[SoOW2LeA]

Is this what it was like to live through the Carter presidency?

[buchmausar]

One thing I don't see in that article though is any sort of discussion on price controls. It looks like the only thing he wants to do to support prices is to prevent foreclosures so as to limit the supply of unsold homes. That's completely different from market-distorting price floors.

[Lapsinuibense]

Is this what it was like to live through the Carter presidency?

Carter didn't impose price controls. That was Nixon.

[Phlkxkbh]

Is this what it was like to live through the Carter presidency?

Nope, under Carter the general sense of the country was doom and gloom, not hope, however misplaced.

[triardwonvada]

Hope starts with an honest assessment of where you are.

[hopertveyk]

It sounds like they want to change the foreclosure process forcing banks to renegotiate principle write downs rather then raise prices. I'm not seeing the price fixing DanS is talking about after briefly looking at the article. The only thing Axelrod said was that these reforms would eultimately restore demand and thus help prices.

[DadaSeeva]

One thing I like about Frank Riches Op-eds compared to others is that he often cites directly his sources. It's too easy to make up exaggerated claims such as "every gloomy statistic on the economy becomes a harbinger of doom." Oh well, simple answers for simple minds.

[TamreuddyRada]

Welcome back to the 70s, folks. Apparently, Obama is going to announce a housing plan with a stated goal of setting real estate prices above market prices. This despite the fact that market prices are still at unsustainable levels and need to fall.

Markets have already failed. You lost, and you and your cohorts can do no finer service to humanity than STFU.

If I were you, I'd stop whining like a biatch and start looking for somewhere to hide before Obama's commissars turn up at your house for a spot of ideological "purification".

[Bymnbypeten]

To be fair, Saras, removing some of the regulations was part of what got us here in the first place. Not all of it by any means, but part of it. The combination of (bad regulations) and (removing good regulations) worked in concert.

It's like cancer... you have to have several things fail at once for things to go to ****.

[DJElizardo]

and when it fails the left will blame the free market

[addifttiest]

I don't think it's yet clear what they're going to do. I do agree that trying to prop up real estate prices via the government is a bad idea.

-Arrian

[Elitiachirl]

and when it fails the left will blame the free market

And the right will blame the government.

What's your point?

[Texdolley]

In his latest book, Niall Fergusson suggested a strategy that went something like this (let's see if I remember it):

Step 1: Get a bunch of investors' capital and buy government bonds.
Step 2: Use bonds as collateral to sell options protecting against an improbable collapse in the market.
Step 3: Repeat Step 1 with the money you got from sale of options (every repetition will be much smaller than the previous).
Step 4: If the market doesn't crash... make a hefty profit.

Do this every year until the market crashes collecting large bonuses along the way. When the market crashes, laugh at the poor fools that invested their money with you.

Yea, that's the "hiding the long tails" strategy N.N. Taleb has two books out dealing quite fiercely with the subject.

Still, existence of gullible fools with money does not mean the "markets have failed".

[deandrecooke]

Imagine, if you will, what the Republicans would say about paying regulators millions of dollars.

-Arrian

[FetMiddle]

The problem with government is that they try to treat everyone equally and pay everyone on the same scale (more or less). Why should someone working for the Post Office get paid the same amount as their peer at the SEC?

[jamisi]

Because realistically very few employees at the Post Office should be at the same pay grade as the important people at the SEC.

I don't think this is the case.

[CVEGK7mV]

Which is the lesser evil - some government employees getting paid a thousand times more than others or Bernie Madoff and similar crooks slipping right under supervisors' noses with monumental ponzi schemes?

[r7rGOhvd]

And there would be 300 000 employees, all getting paid 2x more than now, but some butthole, Arizona would not be getting any mail or amazon shipments for free

[ulw7A8Po]

The problem with government is that they try to treat everyone equally and pay everyone on the same scale (more or less). Why should someone working for the Post Office get paid the same amount as their peer at the SEC?

Because the postal worker is more productive?

[EzekelEnzino]

It's a nice blanket response to leftwing loons. Agree on the shaggability.

So how's your economy doing? All your women on the game yet?