read the article: "We're all fascists now"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Apparently Jonah really needed to clearcut several acres of forest to provide the paper for his masturbatory exercise in Godwin's law.
The definition of vanity publishing is writing something just to say you've published it, whether anyone reads it, believes it or even cares. Since he's arguing something no actual historian would believe and does contributes nothing substantive to historical understanding, I'd say he's hit it on the head.