Robatoy wrote:

Yeah, now unemployment is going towards 10%, stock market down 6000
points, GM is now Government Motors, inflation likely to look more
like socialist Germany than capitalist America and the media thinks
the economy is starting to look good...

Yup. That's what happens when a Ponzi scheme like Bush's runs out of
suckers.
But you knew that.
Now you all get to pay.

Wasn't a Bush scheme. The problem had its genesis in the Community
Redevelopment Act of 1977. The law was designed to help low-income families
afford their own homes - a laudable goal, but totally foolish. The program
tooled along without much interest until 1995 when massive changes were
made, including government mandates.

These mandates forced lending institutions to provide mortgages under the
threat of federal sanctions. Banks had to throw out the traditional rules
for making loans - like whether the applicant had a job - in order to avoid
corporate death. Various schemes were devised, like low-interest,
low-payment loans for some period of time.

When balloon payment time came, the homeowner simply re-financed the house
and started a new loan. This worked as long as home prices kept climbing.
Eventually, however, everybody who could hear an owl in the dead of night
had a home and the Ponzi scheme to which you referred collapsed.

Anyway, it wasn't a Bush scheme. The process was started by the progressive
Pollyannas who felt everybody deserved a hearth of their own and pushed to
dizzying heights of folly by a Democrat congress under a democratic
president. The Bush allies tried several times to reign in this silliness -
or at least exercise oversight - but were unsuccessful.

Had the Republican version of "everybody in their own home" been followed
(i.e., under a bridge, in a cardboard box, etc.), we wouldn't be in such a
mess.

The current solution is, however, helping to fulfill another liberal dream:
income redistribution. Inasmuch as the poor and middle class won't see their
taxes raised by the current administration, the wealthy will have to be
taxed more and more to retire the massive debt.

Unless they go John Galt.

I see in today's news that GM is planning on moving some (all?)
manufacturing off-shore.

We'll see.