Quote from Pa(b)st Prime:
This isn't a credit crisis. This is a HOUSING crisis. If real estate was marketable this wouldn't even be a market event. It's not like people all of a sudden were in homes they couldn't afford. What is new is that they couldn't sell their house. Now a bank owns it. And the bank can't sell it either.
Monetary policy is impotent in averting the accelerating trend of market reevaluations. Think Tech 2001. I submit that even if every mortgage was on zero-interest: home prices would still collapse. Cost of carry means nothing when prices are correcting 10-20% a year.
On the other hand the persistent strength in grains, meats and energies should be ultra alarming to Fed policy makers. It sure is to Trichet.
AAA, I hope your not in the camp of Robert Reich and the liberal yahoos who seek currency debasement and inflation as a cure-all for the dreaded "R" word.