The dollar hits a new low against the Euro :(

That is correct you can't fix inflation by encouraging people to send more that, all that does is create more inflation. As for backing our currency up with precious metals. There is a reason the gold standard failed there isn't enough metals in the world to back up all of our currency.

You have a nice rant going against our government and inflation what you fail to consider is that wage growth has outpaced inflation for the last 50 years. The reason we have a social security deficit issue is directly related to congress changing how it indexes increase in social security in the 70s from inflation which on average grows 2-3% a year to wages which on average grown 4-5% a year. If they change that back to inflation and go back and change everyone’s social security payout to inflation adjusted the payments become about 30% smaller per month. It just shows you how fast wages have grown which you never mention when you talk about cost and inflation. Yes in the 1960s a you could rent an apartment for $80 a month but you also only made $5000 a year. Food and Clothing have dramatically come down in price because of one outsourcing and technology. If things are going as bad as you claim why don’t you take a look at the average sq ft of a house built in the 1950s which was less then a 1000sq ft, 1500 sq ft in the 1960s and 2500 sq ft today. The houses are getting bigger, the houses are costing more largely in part because are making more money then they ever did before.

Yes some low end jobs have been outsourced but look at the jobs that have been insourced to America. Which is multiply times more then the number of jobs outsourced. 1 in 5 Americans work for a foreign company in America, the wages that they pay tend to be 5-7% higher then there American counterparts. If things were so bad unemployment wouldn’t be 4.6%. Below historic averages of 5% which was always considered full employment.

Yes a car cost 3000 in 1974 but you also made $6000 in 1974. Today an average price of a car sold last year was $27,000 and we make on average $42,000 year depending on which location a person is.

I don’t think you do understand personal responsibility, the government isn’t there to be a mama and daddy to 300 million people who can’t figure out if they can afford a loan or not.

How is what the banks and mortgage companies did considered fraud. They offered loans for people to people to buy a house and refinance. The people accepted the terms of the agreement, they often picked low rate adjustable rate mortgages when they could of took 30 year fixed rates but they didn’t and now they can’t afford to pay them back and it’s the banks fault. If you don’t give people loans its discrimination if you do its predatory lending. You can’t win.

As for that there is no one to keep banks in check. You’re forgetting the FIDC, SEC, The Federal Reserve, State Attorney Generals and the US Department of Justices. Yep there is no one to keep an eye on them.

If so the called powerful and wealthy elites run this country why would they throw good money at people who couldn’t afford them. The mortgage issue is about greed. Greed on both sides greedy house owners for cheaper interest rates so that they can redo their kitchens and by plasma TVs and for greedy mortgage companies looking for more business. Everyone played and equal part in the mortgage game and everyone shares responsibility.

As for the AMERO that will never happen.

 

But it will help home owners who should never took out a loan keep their houses and will help stimulate the economy.

 

I think there was a lot of individual brokers who mis repersented the loans to people, its still there fault for not reading the fine print etc, but I would imagine there was a ton of fraud. Many mortgage brokers have been accused of over stating peoples income to make sure they got the loan.

just a quick news search lists numerous investigations

http://news.google.com/news?q=mortg...US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&sa=N&tab=wn

lol look at these guys

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2007/09/prosecutor_presses_mortgage_fr.html

 

There are tons of mortgage brokers out there and I'm sure some of them didn't play by the rules. But my guess is that there were more people who know what they were doing when took our arm loans. They figured they pay cheap interest rate two years, the equity in the house will go up by 10% or 20% like it has done before and they'll sell the house and keep the equity before the rates adjust. Except they got burned this time and now are looking to blame someone.

 

From the source, page 4, big bold print:

Reads pretty clear to me.

 

i can remember a time recently when a certain political party was calling for the leader of the free world's head. Why? Because the stock market "seemed" to be tanking. Now that all indeces are in areas never before seen, there doesn't seem to bee too much of a clamor now.MMmmm... I wonder why?

The sky always seems to be falling when your guy isn't in the hot seat.

 

I agree that the people who got these ARMs are at least partly responsible for their problems, because they should have read the fine print, and I'm not excusing this. But the problem is, the entire economy is being harmed by this, to the point that Alan Greenspan has recently said that their may be a more serious decline in the mortgage industry.

You asked a pretty good question. Why would the elite who run this country waste their money on the low income people who couldn't afford the mortgage. The answer is to gain more power and wealth. In 2000, these powerful bankers realized that the low income population of the U.S. was a multi billion dollar market. Here is a great article you might want to read which explains it:http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/082307E.shtml

By your post, you act as if there are no powerful people running the U.S. Of course their is. When was the last time a man from a poor family became president? The Clintons are Millionaires, and Bush and Cheney are Millionaires. John Edward gets $400 hair cuts, and charges $50,000 just to speak at public events. Also, check out this article on Richistan, the wealthiest people in America:http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/august2007/020807Barons.htm

Here is another article written in Businessweek which contradicts what you and Mia are saying about outsourcing helping the U.S. economy:http://www.businessweek.com/magazin...p+news_top+news+index_businessweek+exclusives

The point I'm trying to make is they are trying to destroy the middle class in this country. A middle class equals freedom. One thing that all third world countries have in common is a lack of a middle class. Once America loses its middle class, America is finished.

