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Strategies & Market Trends : The coming US dollar crisis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: robert b furman who wrote (11345)	9/19/2008 10:42:27 AM
From: Riskmgmt	3 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71475

Well said. I think that integrity, is the crux of the whole matter. It is not just that these brains on wall street sliced and diced stuff it comes down to the corruption of the society. Frank Raines walks with 90 million severance pay after he run Fannie into the ground and left the taxpayers the tab; to the couple who are under water and so "walk" from their mortgage obligation. It amazes me that some of the most ardent constitutionalist's advise people to walk away from an obligation they committed to. If the USA is the greatest country in the world, as some claim, it is because not only it's rule of law but the integrity of the people. Reward corruption, penalize honesty and integrity and you will soon turn the USA into a third world country. IMHO.

To: robert b furman who wrote (11345)	9/19/2008 4:30:26 PM
From: Don Earl	9 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71475

Bob, Under any normal circumstances, I would agree with your sentiment. However, IMO, all bets are off when it comes to dealing with charlatans passing themselves off as responsible lending institutions. I built 3 homes in the last 10 years and the last time I looked, my credit score was over 760. The last home I built was completed in 2005 and I decided not to try building another one because market conditions were scaring the daylights out of me. That decision was largely based on what I'd learned as a result of spending the better part of ten years researching stocks, markets and the economy. At the end of the day, it came down to knowing what kind of media hype to toss out the window when it comes to making financial decisions. If you believed the media hype in 2005, and all the banking industry sponsored financial opinions, you knew the real estate market's streets were paved with gold, and anyone that bought a house would see 25% yearly returns forever. You could leverage your assets to the moon, and pay the bills with unsecured credit card debt, and it would all be okay next year when your home went up another $100K in value. Was it stupid to believe that kind of hogwash? You're damn straight it was. BUT, it was only stupid if you were savvy enough to know it was hogwash. For the average citizen that had not spent a decade in financial research, it made perfect sense. The sad part of average intelligence is it necessarily means half the population is below average. All of our consumer protection laws are more or less based on that fact and the concept that it is morally wrong for the strong to prey on the weak. In drag racing, rule violations are based on "first or worst". In law, the same concept is expressed as "if not for this, then that wouldn't happen". So, if you want to moralize the situation, the lending institutions were "first and worst" and it wouldn't have happened in the first place if not for greedy and out of control lending policies. Blaming the home owners who have been wiped out by 10 years of scamming is like blaming a rape victim for being pretty. Put the blame where it belongs: on the rapists.