Lies Will Be Paid By Our Children

Warren Buffet summed it up well with "The bear markets do nothing but return shares to their rightful owners." Bundled loans are only the newest form of "Pyramid schemes" that were given a level of sophistication from our friends at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. When I was getting stock tips from cab drivers in 1999, it was time to be concerned; when my house in San Diego doubled in price in six years, it was a time of concern as I wondered how my kids would ever buy a home. This financial hurricane will pass and I hope we're ready to start sweeping.

Common sense from the back of a horse. I love it. With all of the finger pointing and hand wringing several facts are plain: people bought houses they could not afford from banks who did not care. At the time that was "ok" because, like the tech stock boom, prices were going up and there was an exit strategy after making easy money. Surprise! As the FED raised rates to try and prevent a housing bubble collapse by cooling the market, it merely triggered an event that was coming. The "poor" homeowners (that bought houses they could not afford) are as culpable as the banking and investment industry that created the bundled mortgage backed security monster.

Just my 2 cents worth. Sad thing is that we need government intervention to help support the financial markets and restart the economy. How often does that turn out well?

Keep it up Chris, what this country needs is more good old fashioned horse sense.

I like this guy. While everyone on "The Hill" wants to keep things so complicated that we, the average citizen, can't hope to know what they're talking about, Chris decides to take the path less traveled and dish it out in plainspeak.
"It's a lie."
That's all you really need to know.
Don't let our money get wasted on liars.

Off-topic - Chris, as someone descended from a long line of horsemen and women (a line that stretches back at least four thousand years, given my ancestry), I can tell that you're a true horseman as you can control and guide a horse without a saddle or reins. I wouldn't be surprised if you were also a horse-whisperer. :)

The rich were no where around when the prices of everything were skyrocketing and average families were finding it harder and harder to make ends meet. Now they made a big oops, and the struggling families are supposed to shell out. At the same time, the country and the world are now feeling the effects of their 'oops'. It is definitely not an easy thing to deal with and I pity whoever has to attempt to fix that mess come November. (and October in Canada).

seems like cowboy got the horse before the cart. if we are talkin about lies and truth, we have to admit that the real estate market tanked, and that is why the loans are upside down, or not worth face value, not the other way around. say in 2005 a house sold for $250,000 that was the market price, so they rushed to get a $200,000 loan, because the rates were low, the economy, jobs income was booming... then the FED got scared about inflation, so raised the rates ... every month for a year and a half, until the real estate market screached to a halt, then hack politicians like schumer tried to get free publicity by scapegoating banks with a few examples of ignorant borrowers tricked out of money by mortgage hucksters.. the banks became the badguys for lending money.. so what did they do? they stopped lending. then the real estate market melted down, so the $250,000 house is now worth $100,000 and the home owner/borrower is begging the bank to take it back., so they can buy the same house next door and cut thier mortgage payments in half, which they must do because thier jobs and incomes have also fallen. The FED tried to prod the banks to lend by giving them a really low discount rate, below 2%, but the banks borrow billions and instead use it to speculate on wallstreet, driving up the price of commodititys, like Oil futures, causing gas prices and inflation to rise.

The answer to this problem is simple. Instead of bailing out goldman sacs executives, fund FHA to lend directly to homeowners at very low rates, similar to the 2% the banks already borrow at. Allow homeowners to refi at the short sale value of thier home so they can keep thier home instead of buying the house next door. This will restore the housing market, home equity, employment, and income to the middle class..