My comments in red

Amid all the finger-pointing as housing markets collapse and financial markets panic, there is very little attention being paid to the fundamental economic and political decisions that led to this mess. The growth in risky subprime mortgage loans has been a key factor in the collapse of housing markets. But why were home- buyers suddenly taking out so many risky loans and lenders suddenly arranging so much "creative" financing for these borrowers ? Interest-only mortgages, where nothing is being paid on the principal for the first few years, enable many people to get started on buying a home with lower mortgage payments at the outset. But of course it is only a matter of time before the mortgage payments go up. Such borrowers can end up losing their homes. Risky mortgage loans were rare just a few years ago. As of 2002, fewer than 10 percent of the new mortgages in the United States were of this type. But, by 2006, 31 percent of all new mortgages were of this "creative" or risky type. In the San Francisco area, 66 percent of the new mortgages were of this type. Why this difference ? Because housing prices were skyrocketing in some places, so that people of modest incomes had to go out on a limb to buy a house. But why were housing prices going up so fast, in the first place ? A number of studies of communities across the United States and in countries overseas turned up the same conclusion: government restrictions on building.

While many other factors can be involved - rising incomes, population growth, construction costs - restrictions on building have been the key.

Attractive and heady phrases like "open' space" and "smart growth" have accompanied land-use restrictions that made the cost of land rise in many places to the point where it greatly exceeded the cost of the homes built on the land.

In places that resisted this political rhetoric, home prices remained reasonable.
In short, government has been the principal factor preventing the "affordable housing" that politicians talk about so much.

Politicians have also been a key factor behind pushing lenders to lend to borrowers with lower prospects of being able to repay their loans.

The huge losses of subprime lenders, some of whom have gone bankrupt, demonstrate again the consequences of letting politicians try to micromanage the economy.

Politicians trying to "micromanage" the economy and govt. restrictions on building. The bigger and more cumbersome our govt. gets the more they're screwing things up for ALL of us.

This is just ONE of the reasons the economy isn't in the best shape.

Sorry.

Forgot that we like to ignore sources like NewsMax.

Sources that support those "evil, white christian conservatives".

Great source (Sowell) Trips! Sowell is a brilliant and articulate economist who understands the way the world works.

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"It's a good feeling to shoot a bad guy. Something you democrats would never understand. Americans are homesteaders, we want a safe home, keep the money we make, and shoot bad guys!"

----Denny Crane

Well, you refuse to have discourse with people that disagree with you, and if people wanted to read newsmax crap they could go to the site themselves. We really don't need your constant flood of spamming these articles.

__________________
When they come a wull staun ma groon
Staun ma groon al nae be afraid
Thoughts awe hame tak awa ma fear
Sweat an bluid hide ma veil awe tears

I can't remember the last time he actually posted something not based on the work of somebody else and usually the same source over and over again.

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"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

I think the debate should be with the guy that wrote th article....if it came from sowells site would that make it more palatable?

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No individual can plan his own existence in their view.

So the state planners must arrogate to themselves the right to manipulate any sector of the economic system if the good of “society” or the “general welfare” is paramount.

Ipso- if the rights of the individual get in the way, the rights of the individual must be sublimated.

The Road to Serfdom
FA Hayek (interpretation)


Mortgage Backed Security survivor

It's more about the repetitive pattern with Than than anything. I love The Economist but if I posted articles from it every single day and added one or two sentences as comment it would probably start to bother people also.

__________________
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

perhaps......I post alot form the journal and economist as well, to get other debate started.....iraq, zionism, hills a monster and bds gets old...

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No individual can plan his own existence in their view.

So the state planners must arrogate to themselves the right to manipulate any sector of the economic system if the good of “society” or the “general welfare” is paramount.

Ipso- if the rights of the individual get in the way, the rights of the individual must be sublimated.

The Road to Serfdom
FA Hayek (interpretation)


Mortgage Backed Security survivor

If I was a liberal, I wouldn't want to read this or other stories that describe negative consequences of liberalism and/or big government either...


Kramer

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“It's time to admit that public education operates like a planned economy, a bureaucratic system in which everybody's role is spelled out in advance and there are few incentives for innovation and productivity. It's no surprise that our school system doesn't improve; it more resembles the communist economy than our own market economy."
Albert Shanker, former president of the American Federation of Teachers

Perhaps.


Fortunately, I'm intelligent, and capable of being confronted with information that goes against my beliefs, examining it, and re-evaluating my beliefs on the issue. This doesn't seem to be the case with most of the conservatives I encounter, who are seemingly terrified of any information that goes against their myopic view of the world and how it should be.

Thus, it's sad for you that you don't want to read stories from different opinions. Me? I don't mind it.

Doesn't mean that the OP's consistent "my comment is in red" spam thread don't grow tedious. Shit, at least steveox was creative in his spam.

__________________
When they come a wull staun ma groon
Staun ma groon al nae be afraid
Thoughts awe hame tak awa ma fear
Sweat an bluid hide ma veil awe tears

Yes but I've never noticed you spamming one particular site on a daily basis.

__________________
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

you're not keeping up.....

__________________
No individual can plan his own existence in their view.

So the state planners must arrogate to themselves the right to manipulate any sector of the economic system if the good of “society” or the “general welfare” is paramount.

Ipso- if the rights of the individual get in the way, the rights of the individual must be sublimated.

The Road to Serfdom
FA Hayek (interpretation)


Mortgage Backed Security survivor

The only way to "keep up" is to get far enough ahead that there's no one left to keep up with.

I thinkwe all benefit by reading articles tken from various publications and posted for our valuation. Especially the "Journal" and the "Economist" as well as those published by others who lean in various opposing directions.

However; I ostensibly quit my subscription to the "Economist when they ridiculed the American "Pledge of Allegiance" Damed Limeys !

I'm interested to know why you blame "liberals" for this article, considering the article says that up to 2002 there were very few of the risky loans it talks about given; yet between 2002 and 2006 they sky-rocketed. I hope you'll acknowledge that these years were under a Republican White House, a Republican Senate and a Republican House. Those pesky liberals huh........