Economics pretends to be a science, but more than most sciences it tends to be driven by ideology.
In ideologies the answers are given. Facts are fit into theoretical frameworks. Facts that don't fit in are denied or even falsified, and at best are explained away. Just as with religions.
In the United States and much of the globe there are two major economic ideologies to choose from: free market capitalism, and socialism. Both camps look back at the 20th century and pull facts (or pseudo facts) from the economic trajectories of various nations to justify their current policy prescriptions.
I believe they are both wrong, to the extent they demand pure systems. I believe the historical record shows that they are both wrong. I believe that in the United States and elsewhere we need to build up a popular culture, science of economics, and political system that understands that mixed systems (involving both free and regulated markets, and the control of capital at times by capitalists, and at times by government) can work better than pure systems.
Ideologists are people who insist on using the same tool set for every job, even when a better (often just bigger) tool set is available.
To keep this essay short, I will focus on one ideology, free-market capitalism. This ideology is being pushed heavily in the United States by capitalists, their media voices, their academic establishment, their religious establishment, and their politicians. However, let me make it clear that I am not in favor of a centrally-planned socialist system where the government owns everything (though its claim would be that it holds everything in common for the people). I am in favor of a mixed system. I am just coming at it from the free-market side.
If you think free markets are sacred, then of course whatever comes out of them is wonderful. The Great Depression was created by free markets, so it must have been wonderful.
I don't believe the Great Depression was wonderful.
So assuming I can demonstrate that mixed systems can be superior to pure free market capitalist systems, what would be the goal? I am willing to go with the classic: the greatest good for the greatest number. It should be clear that by choosing different goals you can skew the debate towards pure systems, or even within the range of mixed systems.
If you make either Socialism or Capitalism the goal, then you have self-proving economics. Some more reasonable goals might be: maximizing GDP (gross domestic product) over the long run; minimizing unemployment, crime and hunger; sustainability (environmental and human); profit maximization for business owners; stability; political consequences like democracy (or control of it by an elite); and so on. The ideal economic system would depend on the goals you choose.
I would say a knowledgeable human being would want a mixture of weighted goals, and the flexibility to change the goals themselves, if the experience of reality warrants that.
Some goals many Americans share are: minimizing bubble/bust cycles; maximizing GDP growth over time; distributing GDP adequately so that every American has a good chance of having a good economic life, or minimizing poverty. Minimizing poverty would include protection for children, seniors, and disabled persons.
Many free market ideologists would not like that list of goals, since it almost implies some elements of socialism need to be applied. Some free-marketers would argue that their system is so wonderful that it actually does maximize GDP growth without cycles of busts or creating masses of poor people and criminals.
I would argue that you can't achieve those goals without a Federal Reserve trying to keep a rein on the money supply; mandatory Social Security; mandatory unemployment insurance; and programs for children.
That said, economies are complicated, and they change. Our data-driven economy of today is as different from the factory-led U.S. economy of the late 1940s (when every other nation's factories were still in splinters from World War II bombing campaigns) was from the mainly agricultural economy of the U.S. in the first half of the 1800's.
Long ago the world learned that free markets don't work in certain situations; the ideologists want us to forget the lessons of history. Industrial monopolies (as during the 1800's after the Civil War) tend to concentrate wealth in a few hands, but stifle growth of the economy as a whole. They stifle competition, which is supposed to be the engine of free-market economies. The monopolies were created naturally through competition, but once created they had a word for competition: "Ruinous." In the process of enriching a few capitalists they drain the resources of smaller businesses and consumers, leading to economic stagnation and recessions.
But suppose that you want long-term GDP growth, and don't care if a few people starve or die young from lack of medical care. Would that not then favor a pure free enterprise system, with government relegated to military matter and punishing anyone who dared to steal a loaf of bread?
Yes, according the the free market ideologists. But they ignore history. In the U.S. we mainly had free-market capitalism until 1933. The results should be examined in detail. There was GDP progress, but it came mostly in booms and busts. By 1933 most of the centuries' earlier gains were gone, down the drain because because there was nothing in place to put breaks on the downward plunge that started in 1929.
