I always remember that worst thing that can happen to me on a blog is still infinitely better than a sharp stick in the eye, so don’t lose any sleep over it. Better yet, laugh it off. Don’t apologize for being a newbie either, because some of the dumb-ass moves I’ve made recently were mistakes that no newbie would make. I went insane and forgot simple principles I learned years ago. So that uneducated to educated process sometimes goes into remission.

And don’t worry your ideas might be stupid. I know this one guy, who thought it was a good idea to let investment banks use 40 to 1 leverage, and instead of getting beaten with the idiot stick, he became the US Secretary of the Treasury and got a $700B expense account.

If 2008 proved one thing, it’s that the financial universe is populated primarily by thieves or dunces (take your pick). They’ve set the bar so low, you couldn’t trip over it if you tried.

Barry, you are as usual pretty much on the mark. I think the most significant thing Carter deregulated was the airlines, the rest was minor.

The embrace of deregulation, supply side, the whole extreme free market mindset was really a phenomenon that took off during the presidency of Reagan and represented a flowering of conservative ideas that had been germinating in conservative think tanks funded by people like Coors and Scaife since the sixties. Outside of the economic world who the hell had heard of Friedman and Schumpeter before the 80’s. They were not totally wrong of course, monetarism is an entirely defensible theory while supply side is not except at its most extreme expression. The problem is that as usually happens when an economic theory gains uncritical ascendency, the pendulum can swing too far in one direction as Keynesianism did in Britain in the sixties and seventies. That’s what’s happened in this country which seems particularly attached to a variety of social, political and economic myths that have long been seen through elsewhere. We’ve been able to get away with it for so long because of the size of the US economy and the dollar’s reserve currency status.

There’s no doubt the Clinton economic team bought into some of the free market tenets most notably on international trade but they by and large applied them intelligently. Free trade between nations is after all basically good, it along with technological advances is what is responsible for much of human progress. Unfortunately, Bush and co didn’t apply it intelligently. And we mustn’t forget all these things are moving constantly. You don’t just arrive at a set of principles and say that’s it, never adjusting course for changing cirmcumstances.

You can’t pin it all on Bush but that’s the way it works. You break you own it. As BR they created the climate. I’ve no doubt if they’d had Clinton’s record which was pretty good overall they’d be singing it from the roof tops. Instead they are distorting the facts. For example the whole CRA and Fannie/Freddie bs alibi they came up with. As recently as this morning I see one of Bush’s flacks Gillespie was claiming that a Bush entered office during a recession. He didn’t but he’s as sure as hell leaving in the middle of one.

“From what I have read, Fannie thought it was “losing market share” by being so careful in the types of loans it bought so it started buying this garbage with gusto. “Presto!” You have a market for these garbage loans…”

How could they be afraid of losing market share to a market that didn’t exist until they started participating? One or the other points is clearly wrong, guess which one…… (hint: its right after Presto!)

Thank you Andy, nothing like a wet smack of pure truth to start the day.

Hey, is that another Manitoban then? : )

I wouldn’t take anything said to your moniker in a comment section of a blog too personally. Besides, having the tag ‘imahippi’ on a financial blog is already stirring the pot a little eh?

When I posted my first comment ever on this blog, I got a response form the host himself telling me I was a Monday Morning Quarterback, yet I’m still here.

Rule number 1 in finance: let the insults slide like water off a duck’s back. Grow some tougher skin.

This is the finance world. Life’s not fair and the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

And by the way, Americans are quite touchy on the left or right subject. Expect a few compact snowballs when you show any color… or even any shade of gray.

remember, don’t internalize others’ problems..

as you alluded to, consider the source,

let, not, the weak, buck you from your ride..

past that, don’t apologize for ‘being an IBDer’, that sheet has much for many..

the one message, ‘cut your losses’, by itself, is invaluable..

I appreciated this post of yours.

I think some of your readers fail to realize that there are less knowledgable people out there that are trying to figure this whole finance/investment/political/economic scene out. Maybe younger folk fresh out of university or whatever that have a genuine interest in getting to know what’s going on.
Obviously the road to understanding has to start somewhere and there is usually an evolution type process in the gaining of it.
As a newbie to the markets (2-3yrs) with absolutely a pittance of knowledge ore politics/economics/financial markets I started reading. As a rookie sites like the Motley Fool were not only entertaining but they helped me learn the basics of the market. With a bit of a foundation I started to actually understand sites like Bloomberg blah blah blah. I must say that my next step on a jouney completely of my own making was the IBD. So obviously as a newbie who was finally making some real money in the markets on my own I became attached to what I considered to be the first real financial paper I could read and get information from that actually helped me. So I sort of became an IBDer. Isn’t it common to go through phases in growth and grow some sort of affection for different pieces of the puzzle along the way.
So I obviously have chuckled at the extreme right wing views the paper holds, but as a newbie to all this it is more reading that widens my understanding.
I’ve navigated through this jungle and now read your blog everyday along with just a few others. I enjoy your point of view but don’t take it as inspired or infallible. Just well read and attempting to get to the bottom of things. That’s what I want to be and do.
The point is: there is a process that goes from being uneducated to educated and it sure doesn’t help when you speak out and are slammed by someone who completely reads you wrong.
Your reader that bashed my first post made all these retarded insinuations and was rude and insulting. I was shocked and my initial reaction was to actually feel negative towards your whole community for a bit. (human nature i suppose lol—throw out the baby with the bath water!!)
Happily I just couldn’t help sliding back over to see what you had to say!!!
I really appreciated this post that helps me —as a greenhorn—piece together the roles of many in this credit/market debaucle.
Thanks Barry
signed some young chick in the middle of nowhere Canada!!!

Watch out for those who get access to those assets, they’ll be the nouveau riche in the next cycle.