Tuesday, November 9, 2010

The dragon growls

China Downgrades United States Credit.

2 comments:

TJP said...

Note this quote: "There is no fix for this other than to take those institutions that are insolvent into receivership and clean them out."

The Federal Reserve and GSEs are already publicly-controlled to some extent, and the federal government is the source of policy that created unrealistic lending ratios and mortgages based on unjustifiably inflated home "values".

I wonder exactly who it is that has the time and resources to "clean out" the GSEs and the insolvent private banks. Even if the management is fired, how about those debts? What do those debts represent? Do they represent real property actually worth the price on the tag that's being rammed down taxpayers' throats? What's the point of paying for "toxic assets"? What's so toxic about them? Will they be worth a dime when the bill is paid?

The real estate market is a distortion built on perception. "Because the last guy paid $'X'" isn't going to stand up to any kind of scrutiny when people are forced to be tight-fisted with their money and consider things like cost of building, actual condition and relative scarcity.

Anonymous said...

They're just pissed that we denied their application to the SEC to become a US ratings agency. Nothingburger.