The New Deal did not work out all that well at first, either. It was war (selling to nations already at war until Pearl Harbor, then vast levels of deficit spending on our own war machine until we emerged as the leading world superpower) that got us out of the Depression. After that, however, some of the New Deal, let's call them what they are, Socialist, programs did dampen the boom and bust cycle. There were cycles, but on the whole I would argue that having a mixed system worked better than either pure free-market capitalism or pure socialism would have.
The question should not be whether we should have a capitalist or a socialist economic system. The question should be: which elements of each, working together, create the overall strongest economy?
But for voters, judging politicians, that would demand something that has often proven beyond their ken. It requires understanding complexity. It requires something more than regurgitating campaign ads. It requires independent thinking.
The same for economists. When an American economist reveals himself (or herself) as a pure free-market exponent, know you are dealing with a priest, not a scientist.
Showing posts with label bubble. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bubble. Show all posts
Sunday, April 12, 2015
Friday, April 26, 2013
The Accounting System #5: Physical Money As Portable Accounting
previous: #4: The Big Reversal
During the Age of Coin the normal relation of reality to symbols of reality was inverted for many people. This inversion permeates human culture even today, long after the Age of Coin (roughly 1400 to 1900) has faded into history.
Leaving aside human relations, possessions and their use are generally believed to hold value. Food, clothing, housing, tools, and land have obvious value. Coin, however, came to be the common denominator allowing people to think about the value of mixtures of types of possessions. A farmer could come up with a total numeric value of his land, cows, sheep, and money held in bank accounts and cash. An urban investor know how much his stocks were worth, and the shares of companies they represented in turn could be accounted for in terms of projected future profits and current assets that might include factories, inventories, and money in bank accounts, less what was owed on loans.
It was a convenient fiction that any citizen could turn all assets into a pile of coin or paper currency, stand naked beside the pile, and know his or her worth. Even more conveniently, one could come close to this by selling everything, putting the resulting money into a bank account, and looking at a single number on a bank statement.
In reality not everyone could convert all their assets to currency or even into bank accounts at once. There was not enough currency to meet the demand if too many people demanded cash at any given time. The history of the United States of America, from colonial times until the creation of the Federal Reserve, was punctuated by proofs of this. Metallic coin, preferably silver or gold coin, was always in short supply because at first it had to be imported. After about 1850, when large amounts of gold and silver were found and mined in the states, coin remained in short supply because the rest of the economy expanded at such a fast rate. The Free Silver (coinage) and Greenback political campaigns encapsulated the deadening effect on the economy of the mindset that only gold could be real money, or represent real value.
Going back to our naked ape sitting beside a pile of coin (perhaps have kept aside a knife or six-shooter to defend it with), pretty soon, except in cases of insanity, hunger or discomfort would lead to spending down the pile. If no one was willing to trade food for gold, the pile was useless, and without value. We know from history that in times of famine scraps of food came to be "worth their weight in gold."
Another problem would occur if everyone tried to liquidate their assets at once. In that hypothetical situation, there would be no buyers. The value of truly valuable things drops to nothing if buyers cannot be found. This can be true even when there is plenty of money (coin, cash, account balances, or credit) to buy the assets. Thus we have had a series of asset bubbles over the centuries, some of the most famous being the Tulip bubble, the South Seas bubble, the Florida land bubble, the Internet stock bubble, the housing bubble of 2005-2006, and (as of April 15, 2013) the Gold bubble. In a bubble money is traded for something believed to have real value, until only the most foolish citizens can't see that the money value exceeds the real value. Then, when buyers become scarce enough, bubbles burst. Tulips are just tulips again, not investments. (My favorite bubbles: tropical fish bubbles and the farmed mink bubble).
Next: #6: Counting, Coins, and Crashes
[The Accounting System, Your Fate is in the Cloud, is a work in progress by William P. Meyers, ©2013]
During the Age of Coin the normal relation of reality to symbols of reality was inverted for many people. This inversion permeates human culture even today, long after the Age of Coin (roughly 1400 to 1900) has faded into history.
Leaving aside human relations, possessions and their use are generally believed to hold value. Food, clothing, housing, tools, and land have obvious value. Coin, however, came to be the common denominator allowing people to think about the value of mixtures of types of possessions. A farmer could come up with a total numeric value of his land, cows, sheep, and money held in bank accounts and cash. An urban investor know how much his stocks were worth, and the shares of companies they represented in turn could be accounted for in terms of projected future profits and current assets that might include factories, inventories, and money in bank accounts, less what was owed on loans.
