The Blame Game.

The market is in the dumper. Who or what is to blame?

Unrealistic assessments of risk, period. Taking super-risky loans, bundling them up into AAA-rated securities, and tossing them around until they start to default, which ripples through everyone that had a hand in them (which is almost every bank).

I'm so sick of the political banter. Bush made a brief statement a couple days ago to try to instill some calm. From Nancy Pelosi: "...(he) said very little...what was expected was an explanation to the American people of what is happening, because it has a direct impact on our lives."

It's not as if Bush could actually sit there for hours and explain crazy-ass complex financial theory; as if more than 1% of the American public would have a chance in hell of understanding one iota of what he told them - hell, even the politicians don't really understand what's going on. McCain in speeches says "we need to reform, er, coughcreditdefaultswapscoughcough, excuse me..."

So I reiterate: incredibly aggressive strategies were labeled with incredibly unrealistic assessments of how risky they were, which cascaded through the financial markets and is now taking a dump on all of us. This all goes full-circle back to my general theory on housing that having a house is a privilege, not a right.

The bad news is now the government is going to probably over-regulate going forward which will hurt the country from a competitive standpoint. What a mess!