Sorry, but most Americans lead pretty sheltered lives, well insulated from reality by a cushion of mass-media delivered corporate propaganda and religious frootbattery. Anyone even tenuously connected to reality realized several years ago that the interest only, no money down, adjustable rate, stated income mortgage-financed economy was a complete fraud. That this reality is only slowly dawning on millions of Americans is testament to just how clueless the electorate has become.

This is a bi-partisan fiasco, as the big mortgage scamsters were more than happy to buy off politicians on both sides of the aisle, providing millions in campaign cash, cushy jobs and crooked investments. For the past 30 years or so America drank the free market Kool-Aid by the vat. It's a little late now for folks to bitch about it being laced with cyanide.

I think sunspot's comments are valid.

My larger concern, though, is that we are not understanding the reasons for all the creative mortgages, the foreclosures and that we are headed for a financial meltdown.

The real issue, as I see it, is a fundamental shift in the American economy to service sector lives. Most service sector incomes are too anemic for the kind of life we are accustomed to in America.

We are witnessing the symptoms, not the disease. Our citizens are losing financial ground at an alarming rate while corporations outsource our jobs and strike at us with financial tools that rob us of our ability to create real wealth. We're enslaved to credit, good or bad.

Even our fat-cats are in jeopardy as most wealth is now speculative and residing in the stock market. As long as we do not realize the gains we might have and reinvest locally and SAVE even at NO interest, we are soon to find we are a very poor nation when it all falls down.

yes, and people got in trouble buying McMansions when all they needed, much less could afford was a modest Cape Cod. Those people were living beyond their means, which is shallow and materialistic. I just can't believe the bean counters supported their foolishness.

And I, who goes without a lot that my neighbors have to live within my means, will end up paying for the greedy people's choices.

The Federal Reserve just lowered interest rates by 75 basis points when it was not clear at all that the risk of recession was greater than the inflation risk. With the dollar at an all-time low against the euro (and still sinking) and at parity with the Canadian dollar, more monetary stimulus from the Fed, and unrestrained growth in government spending over the past few years, it makes me wonder if we're headed for much higher inflation.

Many people seem to have forgotten how high interest rates were in the late '70s and early '80s - double digits. There are few things more economically corrosive than that. While we (hopefully) won't see a repeat of that, long-term interest rates are likely headed higher - perhaps significantly so. These bellyaching exurban Republicans ain't seen nothin' yet.

After all, people who you portray as fat rich rednecks will, in the end be better able to weather the very financial storm you gleefully champion. And loyal noble lumpenproles at the bottom, will, as always, get screwed.

Why should subprime foreclosures turn people Democrat? What's the connection?

Something about the fact that you can kill people's children in wars and they won't complain, but start taking their money and they'll overthrow your regime. . .

He's a weasel and a parasite whose gimcrack houses and shady businesses are a blight on New Jersey.

The Republicans will label themselves Democrats but they'll still be Republicans. So the Democratic party will swing EVEN further to the right.

A measure of just how volatile this situation has become -- although your comments would have been valid just a week or so ago, this morning the Canadian dollar briefly pushed through US$1.10.

Currencies are bouncing around like penny stock prices. And even if you don't export the mortgage problem, you're certainly exporting the tension and uncertainty. Canadians in Ontario worry about the dollar pressure causing loss of manufacturing jobs, and they want a central bank rate cut to ease that pressure. Meanwhile in Calgary - where oil prices are putting incredible inflationary pressures on the economy - many of the homeless people are making $40,000 a year [*], but can't afford - or even find - an apartment. If anything, they want a rate increase to stave of the inflationary pressure.

I'd ask you to hurry up and fix your economy, but I'm pretty sure that's going to be both complex and painful.

[*: http://www.thestar.com/News/article/266816 ]

You really should do an article on option mortgages. Most of them have not reset yet. I work in the mortgage industry and I keep talking to people that have these and are now, too late figuring out how they work. A lot of these people, mainly middle and upper income earners are going to see their mortgage payments double in one month and they can't afford it.

People who sold houses at grossly inflated prices the last few years should be ok. People who bought and held since ten years ago should also be ok.

People who bought for the first time in the last few years in inflated markets can file bankruptcy or slog it out in a seven percent fixed loan, if they got that type of loan or if they have the equity to refinance. If there is no equity then hand over the keys and rent. Same goes for people who cashed out into foolish loans.

Sure some people will get their asses handed to them, but they were foolish and foolish people lose sometimes.

Loose credit is to blame for the run up in prices and for the subsequent crash. Neither party really ever opposed loose credit during the good times. Why should we allow one or the other party to claim to be best able to deal with the problem when neither was able to see it coming and this despite the fact that our situation is basically a repeat of past blunders?