It was a convenient fiction that any citizen could turn all assets into a pile of coin or paper currency, stand naked beside the pile, and know his or her worth. Even more conveniently, one could come close to this by selling everything, putting the resulting money into a bank account, and looking at a single number on a bank statement.
In reality not everyone could convert all their assets to currency or even into bank accounts at once. There was not enough currency to meet the demand if too many people demanded cash at any given time. The history of the United States of America, from colonial times until the creation of the Federal Reserve, was punctuated by proofs of this. Metallic coin, preferably silver or gold coin, was always in short supply because at first it had to be imported. After about 1850, when large amounts of gold and silver were found and mined in the states, coin remained in short supply because the rest of the economy expanded at such a fast rate. The Free Silver (coinage) and Greenback political campaigns encapsulated the deadening effect on the economy of the mindset that only gold could be real money, or represent real value.
Going back to our naked ape sitting beside a pile of coin (perhaps have kept aside a knife or six-shooter to defend it with), pretty soon, except in cases of insanity, hunger or discomfort would lead to spending down the pile. If no one was willing to trade food for gold, the pile was useless, and without value. We know from history that in times of famine scraps of food came to be "worth their weight in gold."
Another problem would occur if everyone tried to liquidate their assets at once. In that hypothetical situation, there would be no buyers. The value of truly valuable things drops to nothing if buyers cannot be found. This can be true even when there is plenty of money (coin, cash, account balances, or credit) to buy the assets. Thus we have had a series of asset bubbles over the centuries, some of the most famous being the Tulip bubble, the South Seas bubble, the Florida land bubble, the Internet stock bubble, the housing bubble of 2005-2006, and (as of April 15, 2013) the Gold bubble. In a bubble money is traded for something believed to have real value, until only the most foolish citizens can't see that the money value exceeds the real value. Then, when buyers become scarce enough, bubbles burst. Tulips are just tulips again, not investments. (My favorite bubbles: tropical fish bubbles and the farmed mink bubble).
Next: #6: Counting, Coins, and Crashes
[The Accounting System, Your Fate is in the Cloud, is a work in progress by William P. Meyers, ©2013]
Friday, July 10, 2009
Blood Dries Quickly
"But blood dries quickly, at least the blood of ordinary investors. If any journalists recalled the shenanigans of Milken's friends ... no one wrote about it in the national press." — Ben Stein, A License to StealWhen Michael Milken started issuing junk bonds ("high yield bonds") I was in college, studying Political Science, trying to figure out why the world was such a mess and what might be done about it. A decade and a half later, when Milken's empire went down in flames, taking a good section of the Savings and Loan industry with it, I was in Earth First! and the IWW, trying to save the old-growth forests of northern California from Pacific Lumber. That company had been taken over by Charles Hurwitz, using junk bonds and money he had looted from a Texas savings and loan or two.
I had learned a thing or two about business in that interval, mostly by accident, mostly from taking odd jobs, a bit from reading books, and not just Das Capital and Wealth of Nations. And I had taken Economics 101 and 102 in college. I had worked as a paralegal on the bankruptcy of OPM (rumored to stand for Other People's Money), on the economic meltdown related to nuclear reactors known as WPPSS, on the trial of a drug that caused birth defects, and on writing trusts for wealthy people, among other things.
Chang the names of the players, and substitute mortgage-backed securities for junk bonds, and Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush for President Ronald Reagan, and you have a book about 2008 and 2009. Ben Stein's A License to Steal came into my possession more or less by accident a few weeks ago. Published in 1992, it illuminates exactly what is needed to keep financial predators from ruining the economy for the rest of us. The public is, for the most part, not in a position to defend itself against unscrupulous, well-versed liars who have the ability to create securities.
But even after the U.S. government used our taxpayer dollars to make whole the savers at the savings and loans; even after people lost their retirements when junk bonds issued by Milken and held by insurance companies went bad; even when stock holders lost their investments as Milken's friends pillaged well-known American companies, the government did nothing. Worse still, under President Clinton, then under President Bush, the "deregulated" securities markets to a far greater extent.
