In case you've been living in a cave, there's a painful credit crunch underway. The culprit is the subprime mortgage a species of risky home loans to buyers with dubious credit and income.
Instead of letting lenders and subprime mortgage holders suffer the consequences of their actions, politicians and grievance mongers are riding to the supposed rescue. In a supreme irony, the very same champions of the needy who complain constantly about the lack of "affordable housing" are now fighting tooth and nail to keep housing prices high...
Let's boil this down to fundamentals: Why should the rest of us have to shoulder the burden because some buyers made poor choices, overextended themselves and bought more house than they could afford? And why are falling home prices such a catastrophe to be "fixed" in the first place?
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has proposed that government-sponsored mortgage enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac be allowed to raise their loan limits and have their debt explicitly guaranteed by the public dole.
Who'll bail us out from this perversion of the American Dream?
