<p>If interest rates are reduced will that ease much of the problem with the mortgages resetting to higher rates? I’m not sure how many of these mortgages adjust but mine is tied to the short-term rates and has gone down a full point in just months. It might make refi’s more attractive in the many markets where values have not dropped or only dropped a bit.</p>
<p>“(and not spent on sweaters made by bonded child labor in India.)”</p>
<p>So now you want to run India too? It must be tough to be all knowing.</p>
<p>In reality such a program would take a year to set-up. Just the relatively simple addition of meds to Medicare took years to get ready and everyone was still confused for a year. It’s a simplistic pipedream.
Give people the money and let them use it quickly. The people overseas generally like their jobs. Beats collecting cow dung.</p>
<p>Since I managed to rescue about 50 ten-year-olds girls from bonded labor in a textile slave mill where they worked 15 hours a day, this is something I think I know just a little bit about. </p>
<p>Yeah. They loved their jobs. Their land was taken from them as a result of Al Gore’s WTO/World Bank shenanigans, turned into chemicalized wasteland, their parents (who had worked the land) forced into migrant labor, and they couldn’t take the kids. </p>
<p>But you don’t have to go that far - if you want to know why there are millions of Central American immigrants in the U.S. post-1995/1996, you don’t have far to luck.</p>
<p>After tomorrow, unless things change, we may wipe out the stock market gains of the last 8 years (not including dividends which are low). (I’m talking about the Dow Jones Industrial Index).</p>
<p>“I figure all of these kids think they are investing gurus because they made a crapload of $$$ in the market these last five years. Did they ever take the chart out 10 years. Did they ever look at the market between 65 and 75. Ahhh… to be so young.”</p>
<p>If I read one more time how stocks are going to go up 10% a year now and in the future, I am going to puke.</p>
<p>“If interest rates are reduced will that ease much of the problem with the mortgages resetting to higher rates?”</p>
<p>We are in interesting times. What rate would you borrow money at if you wanted to buy an asset that was dropping in price? Would I borrow at 1% if I thought that asset might be 10% lower in value next year?</p>
<p>Lowering interest rates isn’t perfect by any means. What it does do is makes it easier to refinance. It also increases the value of all assets. Does it increase the value of all assets to stem the tide of decreasing asset prices? Maybe. It does allow people who haven’t invested a cheaper way to invest and this increases demand. So demand is potentially increased.</p>
<p>Lower prices can also increase demand eventually. But then those that have lent money on those decresing assets are’t too happy.</p>
<p>And lowering interest rates can increase inflation, lower the value of our dollar overseas, allocate investments in nonproductive places and cause assets to be mispriced. </p>
<p>Kind of what has happened already. :)</p>
<p>Yes, lower interest rates should put more $$ into peoples pockets pretty quickly for those who can afford to refinance or with “normal” ARM’s . I’m not sure how badly the dishonest brokers wrote the adjustable guidelines…but it should help some people. In the long run though Im not sure what will help.</p>
<p>However, low interest rates and dishonest/greedy lenders started this all off so someone had better come up with some strict new guidelines pretty fast or we will just be in it all over again. Mortgage companies and banks should not profit from this new round of refi’s.</p>
<p>Heck, I don’t know the answers but I sure have a lot of questions.</p>
<p>and I’ll be darned if I’m going to pay higher taxes yet again because the teachers guaranteed pension fund gets clobbered by the market…oh boy , I’m going to go listen to some of Dstarks music…but I keep hearing “fool on the hill”…</p>
<p>oh and I hope a lot of these kids have financial safetys on their college list…wait till mom and dad look at their investments.</p>
<p>No. No. No. No Fool on the Hill.</p>
<p>[YouTube</a> - Keith Jarrett Solo Concert](<a href=“http://youtube.com/watch?v=HPqK1JJOFxw]YouTube”>http://youtube.com/watch?v=HPqK1JJOFxw)</p>
<p>[YouTube</a> - Joe Pass - All the Things You Are](<a href=“http://youtube.com/watch?v=aWa6aChSf1w]YouTube”>http://youtube.com/watch?v=aWa6aChSf1w)</p>
<p>A plug for one of my best friend’s web sites.
When you want to relax.</p>
<p>[Jim</a> Helman - recording, composing, percussion - HOME](<a href=“http://www.jimhelman.com%5DJim”>http://www.jimhelman.com)</p>
<p>Thanks dstark…I’m going to go decompress.</p>
<p>And your minor personal experience represents all the millions of overseas workers in India, China, etc etc? I’m sure even India has more important problems from dowry murders to the caste system. It’s a pimple on an elephant and has as much to do with public policy as that.</p>
<p>“However, low interest rates and dishonest/greedy lenders”</p>
<p>You can blame unscrupulous real estate brokers as well. Many directed their clients into houses above their means (via ARMs with low teaser rates)and inappropriate loans originating within a division of the real estate company, or an informal affiliated mortgage broker.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Your anecdotal data may be true and may represent an isolated outcome. However, the vast majority of the Indian population very much favor globalization. Why shouldn’t they? They are the net recipients of the jobs.