The popping of the Internet stock bubble in 2001 did not even give Congress, the Federal Reserve, or either major political party pause. The Internet bubble was caused mainly by investor stupidity, but the housing bubble that followed was engineered by the Federal Reserve's low-interest rate policy combined with the "magic" of collateralized debt obligations backed by mortgages that would be impossible to pay off. That little business is mentioned in Stein's 1992 book, but it took a decade to mature into full-scale fraud.
As with the Milken era, most of the people responsible will not go to jail. They have been allowed to say they are sorry. In a showing of political crassness (after Crassus) that would have humbled even the great humbug politicians of 1992, taxpayer money is being used to pay the salaries of the very group of bank executives who scammed the public and the government.
That is the only reason Obama and the Democrats are pretending to do anything about health care. The health care crisis is serious, but if they do anything, they will just move the deck chairs around. While you watch that, you will be forgetting. Forgetting about the national debt, forgetting about how the Democrats were even more eager to bail out the rich fraudsters than the Republicans. After all, it is Republicans who are going to be hit hardest with the tax bill.
Believe it or not, many Republicans are honest. They worked honestly hard for their money and kept their belts tight for a time in order to be able to save and invest. They are mad as hell, and don't believe the Republican Party should be bailing out con artists. Of course they also were choked with their own rope, the fine spun hemp of deregulation and free market fantasy economics.
Blood dries quickly, especially the blood of small-time investors. I wrote an article back in 1996, Charles Hurwitz's Money, that explained how he went from being a small time guy to being a mogul. In short, he defrauded people - people who bought insurance from him, investors in companies he gained control of, tax payers - and defended himself with an army of lawyers. He has not spent a day in jail.
If you live in the hood, mark this lesson well. The drug trade is highly competitive. When all is said and mortality is taken into effect, if makes only ordinary profits. If you really want to make money, study the the Michael Milkens, Charles Hurwitzes and Stanley O'Neals of the world. You can make all the money you want, buy all the lawyers, journalists, and Senators you need, and almost never, ever, go to jail.
If you are an ordinary person who has managed to save some money, keep in mind the old adage about investment deals: if you don't know who the sucker in the deal is, it is you.
I believe that this economic downturn will most likely end, but I cannot entirely discount a long recession or an even greater upheaval. The debt of the group of madmen that calls itself the United States Government is probably unpayable. Some day, when people realize that, there will be hell to pay. Hopefull the citizens of this country will refuse to pay it. Isn't there some old American maxim, No Taxation Without Representation? Do you feel represented?
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Double Bubble, Toil and Trouble
Two economic bubbles burst in less than a decade. Is that just a run of bad luck, or is it a financial engineering feat? And how is it related to politics?
Consider that the Internet stock bubble that peaked in 2000 cannot be directly blamed on the Republican Party, since Democrat Bill Clinton was President and his Vice President Al Gore was a early proponent of the Internet. Congress, however, was controlled by the Republicans. The Federal Reserve probably deserves most of the blame for that bubble.
The Housing mortgage bubble that burst in 2007, with aftershocks still shaking up 2008, cannot be blamed on the Democrats. Even though Democrats controlled Congress by the time the bubble burst, we had a Republican President, George W. Bush, during the build-up to the bubble. Again, the Federal Reserve deserves most of the blame for the bubble (if you don't count the banks, the mortgage brokers, and the fools who bought at the top of the housing market).
So should we blame the Federal Reserve? Is the two-party system just a circus to keep most citizens distracted while we are really governed by an all-powerful, appointed, cabal of the highest reaches of banking and government? The two-party system is a circus, but it is not just a circus. The Federal Reserve is powerful, but today the corporate new media is saying the bubbles were because the Federal Reserve had too little power, not too much. There is a bit of truth in that, but they did have the power to raise interest rates. Raising interest rates earlier during each of the bubbles would probably would have prevented many of the excesses that damaged the entire economy when the bubbles popped. Yet those who hate the Federal Reserve would have hated that even more. In the housing bubble, the left would have pointed to the injustice of raising interest rates to the point where ordinary people were unable to buy homes, and the right would have screamed because it would have slowed down a none-too robust economy.
