Letters to the Editor
Bubba1234
Published Letters: 4 Editor's Choice: 1
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Bravo
[Read the article: Relax, liberals. You've already won]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Way to pat yourself and your ilk on the back, Michael. Now let's see if the Democrats can pull out the Presidency in this election. If so, your arguments may have some validity (although I'd argue that they reflect the absolute incompetence and intolerance - not the true conservatism - of the current administration.) If not, as I told my Democratic wife at the start of this election cycle, your party is the most incompentent political party in history. I had a similar response to your screed as I did to the recent article about the "death of conservatism" in the New Yorker - in both cases, the author underestimates the ability of the Democratic party to self-destruct. Just look at the Pelosi Congress. Cheers!
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Goodness, you're sooooo elitist
[Read the article: The culture war: It's back!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Such an elitist article. While you may be right about the dumbing down of our electoral process, it tends to work. As does wallowing in the muck a la Rove. Lefties can constantly complain that they run "honorable" campaigns that don't "pander" to the electorate (except, perhaps, when it comes to unions), but the right just focuses on winning, baby. You may sell your soul in the process (to, say, Dick Cheney), but at least you win. And, if you're a devout Christian, you've got that soul bit covered anyway.
Now, if you could excuse me, as a redblooded, heterosexual, honest-to-God American, I have a football game to watch. Go Steelers!
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You're sorta right
[Read the article: McCain: How not to explain a meltdown]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You know, the idea behind CDOs is really brilliant. Cut up a bunch of loans of a given rating, place priority on the payments to different holders of the resulting securities, and pay them according to that priority as the underlying payments come in. You can use diversification and ranking payouts to create higher rated assets from a bunch of lower quality assets. It really makes sense if you think about it. In theory.....
The real problem arises when you assign AAA ratings to CDO securities that should be C rated, at best, or are junk, at worst. So it's not the existence of CDOs per se (or the CDS's that were based on those CDOs). Rather, it's the fact that the rating agencies (Moodys, Fitch's, S&P) gave high ratings to junk.
If everyone relied on these ratings (and, by extension, the implicit assumption that housing prices would not decline nationally), then they eventually blow up when it turns out that the ratings were way off base. But it's not the securities themselves that are the problem. Rather it's the way in which they were priced. Which depends on the way in which they were rated. So while direct blame lies with the Wall St geniuses who bought these things, the root problem lies with the rating agencies that evaluated them (and, I suppose, the banks/mortgage brokers who originated the crap that they contain.)
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Does anyone know what to do?
[Read the article: Fear and loathing on Wall Street and the campaign trail]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This blow-up on Wall Street is nasty stuff. Frankly, I don't think that it's a partisan issue at this point. We just have to get out of this mess.
I suppose that the key issue is how we avoid such excess in the future. But trying to get current political points on one side or the other is not at all productive. Because no one, not Bernanke, not Paulson, and certainly not Obama or McCain, has any idea what to do. So stop pretending that anyone has a solution to the financial crisis. Just get through it, then we can dissect it.