[Pew</a> Global Attitudes Project: Summary of Findings: World Publics Welcome Global Trade – But Not Immigration](<a href=“World Publics Welcome Global Trade — But Not Immigration | Pew Research Center”>World Publics Welcome Global Trade — But Not Immigration | Pew Research Center)</p>
<p>So, which view will you let represent your future posts on this subject? The anecdotal or the country-wide survey?</p>
<p>“You can blame unscrupulous real estate brokers as well. Many directed their clients into houses above their means (via ARMs with low teaser rates)and inappropriate loans originating within a division of the real estate company, or an informal affiliated mortgage broker.”</p>
<p>While I think all of this was true I think individual greed on the part of the homebuyers was the main problem and is as old as mankind. Buyers wanted in on the action and the bigger the house the more they could enjoy it and make on resale. Nearly every con job needs greedy marks to work. I warned people here about the Las Vegas and Miami condo markets being whacky a couple of years ago. Anyone who is honest with themselves could see it. A guy I worked with years ago got stuck with three Miami condo deals, lost hundreds of thousands and is now broke. He was being greedy and knows it. Everyone else in the chain just acted as enablers.</p>
<p>
True, true. of course, pretty much everyone is “greedy” - that’s what a capitalist system runs on. That’s why that dreaded “regulation” is needed; to prevent the huge economic fluctuations which occur naturally in a capitalist society. Who now disputes that the oversight of the lenders was too lax over the past few years? I know a lot of us saw it and commented on it at the time, so it’s not like it was a mystery. Now the people paying the price are unlikely to be the same ones who made large fortunes exploiting the system; those guys are insulated from the consequences. It’s only the ones in the middle and the bottom of the whole Ponzi scheme who will suffer.</p>
<p>Kluge, I’m counting on the lawyers to go after the heads of Citicorp, Merrill Lynch, Countrywide Credit, Bear Stearns, and others for the payback of their bonuses.</p>
<p>Bonuses are paid based on both past and future performance.
The earnings of these companies were overstated in the past and their future earnings are now impacted.</p>
<p>You can’t go after everyone’s bonus because of the uncertainty people would have, but those at the absolute top, those that make the rules, clearly we can make an exception.</p>
<p>Bernanke said last week that it wasn’t the Fed’s job to protect the markets from declines. The stock market didn’t like that too much. :)</p>
<p>We’ll see.</p>
<p>Maybe the Fed will cut rates a point before tomorrow’s opening and things will calm down.</p>
<p>“Your anecdotal data may be true and may represent an isolated outcome. However, the vast majority of the Indian population very much favor globalization. Why shouldn’t they? They are the net recipients of the jobs.”</p>
<p>Do you think anyone ever ASKS the people I work with? Do they use cellphones? Those five million Central American immigrants who have received such a warm welcome here are also dancing in the streets. </p>
<p>Again, I welcome you to join me on a visit. I promise to show you a good time.</p>
<p>(Until then, just to keep you in good health until you can join me, don’t eat the shrimp.)</p>
<p>“Do you think anyone ever ASKS the people I work with? Do they use cellphones? Those five million Central American immigrants who have received such a warm welcome here are also dancing in the streets.”</p>
<p>Until you try to send them back. Then 99% are planning the next trip back to the US. Nobody buys your US sucks crap Mini. Most specifically the illegal immigrants who go through all sorts of crap to get here.</p>
<p>An advanced economy if the world were run by Mini and friends:</p>
<p><a href=“http://thirdrail.smorgasblog.com/archives/donkey.jpg[/url]”>http://thirdrail.smorgasblog.com/archives/donkey.jpg</a></p>
![http://thirdrail.smorgasblog.com/archives/donkey.jpg[/url]](http://thirdrail.smorgasblog.com/archives/donkey.jpg%5B/url%5D){kind=link}
<p>Of course, we do love those surveys: 65% of Iraqis think it is a good thing to kill Americans, but that doesn’t include the two million ethnically cleansed and living abroad who love us. </p>
<p>Central American immigration had slowed to a trickle until Al Gore came along. Wonder why that was… (People will do amazing things when faced with desperate situations, and I’m glad we welcome them with open arms.)</p>
<p>(don’t eat the shrimp)</p>
<p>Ok. What is wrong with the shrimp?</p>
<p>dstark</p>
<p>You just had to ASK!</p>
<p>Go to mini’s wesite by clicking on his name as a link. Prawn farming.</p>
<p>How can this happen? Don’t traders know we are going to get a stimulus plan?</p>
<p><a href=“Yahoo Finance - Stock Market Live, Quotes, Business & Finance News”>Yahoo Finance - Stock Market Live, Quotes, Business & Finance News; </p>
<p>"Futures plunge on U.S. recession fears</p>
<p>NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures sank in holiday-shortened trading on Monday as fear of a U.S. recession gripped investors, indicating Wall Street was likely to join a global equity markets plunge that may usher in a bear market when trading resumes on Tuesday.</p>
<p>While cash equity markets were shut for the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday, index futures were very active in electronic trading through the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. U.S. stock markets reopen on Tuesday.</p>
<p>The sell-off in futures tracked losses in global equities, as the MSCI’s main index of world stocks hit its lowest level in more than a year. World stocks nose-dived as investors worried a deteriorating U.S. economy would drag other regions down with it.</p>
<p>The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 .FTEU3> closed down 5.8 percent, and Japan’s benchmark Nikkei average .N225> earlier lost 3.86 percent to close at a two-year low."</p>
<p>I see that mini has a slight resemblance to Groucho Marx, but I can’t find the stuff on prawn farming.</p>