Quoting hal9g:

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Personally, I say let capitalism work.  Survival of the fittest.  If that means another depression, then so be it.  It's about time that the general practice of relying on credit to cover day  to day living expenses is corrected.

The problem with this, is that the people who caused the problem, won't suffer during a depression.  The rich will still be rich.  It's the average, hard working person...who is trying to keep his family clothed, sheltered and fed without any help from the government...that will suffer.  Personally, I don't think that is the right way to go.

Quoting hal9g:

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Personally, I say let capitalism work.  Survival of the fittest.  If that means another depression, then so be it.  It's about time that the general practice of relying on credit to cover day  to day living expenses is corrected.

What a misconception IMHO. This is the prime example that pure capitalism is not working, that there are nothing like the healing powers of the markets. Greed rules the financial markets which have turned into a grand casino. Only clear rules set out by the state can prevent this, so could GWB but he chose not to pay attention.

And if I may add Hal, I found your comment rather cynical, I hope you are not really wishing for a depression, while I agree the the typical relying on credit should not be supported.

Quoting antolod:

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The really scary part of all this is the people who caused the problem (Congress) are the ones who are going to "fix" it. And, just imagine what your government will do for healthcare when they take it over. :shudder:

I honestly don't know what goverment healthcare looks like, but I sure know what free market healthcare looks like since it's all we've had.  I'm not impressed.

Quoting Unicus69:

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Quoting hal9g:

Quote:
Personally, I say let capitalism work.  Survival of the fittest.  If that means another depression, then so be it.  It's about time that the general practice of relying on credit to cover day  to day living expenses is corrected.

The problem with this, is that the people who caused the problem, won't suffer during a depression.  The rich will still be rich.  It's the average, hard working person...who is trying to keep his family clothed, sheltered and fed without any help from the government...that will suffer.  Personally, I don't think that is the right way to go.

Sorry, but there are no (or very few) innocents here.  Americans are over-extended as a group; buying houses they couldn't afford, cars they couldn't afford, sending their kids to colleges they couldn't afford, eating out almost every night and using credit to pay for it all.  Did the mortgage industry contribute...you bet.  But nobody forced people to take mortgages that they couldn't afford to make payments on.  And I don't want to hear about predatory practices and confusing terms.  People have to take individual responsibility for their own financial actions, regardless.

I look around at people that I know in my age group (late fifties to early sixties) and it is astounding to me how many of them live hand to mouth and have no idea what they will do when they retire......if they retire.  This is an epidemic in this country.

The house of cards is collapsing and, I personally don't believe anything should be done about it.  After the dust has settled the re-building will begin again and maybe...just maybe.... some lessons will have been learned the hard way.

Quoting antolod:

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The really scary part of all this is the people who caused the problem (Congress) are the ones who are going to "fix" it. And, just imagine what your government will do for healthcare when they take it over. :shudder:

I couldn't agree more.

Quoting hal9g:

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Sorry, but there are no (or very few) innocents here.  Americans are over-extended as a group; buying houses they couldn't afford, cars they couldn't afford, sending their kids to colleges they couldn't afford, eating out almost every night and using credit to pay for it all.  Did the mortgage industry contribute...you bet.  But nobody forced people to take mortgages that they couldn't afford to make payments on.  And I don't want to hear about predatory practices and confusing terms.  People have to take individual responsibility for their own financial actions, regardless.

I look around at people that I know in my age group (late fifties to early sixties) and it is astounding to me how many of them live hand to mouth and have no idea what they will do when they retire......if they retire.  This is an epidemic in this country.

The house of cards is collapsing and, I personally don't believe anything should be done about it.  After the dust has settled the re-building will begin again and maybe...just maybe.... some lessons will have been learned the hard way.

Sorry Hal, but that's a load.

There are plenty of innocents in this massive screw job.  1/4 of the US population is under 18.  Many of the remainder have never had a credit card.  (I've never had or wanted one.)

What we're looking at is the failure of pure free market economics.  The seeds were definately planted years ago, but the removal of any meaningful oversight has let the problem spiral completely out of control with the current administration. 

The market cannot self correct because those making the decisions for the corporations in question do not suffer in any meaningful way for their failure.  They're rewarded for their greed and escape the consequences.  And meaningful consequences cannot be imposed by the free market.  There needs to be judicious oversight of corporations that are large enough to impact the economy at large and severe (read BRUTAL) penalties must be laid on those whose greed leads them into the depth of fraud we're seeing of late.

The government cannot prevent a devestating economic crisis, but they can minize the impact and put controls into place to prevent the situation from ever deteriorating to this degree again and to make sure that in the future those responsible pay a price for their greed.

Unfortunately this time around it's the innocent (Read: The children, like my son) that will end up bearing the financial burden for the greed of a reletive few.

...

Quoting Rico:

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Hi Guys,

KDH & Unicus - Agree, nice posts!

Nobody (right or left) wanted things to turn out this way. In fact it seemed it would help the economy, promote home ownership etc.., intentions were honorable. Unfortunately we now have a mess on our hands. The government has an obligation, to its citizens, to maintain some semblance of order, therefore there intervention is inevitable. Finger pointing won't help the current situation, & most likely similar mistakes will occur in future generations.

A lot of this could have been avoided had the mortgage companies decided not to adjust mortgages.  I know a lot of people who have lost their homes.  Heck, my sister-in-law lives in the foreclosure capitol of the country.  Most of those people would have been able to keep their homes, had the monthly payment not doubled.

If those people could have stayed in their homes, the mortgage companies wouldn't have been stuck with devalued property they can't sell.