I don’t think whoever plotted the rise in oil prices to cause a recession to insure the democrats won, realized they would also pop the housing bubble, to make a recession a depression.

Over the past four decades, a bad economy follows a sharp rise in oil prices.

As far as a name, if this gets as bad as it looks, it will be called the second great depression.

the housing bubble (which triggered the overall financial crisis) was caused by decades of government policies directed at increasing the rate of home ownership. These policies – pursued with gusto by both Republicans and Democrats [Ed.: isn't bipartisan good? Not when it's bipartisan stupidity] – had the effect of greatly loosening lending standards. IOW: government encouraged, and then abetted, then forced, easy mortgage money.

The frothiness of the upper end of the market, particularly the jumbo loan housing market ended in late 2005 with the introduction of higher interest rates. Prices softened and days on market grew. However at the lower end of the market during that period, Freddie and Fannie stepped on the gas and their subprime lending and other schemes greatly increased. The loosened standards were much more prevalent at the lower end of the market as was the fraud. Special increase rate collateral discounts were still common for the poor. Much of the toxic paper issued by Fannie and Freddie were issued from 2005 onward. So to describe the cause of collapse as a “housing bubble” doesn’t adequately describe the situation.

Moreosver, from 2004 these schemes by Fannie and Freddie were fought by the Republicans, even RiNOs like Mc Cain , and were fiercely protected by the Democrats. The needed reforms were time and again blocked solely by the Democrats. So to paint these subprime shemes in a “Bi -partisan” broad brush for the blame paints a grossly incorrect picture, and does not at all assign culpability in the appropriate proportions.

BTW, the situation in mortgage lending leading to the collapse has not been thoroughly fixed. Right now, in Southern California it is very difficult to get a jumbo or upper end conforming loan particularly for the self employed. Very low loan to value and great credit are required. That market is very slow.

Meanwhile, the lower end of the market is booming due to lower prices and the fact that FHA loans and other low collateral loans
are still widely available to lower income people with reasonable credit.

Additionally, people who have defaulted on their mortgages , rather than being foreclosed, are often being given 40 year 4% fixed loans so the banks don’t have to declare a foreclosure and cover that foreclosure with more reserves.

So the socialist two step keeps on a truckin.

If the economy stays down then the fiscal stimulus won’t ad more heat to a heated environment–so the fed won’t have to drain liquidity from the system to tamp down inflation.

Meanwhile, from WSJ.com’s e-mail alert comes this news snippet (with links) re: the Fed direction & trendline :

…”Some Federal Reserve officials are open to raising the amounts of mortgage and Treasury securities purchase programs beyond the $1.75 trillion that they’ve already committed to buying, according to minutes from the Fed’s April meeting.

Officials, meanwhile, projected an even deeper recession than they expected three months earlier and a more sluggish recovery over the next two years as labor markets remain under pressure. The unemployment rate is expected to end 2009 between 9.2% and 9.6%, and stay above 9% in 2010….”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203771904574177673022851160.html#mod=djemalertNEWS

Text of the minutes:
http://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/fomcminutes20090429.htm

I know that many would mistakenly interpret it that way, but that is not the intent. The Method was devised for modeling concepts/object that are within a grasp of man’s sensory functions or extensions of these.
……….
Heck it confused Decartes. Consider his other writings:-) Heck you don’t even have to do that. When you look at “The Tree of Knowledge” as pictured/dreamed/methodologicalized by decartes–you’ll see in the middle the word “Understanding”. Presumably that is Man’s understanding. Off on one of the tiny subbranches at the very end of one of the subgroups philosophy — is religion/superstition.

This completely inverts the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden.

A more realistic picture is the one provided by Blake which shows man pointing to God and God pointing to man.

Every politician out there and every person with half a brain knows we are in a train wreck here and all are now powerless to name the causes or fix the problem. Instead they will pile mistake on mistake in a futile effort to avoid a day of reckoning. A housing bubble becomes a banking crisis which in turn becomes a trade war. Lunatics fly around the world in jet aeroplanes proclaiming the sky is falling on account of carbon emissions and California crumbles into bankruptcy while sitting on an ocean of oil it won’t drill and tens of billions of debt from social programs for illegal immigrants it won’t send home.

The markets are not something you control anymore than gravity or the tides are something you control. It is a force of nature that you respect. Every bubble breaks and if you try to protect some people from the consequences of their ill advised investments you necessarily have to pass the costs on to someone else. When you do that you break the social compact that glues society together.

Did you hear that one about an archeologist in the future that wrote paper about bowing to porcelain god? (toilet)

Pretty much the same how our esteemed academicians explain the spiritual side of our ancient forebears. It is all assumptions, and for the most part, unwarranted.

I would love to point you towards some anthropological papers, but for the moment, I have to pass on that. I may email you some pointers when I get to it.

IF the second part is correct then the first part is futile.

53. El Heffe:

“I wonder if the time may not be approaching when monetary power needs to be seen in a similar light to the powers of the executive, legislative, and judicial; and therefore separated and established as its own branch of government. Likely small and relatively independent, something along the lines of the supreme court (but without the bit about life-time service).”

I like this idea. And lets have them elected by the states representatives. So that the power would not be concentrated in the Federal government. One for each state. NOTHING FOR DC. For two year terms. Rotating out 1/3 every year. Long enough to learn the job and short enough to be mostly immune from corruption. NO adjoining terms. But could be reelected after sitting out for 4 years. They control the monetary policy and the tax policy for the legislative body.