Why are the guest ignoring this fact:

When there is a fraud and loan sharking (mortgage fraud) there is always Victims, Crime and Transfer of Wealth.

What have we done to reverse this massive transfer of wealth from first time home buyers who shelled out all of their savings and the borrowed money from their friends and relatives? Nothing!

All that money is gone from the pockets of people who saved and played by the rules. And we are giving more of “our” money who did not play by the rules so that they will lend more to the people who lost everything.

Does this make sense?

Potentially, the biggest economic threat to our economic future continues to be our transportation infrastructure.

When gas prices once again reach $4.00 plus per gallon, which will almost certainly occur within a few years at most, we will again feel the hardest squeeze. Remember what $4.00/gal gas did to your bottom line a short year and a half ago?

IMHO, the vast majority of the stimulus infrastructure dollars should have gone to fuel efficiency, mass transit, rail, and weening Americans off one person/one car insanity.

The future of transportation should be a major priority for Obama and the country, and we imperil our very near term future by not addressing it with major initiatives.

Please discuss the source of all these problems, which is lending on interest. All three monothistic religions Judaism, Christianity and Islam ALL forbid the lending on interest. Partnerships, cooperatives etc… permit loans without exploiting the lender or the borrower. Most Muslims avoided a big part of this economic collapse since they didn’t have any mortgages, car loans or credit card debt.

Please discuss if interest is a valid way of doing business. The whole system must change to fix the problem.

From the ABIWorld.org website: “Some of the nation’s largest mortgage companies are stepping up foreclosures on delinquent homeowners just as the Obama administration’s housing-rescue plan gets into gear, the Wall Street Journal reported today.”

Where has the discussion about revising the bankruptcy code to stop these foreclosures gone? I am a consumer bankruptcy attorney and I currently cannot help single family homeowners who are underwater hold onto their homes. Nor are the banks doing meaningful modifications that will lower payments to an affordable level. We are not at the end of this until the foreclosures stop. And the foreclosures won’t stop until you amend the bankruptcy code to allow modifications of these bad loans.

I am continually disturbed by the “doomsaying” on this program. My financial situation could be considered disastrous by many observers, but I continue to plod along, paying what I can, making do, economizing where it is possible, and trying to keep a positive attitude.

Please, Tom, consider this quote from Howard Zinn, author of “You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train”:

“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, and kindness…

What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. …The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”

Thank You,
Kate

I’m amazed that U.S. citizens still believe Democrats or Republicans can or will fix the economy. They have compromised the existing regulatory atmosphere into existence. This country existed for approximately 140 years with relatively no regulation on business before the Great Depression and in half that time, those compromises have gotten us into another one nearly as drastic. The costs of those regulations on businesses makes my cost at purchasing goods or services skyrocket. How does increasing regulation improve anything other than special interest lobbying? Or the ability of companies to find ever more creative and dangerous means around those regulations?

Thanks,

Eric

The commentator (Mr. Chris Varvares) clearly is still clouded by bubble mentality. It is not clear what qualifies him as a president of anything. Elemental economic analysis would have already discovered that from 1996-2001, and 2003-2007, if we subtract tech bubble borrowing and mortgage equity withdrawals from the economy, the trend line would have already been 1-1.5% annual growth, if not negative growth. With no bubbles to blow, and two bubbles already broken successively, and our psychology would not be ready for another bubble, our trend line growth will be a lot lower.

A few people, like Terry Gross on Fresh Air, are finally noticing what they call an appearance that “a group of circumstances” developed that created the whole financial mess… She couldn’t be more correct!

One of the great mysteries of academic self-isolation (!) is that the economics community has yet to noticed that the prime assumption of the common economic model stopped being true, reversing direction somewhere around 1970. That’s the assumption that increasing investment would always produce increasing compound returns without increasing risk. Up to that point increasing investment generally did produce more positive returns, cheaper and easier, so maintaining growth was simply a matter of stabilizing the process. After that, though, increasing investment has resulted in smaller, costlier and more risky returns, naturally. It’s called “diminishing returns”, a natural phenomenon for all development processes involving physical things. We began making up the difference with pure money manipulation, is where the blow-out then came from.

Since 1983 there’s also been a definitive physics proof of exactly what features of the physical world and the standard assumptions of economics are thus in unredeemable conflict. It’s that central contradiction between stability and endless growth that is the “group of circumstances” all this debate is centered on, but for academic reasons (!) no one is discussing.

I’d propose I help you with your research and learning how to discuss it. For a simple recent intro to how to connect physics and economic models and reach that conclusion see http://www.synapse9.com/issues/concept$.htm

Agree with Phil Henshaw’s posting. There is belief out there if the economic rules and assumptions have worked in the past, they will work again the same way at every cycle.

He used the magic date of 1983. Why that day is important? Around that date, the economic landescape was taken hostage by group of people who leaned that buying the guys who make the rules is the best investment money can buy.
They learned with Time-Share properties by using junk mail.
They experimented with S&L deregulation.
Then another broad based experimentation with Internet stocks.
They crafted the technique with Credit Card/Bankcruptcy rule.
And then the Mortgage scams.

One thing they sort of tried was privitising the Social Security. They will take another stab at it as soon as they get rid of Obama with tea bags and coffee filters.

Of course, in the long run globalization takes its course and while you are pushing electronic paper all day and do financial dealings, all of a sudden you realize that you cannot manufacture a Pencil anymore in your own country.