Livinglies's Weblog

Paulson’s comments yesterday were inappropriate. He just doesn’t get it. He is arguing for hitting the iceberg and then let the deadly water take care of the problem. The ship is the American economy. And the waters are a legal system that assumes, all things being equal, that the process of foreclosure, eviction and losses on CDO investments will eventually find a state of equilibrium from which the economy will rebound. He is wrong.

All things are not equal because of the scale of losses, the scope of the economic effects, and the deadly despair descending upon the American consumer in a consumer driven economy. Take away the spending of consumers, and the United States is a third world economy. Maybe it doesn’t need to be that way, but it is now. 

On the other hand he is right in one respect — that a bailout, using federal funds, will not alone solve the problem. More fiat funds pushed into a marketplace where the dollar is already declining in a virtual free fall will cause problems of its own — continuing devaluation of the U.S. dollar, other countries severing their currency ties with the dollar, a huge increase in U.S. debt, spiraling inflation at a level not seen before in our lifetimes, and a sea-change in life-style as virtual ghost towns dot the landscape consisting of abandoned homes. 

The answer is a combination of remedies and rewriting the rules so all things ARE equal. A relatively small Federal bailout along the lines of the Barney Frank proposal will provide some breathing room. 

Republicans and Democrats need to get together under the leadership of their standard bearers in this election year and refuse to pass any legislation for funding or otherwise until this credit crisis is addressed in an immediate comprehensive way. 

Federal and state agencies and judicial systems, should bend their rules as much as possible to provide a de facto moratorium on foreclosures and evictions — re- routing cases into mediation procedures and providing for mediation reports in 90 days before the cases can continue.

Attorney Generals of each state should intervene in each foreclosure case, basically alleging that the lender participated in a vast conspiracy to defraud the borrower and with reckless disregard to the damage their behavior would cause to the economy of the state and the nation, not to speak of cities in other countries who are now decreasing social services because the cash they thought they had evaporated with the diminution of value “Safe” “cash equivalent” CDO investments they thought they had. 

See the previous post, for details plans on remedial legislation which Congress and each of the states can pass to aggressively put down this crisis. If Federal authorities fail to act, then states, individually and collectively should encourage their state chartered banks to start issuing bank notes as an alternative to U.S. currency. Agreements with Forex and precious metals traders should be reached to back up these new currencies. A radical solution to a radical problem. Failure to act will leave every American citizen bereft except those who are already taking hedge positions in foreign exchange and precious metals and other commodities. 

Filed under: CDO, community banks, CORRUPTION, credit unions, currency, Eviction, foreclosure, GTC | Honor, inflation, interest rates, Investor, Mortgage, Obama, politics, securities fraud | Tagged: attorney general, bailout, congress, judicial system, mediation, Paulson, States |