Current Events Could make the World a Better Place

[rucky]

Current Events Could make the World a Better Place

Mortgage News Daily (no byline) 9/30/08

Congress has lurched back and forth on the bail-out bill or, as we are now supposed to say a "rescue," coming down on the side of defeating the current version Monday afternoon. However, it was clear over the weekend that, no matter how this all ends, the financial world has fundamentally changed.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi made the pithiest assessment of the post-bailout bill, "The party is over." Many people, particularly conservatives deign to differ. Joe Scarborough on MSNBC's Morning Joe and guest Pat Buchanan maintained that 'the party is just beginning," claiming that the financial markets were going to have a field day with the infusion of billions in cash.

Former President Bill Clinton, appearing on NBC's Meet the Press, saw the changes as more fundamental. "First," he said, "it could change the political culture. I think that's important. I think it's important that you have the Republicans and Democrats in Congress asking the same good questions, good questions about if we're going to put up $700 billion, how will it be spent; to help homeowners, to give the taxpayers a chance to get their money back, to be transparent? I think that's important.

"I also believe it will have beneficial long-term economic consequences. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley ... (will) still be able to issue stock, they'll still be able to have some speculation... but there --you are not going to have these crazy binges of sub-subprime mortgages or the derivatives, because people now recognize all over again what they had to learn in the depression and two or three times since, which is markets, if unaccountable at the margins, will self-destruct. They will cannibalize themselves. So I think we've learned that. Listen, if we can just get out of this thing now and get the show back on the road, we will have learned quite a lot that's good for us."

MORE: http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/09302008_better_place.asp

[Oregone]

1. The world will never be a better place...

Id venture to say the aggregate sum of global happiness divided by the aggregate sum of global pain is relatively constant (within an acceptable margin) throughout all times. Regions cycle from one boundary to another, but for the most part, we have and always be a mess, judging the entire species as a whole. Any new hope one has for mankind is simply misplaced "irrational exuberance".

Remember, people are still hacking each other with machetes in the Congo. That kind of makes you nostalgic for the Dark Ages, eh?