tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-274425187060062853.post7288348389292849116..comments2023-11-02T07:14:37.055-04:00Comments on Riding Shotgun: House of Cards: A Cautionary TaleConquistadorahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10578730646460628620noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-274425187060062853.post-39196169845413568972012-08-25T14:16:18.393-04:002012-08-25T14:16:18.393-04:00One must always stick to the fundamentals; borrowi...One must always stick to the fundamentals; borrowing is risky, you must always plan on paying it back and there is no free ride.Williamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03310225556398456078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-274425187060062853.post-48999570188909901582012-08-22T11:26:02.661-04:002012-08-22T11:26:02.661-04:00Consider this the Idiot's Guide snapshot versi...Consider this the Idiot's Guide snapshot version.Conquistadorahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10578730646460628620noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-274425187060062853.post-51791937977681955052012-08-22T11:14:20.200-04:002012-08-22T11:14:20.200-04:00The problem with Fannie and Freddie wasn't tha...The problem with Fannie and Freddie wasn't that they abandoned their standards, so much as they couldn't compete in the market. It's a perennial problem for government-owned business enterprises. If you go back far enough, there's evidence that the sub-prime lending trend got started in the 1990s, under the Clinton administration. Back then, it was considered a part of affirmative action. Fannie and freddie became the dumping ground for bad mortgage bundles; the bubble was in place far earlier. <br /><br />Further, the onus for generating the housing bubble wasn't 9/11. It was the crash of the Nasdaq bubble (the dot-com bust) that threatened the Keynesian boom-and-bust cycle. To replace the Nasdaq bubble and keep the good times rolling, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman called on Greenspan to begin a housing bubble (his words, not mine). This is the recurring theme of fantastic booms followed by recessions: the Fed's central planners fuel bubble after bubble hoping to stave off real market adjustment. It all goes back to Keynesian economics: the notion that you can <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nERTFo-Sk" rel="nofollow">spend your way into prosperity</a>.John C.https://www.blogger.com/profile/12859832339061108163noreply@blogger.com