Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : John Pitera's Market Laboratory -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (8159)	8/25/2007 4:23:32 PM
From: Augustus Gloop	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 33421

There are so many conflicting issues for me I don't want to bail folks (homeowners & Banks) for being stupid. This wasn't just oversight. It was a concerted effort by home buyers and lenders alike to work SO FAR outside the limits of smart borrowing/lending practices that what we're really talking about is negligence. This was customer accepted and bank assisted suicide. When I think of it like that it makes me wonder how can we bail out that type of thing? Then there's the other side If we don't do something do we run the risk of a downturn that takes more years to cycle through than any of us wants to put in? (This is just opinion but...) The worst economic time in my life was in the late 70's. I was all of 12-13 years old. We lived in an industrial town but my dad was a white collar guy so the economy didn't really impact us. Anyhow, I remember riding through town with my father and seeing tons of retail buildings that were totally empty. All construction had stopped and people were either working a low paying job or not working at all. Pride in America and faith in the American dream was gone. I'm amazed that a 12 year old kid would recognize those things but I did and it was very dark. The point here is I don't want to go back to that level of economic distress. So what do we do? Do we wait and react or do we act in an effort to avoid the knee-jerk reaction? If we act: 1) how do we do it in such a way as to avoid politicizing the event? 2) how do we do it without recreating the exact problem that got us here? 3) Don't we become enablers for bad decision making? If we React: 1) Do we do it in a timely fashion or if we wait that long is it already too far gone. 2) Do we do more damage than good? I ask this because I'm guessing a reaction would be more of a conventional approach - i.e. general rate cuts. Lost in this whole topic is the fact that rates are pretty damn good right now! Maybe its time for people to sit down with their parents and grandparents and revisit their experiences in the 1930's. Have we had such a disconnect and are we so far removed from that generation that we no longer think an event like that can happen? I have a lot more questions now than I did when I was younger. I knew everything then - all you had to do was ask and I'd tell ya. I'm not sure if I'm getting dumber, older or wiser maybe its all of the above