Housing bubble, housing crash

Great, after the stock market spasm last Monday when it looked like the bailout would not pass, we get the same thing this Monday when it does pass. So now we have a crashing market, and higher US debt. The bailout was very wrong, and remains very wrong. Great quote from reader Herb: The Titanic is sinking. Captain [...]

The House of Representatives approved a $700 billion bailout package for U.S. banksters. The fundamental problems with the bill remain intact. Paulson gets to decide what dirty toilet paper to buy with taxpayer dollars, and how much to pay. He will be “overseen” by a toothless oversight committee that is stacked with the bankster cronies. The “700 [...]

I bought this pitchfork yesterday (the picture is an actual photo from lowes.com of the same item that I bought) for $ 16.99. I need your help on the next step of my project. Can you please suggest a good picture of Hanky Panky Paulson that I can download, print, paste on to a pumpkin [...]

Wonderful news! The Wall Street Banker Bonus Bailout Bill did not pass the house! http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/30/business/30bailout.html My faith in American representative democracy is being restored: 99% public opposition to Paulson’s theft translates into 53% opposition in Congress. Nearly half of Congressmen sold out to the banks, but not all! Not too bad, considering how much money Congress takes from [...]

One patrick.net reader suggested a simple antidote to Treasury Secretary Paulson’s proposed theft of $700 billion from taxpayers: a mortgage strike. Since Paulson is trying to steal more than $5,000 from every taxpayer and give it to the banks that blew all their money on bad mortgages, the obvious response from each mortgage-holding taxpayer should be [...]

From James Moore of the Huffington Post: Republicans are socialists. The Bush administration has decided to socialize the debt of the big Wall Street Firms. Taxpayers didn’t get to enjoy any of the big money profits on the phony financial instruments like derivatives or bundled sub-prime paper, but we get the privilege of paying for their debt and failures.

Well, thank God our wise elected officials have decided to do away with the free market as soon as their rich pals were in trouble. CEOs can blow as much money as they want. If they win, they win, if they lose, actually only the taxpayers lose. Great.

A weird thing happens when investors get nervous: huge amounts of money flow into US Treasuries, driving up the price, and driving down the yield. Say that a 30-year bond has a yield of 5%. Some bad thing happens, and then investors rush to buy that bond for safety, bidding against each other, and increasing the [...]

From reader Malcolm: I get infuriated watching the news now. After all those years of our predictions having been taken right to the officials and publicly they responded, through the media, that both companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were healthy. Our Senators told us there were no bailout plans. A bank bailout was masked as [...]

Since there are still no-downpayment loans being handed out, why don’t I get the biggest such loan that I can, never pay anything, and live free for a year until I’m finally evicted? Seems like a great way to save a year’s rent! And since CA is a non-recourse state, the lender could not take any of [...]