...and the market will be up 150 points tomorrow. The market is nothing more then a casino, and it's deregulation that caused this.

There once was a time, and you'll remember this, when Wall Street actually represented Main Street.

On another note, wasn't the county's budget relatively flat this year? I'll see if I can find it on the internet here this afternoon.

The bulk of our economic issues are national in nature. Honestly, more then national, global. Our recession will continue forward as much because the rest of the world - including Germany and China now - are slowly continuing to fall apart.

I'd argue that our nation is in better shape going further then most. I really didn't want to derail this though, so I'll stop.

What it ultimately comes down to, locally, is that if your bond rating is high, it means your fiscal house is in relative order.

This now applies to both O'Malley on the state level, and Kamenetz on the county level. People may not like HOW it's being done, and that's fine. It is, however, being done.

Buzz: Again, are you talking federal or local?
You'll get minimal argument out of me on the federal level. I also don't question your knowledge of the details of the BC budget. However, I get the distinct feeling you're accidentally transferring federal level economic issues on the local level.

What was the BC deficit this year (if any?) I've actually been busy at work the past couple days. Occasional time for posting, but not much else.

DJ: You or I can never read enough. That said, blaming the Fed solely, or even primarily, for this market collapse is just patently false. Sounds like something that would come from an ardent Ron Paul supporter.

Progressive deregulation of the financial sector - starting in the 80's honestly under Reagan (creation of ARMs, for example) and finishing up with the Graham-Leach 1999 Act directly put us where we are now. No accountability.

DJ: Graham-Leach opened the barn doors completely. Additionally, free markets in America are not actually free. It's a misnomer that only the ignorant believe. The tax system is skewed towards the largest corporations, just like the wealthiest Americans. A system set up by the same Republicans (along with Dems, there is blame for everyone) helped set up over the past 30 years. One thing the parties both share is greed. The system isn't remotely fair to the middle to upper middle class, or actual small businesses (who pay the bulk of taxes, relative to their income).
Now, i'm not an economist, but my understanding is that the housing market collapsed because of the repeal of the Graham-Leach act I've already mentioned. It allowed for way, way less fiscal accountability from banks, and allowed them to literally blow up to "Too big to fail" status. What specifically caused the was essentially a subprime mortgage fiasco. Banks started giving loans of to anyone and everyone irregardless of risk. These “fiscally responsible, free market” banks, then bundled these high-risk mortgages with legitimate low risk ones and then sold them, and/or sold derivatives off of them. When the high risk portion of these securities began defaulting on their mortgages, it become a cataclysmic snowball.

Part 2:
Additionally there was derivative trading that was going on over these securities. Financial institutions were basically gambling on whether or not securities would be paid or not.
This couldn’t have happened under Glass-Steagall, which governed these things from 1933 on until Graham-Leach.

Additionally, the sad fact is, the top 10 banks today hold a HIGHER percentage of banking wealth in this country then before the market collapse of 2007 which mandated TARP to begin with. “To Big to Fail” is alive and worse than before. Our government has done nothing, I repeat, nothing to prevent something like this from happening again.

Glass-Steagall should still be in place today. This country's leadership has learned exactly nothing from this economic crisis - or they've learned, but refuse to actually do anything about it. Because you know, as Gordon Gekko said in Wall Street "Greed is good".

DJ: You know what? Worded this way, you make your point better.

Fannie/Freddie certainly contributed to the collapse, however yes - I do think this still happens without Fannie/Freddie - although not to the severity it has.

Of course there was political factors involved with this, of course, especially with the whole "owning a home is the American Dream". This includes Clinton (i.e. not a Republican) who's administration really pushed for this - as well as GWB after him.
I was going to mention the political aspect in the previous messages, but as you see, once I get writing it's tough to stop sometimes. I often get the Tolstoy taunt from this website.

The roulette example is funny though: We both know the rules that apply to you and I don't apply to the government or those who directly corrupt it. This again, is not partisan in nature.