Noam Chomsky has talked about the way our "free market" economy tends to privatize profits and socialize losses. That is, the workers have to clean up after the rich. We are seeing that now with the banking bailouts. Executives walk away with their winnings, they don't have to give anything back to the stockholders or customers or employees or other losers. No one is paying back the fees generated by mortgages that should never have been made. The financial press, at least that part aimed (propaganda should always be carefully aimed, otherwise there might be casualties from friendly fire) at the unsophisticated, have failed to talk about bondholders at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. When the U.S. Government backs these institutions, it is saving the bondholders' investments. The bondholders took a risk in lending money to Fannie Mae to lend (through middlemen) to home buyers, but instead of being forced to take their losses, they will get paid all the interest and principle promised. Stockholders are losing almost everything; bondholders are fully protected. Old money tends to be in bonds; new money tends to be in stocks. Even among the very wealthy there is a system of caste and privilege.
Most Americans are just going to have to work harder and make do with less. Of course finding a job if you are an unemployed carpenter or real estate broker is not easy to do right now: you can't work harder when you are not working at all. American workers find themselves in the modern equivalent of lying prostate in the cotton field, genuinely unable to move a muscle because of poor food, heat, and exhaustion, while the overseer (never the master, who is drinking fine whiskey while trying to guess what price cotton will fetch in New Orleans this year) lays on the whip, demanding that they get up and produce more, more, more. You can't work harder or smarter if no work is to be found because the nation's capital was allocated to financial speculation.
The federal government is going to have to raise taxes or spend a lot less money on services, or it will bankrupt the entire nation without having to wait for the long term. Fortunately the Bush Tax Cuts for the Rich (which many Democrats in Congress originally voted for) are apt to expire in 2010, regardless of who is elected President, as long as the Democrats control Congress.
Financial bubbles have many components, but the ones that are large enough to matter are always based on credit bubbles. Credit is needed to provide the money used to bid up the price of whatever assets are in the bubble. The Internet Bubble was a typical bubble; many people called it a bubble long before it burst. Only idiots owned the stocks when they started to crash. Every Internet stock was hyped as the next Microsoft, while stocks of companies that were making real goods and profits were neglected. The credit involved was the ordinary kind, made possible by the Fed keeping interest rates too low.
The Housing bubble was weirder. With an Internet company at least the fiction was there that it might become more valuable over time, when it learned to convert page views to real money. But a house is a house. A neighborhood might become more popular, driving up prices locally, but the whole nation is not a neighborhood. House prices rise gradually over time mostly because of inflation. The bubble got its start because housing was not a popular investment during the 1990's stock market boom. When the Internet bubble broke, housing was relatively cheap and interest rates on mortgages were exceptionally low. Buyers moved in, sending up prices and getting the ball rolling. Then the bubble was driven by short-sighted banks and mortgage companies that were able to give credit at no risk because it was other people's money, and collect big fees for that service. As soon as the Federal Reserve raised interest rates towards normal levels, the bubble started to fall apart.
I think a lot of people saw it coming and decided to grab while the grabbing was good.
The real estate industry has always been a major financial backer of both Democratic Party and Republican Party politicians, from local city councils up through Congress and the Presidency. Don't expect anyone to give the real estate speculators a spanking.
As always, the American worker and small businesses, and a few well-run, non-glamorous, large businesses, will pull everyone's ass out of this mess and get no credit for it. But until ordinary Americans wake up and think things through, organize and act on a sound analysis, they are going to keep getting lashed by the wise guys on Wall Street. Neither the Democratic Party, nor the Republican Party, as currently configured, are capable of taking on Wall Street or the real estate speculation lobby.
With interest rates nice and low now, and no shortage of stupid people in the world, the next bubble is brewing somewhere. Only time will show where.
Consider that the Internet stock bubble that peaked in 2000 cannot be directly blamed on the Republican Party, since Democrat Bill Clinton was President and his Vice President Al Gore was a early proponent of the Internet. Congress, however, was controlled by the Republicans. The Federal Reserve probably deserves most of the blame for that bubble.
The Housing mortgage bubble that burst in 2007, with aftershocks still shaking up 2008, cannot be blamed on the Democrats. Even though Democrats controlled Congress by the time the bubble burst, we had a Republican President, George W. Bush, during the build-up to the bubble. Again, the Federal Reserve deserves most of the blame for the bubble (if you don't count the banks, the mortgage brokers, and the fools who bought at the top of the housing market).
