blueblood

Yes let''s follow the money shall we? You have gov't monetary policy of low interest rates which essentially allows money to be printed. What's worse is the gov't bonds that foreigners are buying into are at artificially low rates because the demand for "sound" US treasuries is still high. As a result we have a whole whack of money needing some place to go. That destination was houses. For example in 1999 we have Fannie Mae under pressure from the Clintion administration to ease credit requirements on mortgages it bought from banks; there's trouble right there. If those banks and lending institutions were not insured by the FDIC and not under pressure from gov't to keep the affordable housing policy going, those loans probably wouldn't have been made in the first place because they wouldn't be able to be bailed out and thus must make smarter loans. The CRA is one of the many policies used by gov't to push the loose lending strategy such as the department of housing and urban development.. What you are discussing is the mechanics investors and speculators used to make money in the mortgage market. Also interesting to note is that both prime and sub-prime mortgages were defaulting, the problem is your adjustable rate mortgages with teaser rates. When the initial low interest rate expires and gets jacked up, that's when the crap hits the fan and its foreclosure time. Speculative home buyers got hit especially hard with that beauty. When you have 1% interest rates from 03-04 along with lax lending standards imposed by gov't that's a recipe for disaster. All these people owning houses they shouldn't trying to make mortgage payments and as you've carefully explained we have investors making bets that these people are going to continue making mortgage payments. So many didn't pay that it caused a collapse. You also have to remember that the easy money policy by the gov't finds its way into the speculative market you were talking about by having people who don't know how to play speculative investments in there which is a problem in itself In Saskatchewan in the 1980's the farmland real estate bubble burst. Now we have banks here regulated up the wazoo, but that did nothing to prevent plummeting land values and save the rural economy, all it did was ensure the banks didn't take a bath, and they didn't - their clients did, and it took 25 yrs. to right the ship. There's a lot more to this situation than speculators making bets on people paying their mortgages.

How would it be a failure? wheat acreage has gone up in Ontario where this sort of thing was tried and in Australia. Don't hear very much complaints. All grain prices right now are at very favorable levels. The board disappearing isn't going to change that, and with current price levels there won't be any desire for change of gov't.

Ignore the adjectives then

Holy smoke people worked and made the world better off and richer than before, what a novel idea. If farmers today can work 18 hours a day at sseding, spraying, and harvest you city boys can work 18 hours too.

Except rich people spend more, hire people, save in banks, and invest all which boost the economy. Can the poor do that? They can pay their bill too. The poor's free ride is over.

Except he's right, if you want to be rich bad enough you can become rich. That's the beauty of north america.

It worked in 1920-21 when there was double digit unemployment. Actually it was hoover and fdr spending like drunken sailors and making all sorts of intervention to prop up prices is what made the depression so bad. They wouldn't let the market work and voila

Are you familiar with breech of contract litigation A lot of shareholders are suffering, particularly those close to or retiring

Oh krikey!! The cwb as we know it got started much like other govt spending keynesian nonsense, during the depression. At that time producers didn't know how markets worked and thought that the elevators were pulling the old screw job so they used their political clout and complained to govt and voila the cwb.

Democrats pres with a republican house. Clinton had some of his ideas go up in smoke like obama, then there was the bond market involved as well. Hell if james carville gets reincarnated he wants to come back as the bond market. The old dotcom bubble is when the bush administration threw open the spigot. The democrat congress down the road didn't do diddly squat. Both parties have their hands in the cookie jar.

And it would have endured the bankruptcies. Houses would be able to be sold for cheap. Didn't we want a cheap housing policy? Bank assets would be liquidated and bought up by other sounder banks or guys wanting to start up banks. No it was gov't policy of rock bottom interest rates and spending and do gooderness that got us into this. Your going after the symptoms and not the disease. Where did all that money come from to begin with? It certainly wasn't with production. Bush administration had monetary policy to drop interest rates to inflate it's way out of the dot com bubble and everyone stuck it in housing. However the Clinton administration helped create the conditions for the dot com bubble to begin with. How about letting the market set the rates instead of some guy pulling them out of his backside?

How is it a debacle? What's with the "mega agricorps" angle? If I'm making money, why should I care if they are? How was this a bad decision? Is there a benefit to the wheat board? Their performance is debatable. It's really frustrating when people who don't know the grain industry think they know what's best for producers. Go back and read my posts, and get a crash course in how things are done. Do city people actually believe that if the wheat board monopoly goes away farmers will become instantly broke?

Wrong, that would be Preston manning et. Al who were the Canadian version of the tea party. Martin would cut something and manning would say "that's it?" it was a political cosmic alignment to cut gov't spending, and it very rarely happens when the party in gov't and an opposition party have the same priority.

If you look at mb history, the Winnipeg grain exchange was one of the biggest exchanges in western north America. The Canadian wheat board all but shuttered it. The ndp was complaining about cwb employees losing jobs, yet kept mum on brokers and grain traders gaining jobs...

Thers's going to be another side kicking and screaming about something like that. There always is.

Ah yes, but we are talking about taking opportunities from young people. Younger people potentially living a lesser life. Perhaps younger people having a more difficult time accessing healthcare.

If we continue down that road, there lies the potential debate of is the cost of caring for the elderly worth a massive economic slowdown. I'm thinking the USA might want to look at liberalizing that border with Mexico because they are going to Need all the taxpayers they can get.

Sounds more like dairy because anything involving animal production involves quotas. With the nature of fishing, i think there are lots of rules, etc.

And that's the debate no one wants to have... Fareed Zakaria brings up the issue, but didn't discuss it. I can see the retirement age being raised however. This is a considerable expense coming down the pipe and there might not be enough money to pay for it.

I don't know anything about the fishers board, I never heard of that one so I can't comment on that one. I do know about the dairy board, and that's a "third rail" when making gov't ag policy. Unfortunately for everybody else it is a significant stumbling block at the WTO and for getting a new WTO deal.

Than I guess one of the great intellectuals of our time is also shameful. I'll go with mr. Zakaria on this one. The western world has an entitlement problem and one way or another it's going to eventually be fixed. The question is do we create enough wealth for a significant portion of the population to be takers and not makers?

Do you know what's happening in the former USSR and Latin America. The high grain prices are resulting in a massive investment in these areas of the world to increase food production similar to North Americas. You have to remember who those speculators are, quite often hedge funds which represent many people's retirements, it's better they make money with this than have the gov't jack up taxes to pay for them. The people in developing areas are getting into ag production and fast. Without those high food prices, the people in developing countries were forced out of business by places like the USA and Europe which had the government subsidize food production at below cost of production. That was a disaster.

It should go, but won't for a quite some time, if you thought there was a kerfuffle with the wheat board you haven't seen anything yet. Your talking about guys who had the Cadillac gov't assisstance plan, so much so that their industry is a house of cards.

Do you know what's happening in the former USSR and Latin America. The high grain prices are resulting in a massive investment in these areas of the world to increase food production similar to North Americas. You have to remember who those speculators are, quite often hedge funds which represent many people's retirements, it's better they make money with this than have the gov't jack up taxes to pay for them. The people in developing areas are getting into ag production and fast. Without those high food prices, the people in developing countries were forced out of business by places like the USA and Europe which had the government subsidize food production at below cost of production. That was a disaster.