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read blogs Longorshortcapital.com is very funny.

Just a couple of sticking point: 1.)where are you going to get the money to give to everyone? 2.) without all these government programs, the power of government weakens considerably and the politicians will lose an immense amount of power. You don't really think they're going to let...

Um...no. LTCM was a private bailout. If you got into financial trouble and your friends pulled together to bail you out, should I have a problem with that? I think you would agree I shouldn't. The banks are a different story altogether. They are heavily regulated, which means that the...

Daal, Bankruptcy judges don't run banks. Their primary purpose is to maintain integrity of contracts and an orderly liquidation. I think the example you gave with C is not nationalization but receivership. In other words, the government will not run the bank but dispose of its assets and...

The naivete of Keynes is that he underestimated the self interest of government actors (power is so juicy, why give it up once you have it?). And he virtually ignored the fact that human beings respond to incentives.

Well, you know.... The government does such a bang up job running the post office, DMV, etc. that I can't <i>imagine</i> it wouldn't make an excellent bank manager. Especially considering that most of the cause of all this mess and "systemic risk" is rooted in the governments extremely wise...

I'm sorry, but I have a huge problem taking Bill Gross seriously. The guy filled his portfolio with MBS and the preferred shares of banks and then stuck his face in front of every available camera to stump for a bailout plan that specifically helps his positions. He may or may not be smart...

Well, gee.... Because if the government is the only bank then it has a monopoly and monopolies tend to lead to higher prices for consumers. If new mortgages can't be had for 2%, then the price of the houses still has to be adjusted downward as their will be fewer bidders as the price of...

Allow me to be the second to compliment you on your excellent post. If I may add....employment is a direct result of wealth creation as investment in wealth creating projects increases demand for labour. The problem with government is that it doesn't create wealth. Thus, every...

Wars have a tendency to soak up the unemployed. But war is not productive economic activity. See: "broken window fallacy."

I don't know if his plan is natural gas or not. What I'm pretty sure of is that T. Boone got into wind farming just as he thought he was going to collect government subsidies for it. His real strategy for wind farms is government subsidy collection.

by "increases the price" for the customer, I obviously mean transaction costs.

It's not a stupid question. You are correct. The rule was stupid because it was an attempt to bias the market to the upside. Biasing a market is what created the housing bubble. Since we still our all-knowing, omniscient government still hasn't learned that creating positive bias...

Exactly! Lawyers don't care how creative they have to get to get paid. I wonder how many of these cases will be won. If it's a significant amount, mortgages will be very hard to come by indeed in the future because they will obviously be more risky.

Holy crap, traderdragon. Thanks for posting that. Soon we're going to be like France - a country of mindless government functionaries.

Your point, Troy? Bush, like all politicians, wanted more home buying (let's not indulge in the fiction that 0% equity is "ownership" for anyone except ACORN). people who buy houses tend to vote for incumbents. Makes sense. If you're long an asset (not an option), you're short volatility and...

Oh God, more Keynesian crap masquerading as economics. The problem is that most average Americans' understanding of economics and ability to think critically is as poor as yours, Landis. There is ZERO evidence that Keynesian pump priming ever did anything other than delay recovery...

The banks aren't already nationalized? News to me. Face it guys, the banks were effectively nationalized long ago.

Well, then, they should either stop reproducing or move to Arkansas. Good God! It's not like birth control is such a foreign concept. When I first moved to NYC, I made less than that and I managed to save $6K in the first six months. These people are so useless.