So should we blame the Federal Reserve? Is the two-party system just a circus to keep most citizens distracted while we are really governed by an all-powerful, appointed, cabal of the highest reaches of banking and government? The two-party system is a circus, but it is not just a circus. The Federal Reserve is powerful, but today the corporate new media is saying the bubbles were because the Federal Reserve had too little power, not too much. There is a bit of truth in that, but they did have the power to raise interest rates. Raising interest rates earlier during each of the bubbles would probably would have prevented many of the excesses that damaged the entire economy when the bubbles popped. Yet those who hate the Federal Reserve would have hated that even more. In the housing bubble, the left would have pointed to the injustice of raising interest rates to the point where ordinary people were unable to buy homes, and the right would have screamed because it would have slowed down a none-too robust economy.
Noam Chomsky has talked about the way our "free market" economy tends to privatize profits and socialize losses. That is, the workers have to clean up after the rich. We are seeing that now with the banking bailouts. Executives walk away with their winnings, they don't have to give anything back to the stockholders or customers or employees or other losers. No one is paying back the fees generated by mortgages that should never have been made. The financial press, at least that part aimed (propaganda should always be carefully aimed, otherwise there might be casualties from friendly fire) at the unsophisticated, have failed to talk about bondholders at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. When the U.S. Government backs these institutions, it is saving the bondholders' investments. The bondholders took a risk in lending money to Fannie Mae to lend (through middlemen) to home buyers, but instead of being forced to take their losses, they will get paid all the interest and principle promised. Stockholders are losing almost everything; bondholders are fully protected. Old money tends to be in bonds; new money tends to be in stocks. Even among the very wealthy there is a system of caste and privilege.
Most Americans are just going to have to work harder and make do with less. Of course finding a job if you are an unemployed carpenter or real estate broker is not easy to do right now: you can't work harder when you are not working at all. American workers find themselves in the modern equivalent of lying prostate in the cotton field, genuinely unable to move a muscle because of poor food, heat, and exhaustion, while the overseer (never the master, who is drinking fine whiskey while trying to guess what price cotton will fetch in New Orleans this year) lays on the whip, demanding that they get up and produce more, more, more. You can't work harder or smarter if no work is to be found because the nation's capital was allocated to financial speculation.
The federal government is going to have to raise taxes or spend a lot less money on services, or it will bankrupt the entire nation without having to wait for the long term. Fortunately the Bush Tax Cuts for the Rich (which many Democrats in Congress originally voted for) are apt to expire in 2010, regardless of who is elected President, as long as the Democrats control Congress.
Financial bubbles have many components, but the ones that are large enough to matter are always based on credit bubbles. Credit is needed to provide the money used to bid up the price of whatever assets are in the bubble. The Internet Bubble was a typical bubble; many people called it a bubble long before it burst. Only idiots owned the stocks when they started to crash. Every Internet stock was hyped as the next Microsoft, while stocks of companies that were making real goods and profits were neglected. The credit involved was the ordinary kind, made possible by the Fed keeping interest rates too low.
The Housing bubble was weirder. With an Internet company at least the fiction was there that it might become more valuable over time, when it learned to convert page views to real money. But a house is a house. A neighborhood might become more popular, driving up prices locally, but the whole nation is not a neighborhood. House prices rise gradually over time mostly because of inflation. The bubble got its start because housing was not a popular investment during the 1990's stock market boom. When the Internet bubble broke, housing was relatively cheap and interest rates on mortgages were exceptionally low. Buyers moved in, sending up prices and getting the ball rolling. Then the bubble was driven by short-sighted banks and mortgage companies that were able to give credit at no risk because it was other people's money, and collect big fees for that service. As soon as the Federal Reserve raised interest rates towards normal levels, the bubble started to fall apart.
I think a lot of people saw it coming and decided to grab while the grabbing was good.
The real estate industry has always been a major financial backer of both Democratic Party and Republican Party politicians, from local city councils up through Congress and the Presidency. Don't expect anyone to give the real estate speculators a spanking.
As always, the American worker and small businesses, and a few well-run, non-glamorous, large businesses, will pull everyone's ass out of this mess and get no credit for it. But until ordinary Americans wake up and think things through, organize and act on a sound analysis, they are going to keep getting lashed by the wise guys on Wall Street. Neither the Democratic Party, nor the Republican Party, as currently configured, are capable of taking on Wall Street or the real estate speculation lobby.
With interest rates nice and low now, and no shortage of stupid people in the world, the next bubble is brewing somewhere. Only time will show where.
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