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22 September 2008

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Ronald Lewis

Wow! Very nice pictures! I really liked!
Congrats for the blog!

paisley

this was so well written,, i had to read it twice... it asks so many of the same questions i am asking,, and reinforces my confusion as to why we the common man can see this and yet,, it just keeps on happening... there has to be a grander scheme to which we are not privy... i am just hoping police state is not the eventual outcome...

Jarrett


As clear a commentary as I've read on this fiasco! Thanks!

Barbara Saunders

A great point you made here, which I've not seen articulated before. I keep hearing that people "should have known that they could not afford these deals", but that's not really true.

They bought into complex financial transactions that professionals told them made sense, specifically that the "amount they could afford" should be based on predicted appreciation. That isn't a "gamble" if there is a rational belief that this is how the whole system works.

Fran

This is so very important, and your article so wise: May I add an example of the way banks handle mortgages, from some years ago. A young couple bought a farm, worked it, two jobs, a beautiful garden, small orchard, well-kept house, never once missed a payment but the price of land went down and the amount owing on the mortgage became higher than the sale price of the land: The bank foreclosed. The couple and their children left, the house became vacant, the garden grew weeds, the orchard died, the barn fell down. So much for de-regulation freedom for the community.

Elle

Thank you for this. It's the first time I've really been able to grasp what's caused the chaos in the financial system. Very frightening, isn't it?

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