The reason behind the mortgage scam is greed. Now that millions of Americans are losing their own, the homes and land can be purchased again for pennies on the dollar. Think about how much the mortgage companies/banks have made in monthly mortgage payments combined over the last seven years before this collapse. It has to be in the tens of billions of dollars.

 

A lot of people don't realize that the mortgage bubble was created by dollars coming back to the US from China, Japan and Europe that was created by the trillion dollar trade deficit. Once the foreign investors realize that they are throwing their money down a hole, the dollar will crash unless interest rates go into double digits.

Runs in banks are starting in Europe
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/t...ectors/banking_and_finance/article2451069.ece

And Alan Greenspan has spoken: "the Fed will have to raise rates to double-digit levels in coming years to thwart inflation."
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/fed/2007-09-14-greenspan-book_N.htm

 

The only problem with this is that raising the rates will cause Americans to reduce their spending, which would surely hurt the economy even more. It sounds like the Fed is caught between a rock and a hard place, they either raise rates, which will cause spending to be greatly reduce, or they will lower interest rates, which will cause even more inflation. My goodness, this country is in a lot of trouble.

 

It’s not even about reading the fine print. When you get a mortgage most people know the type of mortgage they want or they’re looking for, when you call around mortgage brokers you say I want a 15 or 30 year fixed rate mortgage for $100,000 what is your interest rate, or what ever type of mortgage loan type you’re looking for. I doubt that anyone didn’t know the interest rate and type of loan that they were getting into and they just signed what they were given. I’m not saying it didn’t happen but I would guess 95% of the people knew the type of loan that they were getting and didn’t care. I believe that they were playing the greater fool game, buying homes with interest rate only payments hoping the value of the home goes up and dumping it on someone else and pocketing the equity and now they got burned.

As for your truthout article it lays all the blame on the lenders and no blame on the borrowers who went out and bought houses they couldn’t afford and then took out loans that they couldn’t afford. I’m not saying that lending standards the last two years didn’t get lax, but come on to blame only the lenders and wall street is a bit ridiculous.

You may want to take a look at the facts about outsourcing of jobs to America or Insourcing
http://www.ofii.org/facts_figures/


Yes a lot of third world countries lack a middle class largely due to government policies and or corruption.

It really doesn’t matter what they made if they have to buy back mortgages and take on homes that no one wants and can afford. In the end they lose money

 

By raising the interest rate(s), the US Federal Reserve can contract the money supply

The money supply is out of control due to two factors the (1) trade deficit and (2) US budget deficit

This additional $1 trillion in dollars once taken out of reserves will place additional downward pressure on the dollar.

 

$1 trillion dollars is 1% of all US assets. Really just a drop in the bucket.

 

The outflow/inflow of liquid assets is what causes market volatility.

 

It does to a certain degree, but the currency market for the US Dollar has been relatively stable. What I mean by relatively stable is that while the dollar has gone down the last 3 years its gone down in a stable manner without panic as you see in other types of markets.

 

Sure. It's not a panic. It's a devaluation.

 

No it's not devaluation, it's overshooting very common thing in the currency markets.

 

I think people underestimate the effects of a weak currency.

- Foreign goods cost more (Higher cost of living)
- Raw materials cost more for manufacturers
- Oil prices rise (upward pressure from stronger foreign currencies)
- Harder for US firms to invest overseas

To claim that it doesn't affect you is just ignorance.

 

i guess they would go get funds frm japan , pretty low interest rates there.
for investment thrs not a prob for us.

oil factor : us is already trying to get some free oil frm middle-east


foreign goods : china is selling it cheap so not a prob.

 

The China thing is a touchy situation. They have pegged their currency to the dollar, even though the open market would have made it more valuable. They do this because they want foreign businesses to do business with China, including all the U.S. manufacturers that oursource to China. The problem with this peg is that it was not created by the market, which means one change in policy could cause the whole system to collapse and leave U.S. manufacturers out in the cold. China also owns a good chunk of U.S. debt, which it has threatened to sell. That could also be devasting, so much so that it has been dubbed the nuclear (economic) option.

The United States needs to produce more. The demand from foreign countries for U.S. goods and services will increase as our dollar decreases, but the question is whether U.S. businesses will be ready.

 

Bush's war is the reason for the fall of his dollar the world will yet still pay for his war and to rise the US economy eventually,because they have to be on top sooner or later. We will run out of fuel by 2030 and then What???