Blame Greenspan
Alan Greenspan was the Chairman of the federal reserve of the United States during the period of time when the financial crises that is now called the housing mortgage bubble crash was perpetrated. He once said in a speech in 2004 that more people should consider taking out adjustable rate mortgages(ARM). The only issue was that when he said this he was already getting ready to raise the interest levels. Why would some one say something like this? What did he stand to gain from making statements like this one?
That having been said I have a lot of respect for the guy, he took some of the blame for the crises when he said that the housing bubble was fundamentally engendered by the decline in real long term interest rates and I really want to read his memoirs.
In other news, Saudi Arabia ranks 40 in the survey of Best and Worst Countries of IT by Business Week. It's interesting that Saudia's rank is behind virtually every major and minor European country including Romania(39) & Lithuania(35). India ranks 46 and when you get to the slide that talks about India you are presented with a photo of a bunch of monks working on computers. I really really want to know what kind of work they are doing or what kind of websites they are visiting. Enough of my ranting,
Ramadan Kareem everyone!
That having been said I have a lot of respect for the guy, he took some of the blame for the crises when he said that the housing bubble was fundamentally engendered by the decline in real long term interest rates and I really want to read his memoirs.
In other news, Saudi Arabia ranks 40 in the survey of Best and Worst Countries of IT by Business Week. It's interesting that Saudia's rank is behind virtually every major and minor European country including Romania(39) & Lithuania(35). India ranks 46 and when you get to the slide that talks about India you are presented with a photo of a bunch of monks working on computers. I really really want to know what kind of work they are doing or what kind of websites they are visiting. Enough of my ranting,
Ramadan Kareem everyone!
Labels: economy
posted by syed at 11:02 AM
10 Comments:
Granted, my investments are down, but I hope every stupid company goes out of business. Of course they won't, because here's the US govt to the rescue! How are things with you?
So profits are private and losses are socialized.... looks like a messed up model. If these companies were not efficient enough to survive then so be it. I will be living in the desert, drinking camel milk and eating dates before I think that government interference in free market is a good think.
Chance you should know better -- this isn't about the Man helping out his cronies with your money. If every stupid company went out of business that would mean *everyone's* savings AND investments evaporate just like that. Plus something like 60% of people would be foreclosed on, and another 25% would be foreclosed on after the housing market's bottom fell out the rest of the way. There'd be chaos and mayhem on the order of what happened in NO after Katrina, except all across the US (granted, concentrated in the projects of each city...but Cleveland, for example, would be a disaster). If you want to blame someone/something, blame the free market concept and blame Bush for not regulating like he's supposed to*. Socialism won.
* It's amusing to me that regulation has gotten this lax, given the Enron/SOX thing a few years ago and the fact that the US has been on the cutting-edge of regulation for derivatives ever since the 70s. We've had the meltdowns in '87, '98 and '01, why oh why didn't someone knock some sense into Bush when it came to putting reasonable measures in place for the new class of credit products?
Uzair, try to make sense to a president that brings two wars, recession, and all sorts of domestic problems? I don't think so.
BTW, Syed! You've been really bad at updating posts lately man! What's going on!
So after much flaunting of the free market, capitalism and with nations tripping over each other to join the WTO socialsm makes a dramatic come back.
Kiat: sorry man, been lazy. Will try to be better about it.
Best line I've heard so far (after the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac nationalisation):
America is now the world's biggest council estate.
(Council estates in England are government-funded housing projects...decried at one time as being Socialistic.)
Hi, Syed
Can't seem to find your email addy online, maybe out of spamfear, but nonetheless I'm looking for runningpartners, since I'm also training for a marathon next year. Maybe we can meet up on some routes some time? max at militant.dk is may mail address. And no, I'm not with the military, it's a computergaming thingy ;-)
Here comes the Greatest Depression..
Since I've already started ranting on this thread, I thought I'd add something interesting that I've only just learned: the SEC abolished the 'uptick' rule for short-selling in June 2007. !"£$!"£$$!"£!$$£^^£$%&:LKJ@~:L~
The uptick rule was that one could not engage in short selling unless a stock was moving up. That is, unless one had a constructive view against the market. Instead, after June 07 it became possible to short the stock just because you wanted to, exacerbating the downward spirals of stock prices.
The DOW is now under 10,000 (~9792). I'm saying the bottom is at least 9000. This doesn't matter though. None of this matters. It doesn't really matter anymore.
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