Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Debt Nation
Pop quiz time: Do you think the subprime-mortgage fiasco is largerly caused by borrowers or lenders? If you picked the former, you're generally conservative. If the latter, you're generally liberal. But there is a 'third' option: It's both, for it takes two to tango in the loan game. Much of the American financial system is now geared toward the promotion of and profit from debt -- and there's no shortage of sucker consumers willing to play the high-interest-rate game. What bothers me is that one side gets taxpayer bailouts when in trouble. The other doesn't. This is not capitalism. It's form of crony capitalism. ...
Pop quiz time: Do you think the subprime-mortgage fiasco is largerly caused by borrowers or lenders? If you picked the former, you're generally conservative. If the latter, you're generally liberal. But there is a 'third' option: It's both, for it takes two to tango in the loan game. Much of the American financial system is now geared toward the promotion of and profit from debt -- and there's no shortage of sucker consumers willing to play the high-interest-rate game. What bothers me is that one side gets taxpayer bailouts when in trouble. The other doesn't. This is not capitalism. It's form of crony capitalism. ...
