Atlas Shrugged Or Let Nature Take Its Course
The Nattering Naybob in Follow The Money 04/10/05:
"Sorry, there's no such thing as "free" trade. Its a nice concept, but like Marxist communism, it looks great on paper, but in practice, a whole different ball game."
From 03/04/08: "So much for capitalism and Adam Smith's invisible hand of the market.
The whole housing debacle has demonstrated that at the first sign of failure, capitalism jumps out the window for cronyism and socialism.
All the safety nets being thrown about and Barney Frank bailouts are a testimony to this fact.
I have three words for Benny and the Feds, no not, GO F*CK YOURSELF, but the simple fact that there are NO FREE MARKETS."
Much like Fleck and Caroline Baum, the Nattering One wishes the guvmint would get out of the way, and let nature take its course.
From Flecks latest... its self feeding and reinforcing...
the economic death sprial that is... "credit is rapidly being withdrawn across a broad spectrum -- especially for the major brokers.
This is now raising the costs for nearly all credit-oriented hedge funds... the pace of massive de-leveraging could accelerate further.
A managing director at the Economic Outlook Group: "With home prices going down, consumers cut back on spending.
If consumers cut back on spending, the economy weakens further. If the economy weakens further, fewer people are able to afford mortgages, so home foreclosures increase."
Caroline Baum at Bloomberg has an excellent recap of the housing debt debacle to date:
The Federal Reserve must be scared to death as it watches the financial system unravel.
Unravel would appear to be the operative word as leverage proves to be as toxic on the way down as it was intoxicating on the way up.
Margin calls are causing forced selling of assets (often what investors can sell, not what they'd like to sell),
which makes them cheaper, which triggers additional margin calls and more forced selling.
Mortgage foreclosures hit an all-time high in the fourth quarter of last year while homeowners' equity,
or the value of a home less the outstanding mortgage, sank to an all-time low of 47.9%.
Private payrolls fell 101,000 last month, the third consecutive monthly decline.
Back to Fleck... In light of all the government bailout attempts,
let the government get out of the way, enforce the rules that exist, and let the markets decide who should get a mortgage and at what rate.
To think the government can fix the problem is similar to the Fed thinking that easy money can solve all problems --
when, to repeat, easy money is what brought us to this sorry state in the first place.
Back To Baum... The John Galt Solution,
Today's economic and financial crisis would resolve itself more quickly and efficiently if the government got out of the way.
Yes, there would be pain. Some banks would fail. Others would clamp down on credit to atone for the years of lax lending standards.
Homeowners-in-name-only would become renters. Housing prices would fall until speculators found value.
Galt, the hero of Ayn Rand's magnum opus "Atlas Shrugged," stops the world by going on strike.
He and the "men of the mind" literally withdraw from the world after watching their wealth confiscated by the looters (the government).
Toward the end of Rand's 1,000-plus page novel (or polemic), the economy is in shambles. Desperate, the looters kidnap Galt and prod him to "tell us what to do."
Galt refuses, or rather tells them simply "to get out of the way."
More to come in There is Something In This More Than Natural, stay tuned, no flippin.
Recommended reading:
Atlas Shrugged or Let Nature Take It's Course?
There is Something In This More Than Natural
There Is Something In This More Than Natural - Part 2
There Is Something In This More Than Natural - Part 3
There Is Something In This More Than Natural - Part 4
There Is Something In This More Than Natural - Epilogue
Atla's Shrugged Unnaturally
"Sorry, there's no such thing as "free" trade. Its a nice concept, but like Marxist communism, it looks great on paper, but in practice, a whole different ball game."
From 03/04/08: "So much for capitalism and Adam Smith's invisible hand of the market.
The whole housing debacle has demonstrated that at the first sign of failure, capitalism jumps out the window for cronyism and socialism.
All the safety nets being thrown about and Barney Frank bailouts are a testimony to this fact.
I have three words for Benny and the Feds, no not, GO F*CK YOURSELF, but the simple fact that there are NO FREE MARKETS."
Much like Fleck and Caroline Baum, the Nattering One wishes the guvmint would get out of the way, and let nature take its course.
From Flecks latest... its self feeding and reinforcing...
the economic death sprial that is... "credit is rapidly being withdrawn across a broad spectrum -- especially for the major brokers.
This is now raising the costs for nearly all credit-oriented hedge funds... the pace of massive de-leveraging could accelerate further.
A managing director at the Economic Outlook Group: "With home prices going down, consumers cut back on spending.
If consumers cut back on spending, the economy weakens further. If the economy weakens further, fewer people are able to afford mortgages, so home foreclosures increase."
Caroline Baum at Bloomberg has an excellent recap of the housing debt debacle to date:
The Federal Reserve must be scared to death as it watches the financial system unravel.
Unravel would appear to be the operative word as leverage proves to be as toxic on the way down as it was intoxicating on the way up.
Margin calls are causing forced selling of assets (often what investors can sell, not what they'd like to sell),
which makes them cheaper, which triggers additional margin calls and more forced selling.
Mortgage foreclosures hit an all-time high in the fourth quarter of last year while homeowners' equity,
or the value of a home less the outstanding mortgage, sank to an all-time low of 47.9%.
Private payrolls fell 101,000 last month, the third consecutive monthly decline.
Back to Fleck... In light of all the government bailout attempts,
let the government get out of the way, enforce the rules that exist, and let the markets decide who should get a mortgage and at what rate.
To think the government can fix the problem is similar to the Fed thinking that easy money can solve all problems --
when, to repeat, easy money is what brought us to this sorry state in the first place.
Back To Baum... The John Galt Solution,
Today's economic and financial crisis would resolve itself more quickly and efficiently if the government got out of the way.
Yes, there would be pain. Some banks would fail. Others would clamp down on credit to atone for the years of lax lending standards.
Homeowners-in-name-only would become renters. Housing prices would fall until speculators found value.
Galt, the hero of Ayn Rand's magnum opus "Atlas Shrugged," stops the world by going on strike.
He and the "men of the mind" literally withdraw from the world after watching their wealth confiscated by the looters (the government).
Toward the end of Rand's 1,000-plus page novel (or polemic), the economy is in shambles. Desperate, the looters kidnap Galt and prod him to "tell us what to do."
Galt refuses, or rather tells them simply "to get out of the way."
More to come in There is Something In This More Than Natural, stay tuned, no flippin.
Recommended reading:
Atlas Shrugged or Let Nature Take It's Course?
There is Something In This More Than Natural
There Is Something In This More Than Natural - Part 2
There Is Something In This More Than Natural - Part 3
There Is Something In This More Than Natural - Part 4
There Is Something In This More Than Natural - Epilogue
Atla's Shrugged Unnaturally
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