When I ran across this article in the Herald Tribune, my first thought was of HTWW here at Salon.

"As towns go broke, subprime crisis hits Arctic Circle"

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/28/business/bank.php

"A Norwegian brokerage that lost its license over its role in turning four remote towns around the Arctic Circle into victims of the U.S. subprime crisis said Wednesday that it would file for bankruptcy.

The main Norwegian financial regulator said that Terra Securities had violated the "good code of conduct" and failed to sufficiently inform four Norwegian municipalities of possible risks related to collateralized debt products that it had sold them before the credit crisis hit."

As news of this type gets around, you can bet every non-US investor is faced with the soft costs of investing in the US market. Does he want to go home and tell his wife that he put his money where that Norwegian town did?

- Dr. Mojo

A friend sent me this:

http://thisjune5th.com/

In short - these people want US citizens to withdraw all their cash from banks for ten days starting June 5th as a protest against fed fiscal policy.

Ya know, I'm known as a smart guy. I've got a BS from a very big important university. My parents are bankers.

Yet at age 39 I don't feel like I really have a handle on how these big money issues really play out. Then again, perhaps nobody does.

Help us understand this stuff Andrew Leonard!

p.s. Love your column. Keep up the good work!

Living here in Portland, Oregon all I can say to the burst of the housing bubble is THANK GAWD!

As the owner of a small business when I went looking for financing in the mid-late 90's I was told to get lost. I had other things going on in my life in the "aughts" so I didn't pursue financing, though clearly it wouldn't have been a problem to find a loan regardless of reality.

Now those of us who didn't participate in the bubble are being asked to:

* pay for subsidies to bail out those who did

* pay for higher housing prices

What a great deal!

While I feel for those suckered into a bad mortgages by dishonest brokers, and I rely on the overall health of our economy - how much should I personally be punished for NOT making bad financial decisions...?

It made no personal financial sense for me to pursue a mortgage during the bubble, so I didn't - even though housing prices were rising fast. Now I'm expected to pay those higher prices, jump through MORE hoops to get a loan AND help pay off other people's mistakes.

I see no reason why I or anyone in my boat should be happy about this arrangement - which is why every drop in housing prices to a more appropriate equilibrium is applauded by people like myself. Let those prices drop!

Ironically, my company was hired to provide services to a mortgage broker around 1997. She listed "public perception of mortgage brokers as dishonest" as being one of their biggest obstacles. Oddly enough she never paid our second invoice or ever returned our calls after that. Where is she now, I wonder?

- Steve

I've had my rant about my personal situation, now here's my "intellectual" rant about the situation in general.

Here's something interesting from James T. Kirk:

> Luckily, as I have been publically obscenely yelled at for this before, our

> legal illegal alien population continues to grow so my school system already 2

> billion dollars in debt, will see massive funding cuts and a big explosion in

> population. That will be wonderful. Salon's dusky freedom fighters who don't > pay

> taxes to send their children to school just in time for the budgets to fall

> apart. I guess the fine radicals of salon will be happy to send me several

> thousand dollars the tax increase will cost.

Here's the thing - there's no real escape from the real costs of our economy. Our agricultural economy is subsidized by the federal government (your tax dollars). Since American farmers can grow corn for less than it costs, that puts Mexican farmers out of work. Mexican farmers, much like you and me, still have to eat - so they do what they have to do to feed their families. Every kernel of subsidized corn we grow ships labor from south of Texas to fill the void. You get the food on your table for less than market rates for that food. So what? Below market rates, that's good, right/

Well, we've (that is anyone who buys food or pays taxes in the USA) created a situation that ships less-than-legal people here to work in our industries. This helps keep the price of our food low. As an externality some other costs are higher, for instance, any children of those workers born in the USA and become part of our social support network.

Next time you meet one, thank them for the cheap burgers and fries!

One thing I keep not hearing in the discussions about the government bailout is the effect of government borrowing on the overall economy.

I remember reading an interesting analysis of the Clinton boom years - I can't remember by who - but the gist of the article was that by ballancing the budget instead of borrowing, the Clinton years left many more dollars in the market to be borrowed. This made lending cheaper for businesses and possibly lead to the boom.

If this is true:

* What's the result of the Bush deficits on the economy?

* What's the impact of the billions more being borrowed by the government for the bailouts on the available credit for businesses?

Any clues here?