Times to the Rescue

The mortgage "crisis" has finally deepened enough to provoke outright pleas for government bailouts from certain quarters. This NY Times Op-Ed explicitly calls for "- federal funds to help at-risk borrowers to stay in their homes and at-risk communities to reduce foreclosures-" although you have to read through a litany of other measures to finally reach it. This piece is authored by a Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers 1993-95 under old You-Know-Who. Some of the measures she proposes may be justified, such as postponing variable rate increases and strictly temporary moratoriums on foreclosures, but you can't simply use scare expressions like "-for the good of the overall economy" and justify pouring tax money in to pay what amount to scam mortgages to rescue those who were stupid enough or oblivious enough to sign them. Another proposal to short-circuit personal responsibility and endorse worse-than-irresponsible behavior in the lending industry will yield- nothing.

It's not often I quote Calvin Coolidge, because he said very little that anyone would wish to remember. This case is an exception: "They hired the money, didn't they?"