CNN is trailing yet another doom-and-gloom report. This one, which will be out later today, predicts that we’re less than three weeks away from yet another miserably depressing milestone. Read the rest of this entry »

Who’s willing to step up? A story from today’s Los Angeles Times got me wondering. The article looked at America’s history of providing financial bailouts and its efforts to get relief to those who “deserved” it while leaving the “undeserving” to twist in the wind. However in most cases the net was cast wide enough that many managed to game the system and get a break they didn’t need or deserve.  So while it’s popular to sympathize with those in default on their homes, is anyone really willing to step up and pay the piper? Apparently those who made poor real estate investments or spent their money on trips and expensive cars have no problem asking their neighbors and fellow taxpayers to absorb the consequences of their decisions. But what are the neighbors to do? Let the foreclosure signs blight the neighborhood and make things worse? Sometimes it comes down to expedience and pragmatism rather than staking out some kind of moral high ground. Or, as US Representative Barney Frank claims, “I want to help the least undeserving people around.”