Posted On: August 22, 2007, 2:16 pm CDT

Posted By: ALWAYS RIGHT

Yes, this one is the "fault" of many parties: the homeowners/borrowers who borrowed much more than they should have; the lenders who made these loans to people who they knew, or should have known, would eventually not be able to make payments, etc. But remember, this couldn't have even started without the fiat money system that we have. Such a system gives the Fed the ability to pump up the currency based on political (i.e., criminal) considerations; the resultant money is then too cheap and sends out incorrect signals to the marketplace. Then, as is inevitable, a correction (also known as a recession or depression) must occur to balance the credit boom. But you'll never read about this in the mainstream media. Two of the few media outlets that predicted the now-occurring housing slump are www.mises.org (as in Ludwig von Mises) and www.lewrockwell.com Von Mises by the way predicted the "Great" Depression in the 19 "teens" based on these same principles.

Incidentally, what we have right now is in no way an "unregulated" or "free" market. Oh, it might be if you remove the farm subsidies, medicare, welfare, taxes (income, tariffs, etc.), subsidizations to Archer Daniels Midland, Haliburton, etc., and let everyone-gasp!-keep their own money and let them spend it-double gasp!-in the way that they choose. Of course, that would required putting the professional parasites (every government employee) out of a job. But that would first require people to renounce the religion of statism and actually see things as they really are.