Blame the Bankers and the Bankees

I would like to point out that, while it's fun to rail against the greed of Wall Street, we should also rail against the irrationality and stupidity of Main Street.

It takes two to tango. 50% of the problems we're experiencing right now are because American consumers borrowed too much money. They paid too much money for houses, borrowed too much on credit cards, etc... I can't tell you how many people told me that Bay Area housing prices couldn't go down. Even though prices have already gone down, they still tell me that Bay Area prices can never go down as much as other places. OF COURSE THEY CAN. Get your heads out of the sand.

The other 50% of the problems we're having should be blamed on the bankers. Everyone from individual mortgage bankers all the way up to commercial bankers and investment bankers made mad loans. You wrote bad loans -- now you have to eat them. Lucky for you the US taxpayers (like me) are going to partially bail you out. I expect thank you notes from all the people who overpaid for houses or are mortgage bankers. You're welcome for continuing to pay taxes (actually paying even more taxes this year) which will largely go toward bailing you idiots out over the next few years.

Everyone who thinks that spending hundreds of $B on the war in Iraq, which, by the way, fraught as it may be with problems, is actually accomplishing something, should seriously check themselves. If they also went out and borrowed a bunch of money to bid up the price of a house somewhere, and are now irrationally sitting on that house (even though they should probably just be selling it at a loss), then they are part of the reason that *I* now have to pay back a share of the $700B the government is about to eat up so *your* stupid loans won't wreck the economy and cost *you* even more money.

And by "you idiots" I mean 'all you people who overpaid for houses, encouraged people to buy houses, think that renting is "wasting money," think housing prices can't go down, etc...' All that kind of talk is idiot-speak.

Renting is often good for the economy. It keeps people mobile and reduces their liability to interest rates. Please mail the thank-you notes right away.

You're welcome,
Andy