More Bailouts

So the bailout proceeds without oversight. What else is new?

How about more criminal investigations of the SEC and securities appraisers? Investigate the SEC and the securities ratings services and a lack of competition.

Will the bailouts prop up prices? Will that help the little guy? What will help the smallholders?

Assumptions about future financial situations should be absent from mortgage arrangements, which would void any ARM contracts in favor of the teaser rate. Avoiding raising the ARMS is an aim of low interest rates, which leaves depositors taking the low interest rate hit. How about lowering the price instead of the interest rates? More sales would result, while maintaining a reasonable rate of return for depositors. Lowering prices would be more beneficial to more people than lowering interest rates.

Of course, lowering prices would create more upside down debt, where people owe more than the goods they bought with borrowed money are worth. It is safe to say that this posited situation of lower prices for real estate and goods would benefit more people than those who indebted themselves. Fair interest rates for depositors would raise the level of deposits, regaining real capital.

If the people running things profit from higher prices at the expense of most of the rest of us, policy reviews are in order.

Engineered inflation and constant growth are untenable positions in a finite world. Cancel the construction and sale of debt based securities, as they produce nothing of real value, only taxpayer supported gambling debt.

Let Las Vegas handle the gambling.