Consumer spending keeps the economy going?

They say it every day, consumer spending, consumer confidence, retail sales and economic stimulus checks are the backbone of the economy. If consumers stop consuming the great depression comes out of the closet and eats us all. Scary.
Particularly as you can get most necessities of life, save food, at yard sales and thrift stores for pennies on the dollar. If everyone started doing this, (or just postponing the purchase of new stuff) we could see a big drop in consumer spending. Me, I have acquired a band saw, a VCR, a stereo receiver, a chandelier, wall sconces, tableware, clothes, a Minolta 35mm camera, lots of books and videos, lumber, skis, and hand tools in just the last two years. Satisfying that urge to buy stuff for very little money.
Can the economy withstand the shock if everyone did it?

Dawn over Marblehead

The New York Times finally admits things are getting better in Iraq.

The world according to Sam "Eyebrows" Donaldson

"The mortgage crisis isn't caused by Fanny and Freddie, it's all those low life salesmen pushing unaffordable mortgages on poor people who don't know any better" said Sam on the ABC Sunday pundit show.
This is the long time TV newsie, bane of Republican presidents, talking. Talking through his hat. Only because Fanny and Freddie and some brain dead brokerage houses buy toxic waste mortgages do the low life salesmen bother to sell them.
When a borrower defaults on his mortgage the lender takes a big loss. Repossessing the house doesn't help the lender. They won't be able to sell it either. Borrowers with more than two brain cells firing will attempt to sell the house before giving it to the bank. The banks only foreclose on the houses that won't sell. But, if the lender has sold the mortgage to Fanny or Freddie or a brokerage house, he doesn't care, he doesn't own it anymore. The low life salesmen only exist because there are bigger suckers (Fanny, Freddie and the brokerages) out there. Turn them off and mortgage lending (and house prices) will return to reality.
When Sam blames lowlife salesmen instead of the real villains, it shows how ignorant the newsies are.

Speculation Regulation?

The details and language of the proposed bill are obscure, so we don't really know what will happen if they do pass it. But, will it work? Or will the speculators, day traders, and buyers merely move to a friendlier overseas market? London or Dubai or Tokyo or wherever. The United States isn't the only commodities market in the world.
Remember Sarbanes-Oxley? It tightened up corporate governance and finance and added a terrible load of paperwork. Since Sarbox, new public offerings of stock and merger/acquisition activity left Wall St and settled down in London.
Can you say "shoot yourself in the foot"?

After a $5 trillion bailout, do we need Fanny&Freddie any more?

The rationale for Fanny and Freddie is they can borrow money more cheaply than banks can. The downside to Fanny and Freddie is when they blow it, we taxpayers take one helluva hit. We could go back to financing houses the old fashioned way, with bank depositors money. Of course for that to work, banks would have to pay decent interest on savings deposits, which they don't do anymore.
Nowadays, to get decent interest, investors have to go thru Wall St whiz kids, who take their money and buy weird bonds that put money into banks to make mortgages with. And sometimes the weird bonds don't pay off. In olden times investors simply deposited their money in a reliable bank. We could go back to that. It would put a lot of Wall St whiz kids out of work, but they could get real jobs in sales, manufacturing and new product design. Finance isn't a real job, it's parasitic.
For 6% mortgages the banks could pay depositors 5% interest. For the depositors it's good money, as good as they get on "mortgage backed securities", and with FDIC protection to boot. Unlike subprime mortgage backed securities.
So, why not rein in Fanny & Freddie? Prohibit them from buying anything but real mortgages, no mortgage backed securities. Set a limit on their liabilities, about equal to their current ones. Demand they raise capital equal to 5% of outstanding liabilities before they can take on any more debt. Insist upon the borrowers putting up 5% of property value. Insist that the borrowers live on the property. Each borrower gets only ONE mortgage on ONE property. Don't do mortgages on McMansions. Lower the mortgage limit to $500,000, any house costing more is a luxury house and fat cat buyers will have to get a private bank mortgage. Appraise each property with in-house appraisers who have to personally sign the appraisal. Fire them when they inflate the value of any property. Never do a mortgage for more than the appraised value. Prohibit them from making campaign contributions (aka bribes) to elected officials. Limit salary and bonus to less than $1 million a year for senior management/every employee. Prohibit payment to consultants for anything.

The left cannot let it go

Woke up as usual to Vermont Public Radio, except, just for this day I set the radio to chime in at 0400 in the morning. At that early hour, VPR is channeling the BBC world service. And the BBC is running a story about the Rosenburg espionage case. Groovy. The Rosenburgs, Ethel and Julius, were sent the the gas chamber 50 years ago. The jury convicted them of passing the secrets of the atomic bomb to the Soviets. The judge felt that giving the deadliest weapon in history to our mortal enemies justified the death penalty. Fifty years ago the left conducted a furious defense of the Rosenburgs to little effect. But why is the leftist BBC bringing up the story again? Events of half a century ago are not news. There are plenty of current stories with a good leftist slant they could have run instead.

Driving to Brooklyn

College is finally over for the year. I drove to Brooklyn from Franconia to pick up son and his stuff. The stuff level was so high I borrowed a real 3/4 ton Chevy pickup to do the job. It's about 300 miles each way. Traffic was light until I hit Connecticut. Then it got real heavy, 10 mph creep&beep along shoreline Conn. Turnpike. Trucks galore, all crawling along with the rest of us. You'd think some of them would be going piggy back on the trains just to save diesel fuel.
New York State continues it's distinguished career of illiterate, missing, and worthless road signage. Not sign one for the Whitestone Bridge off I95. I got pushed over Throgs Neck bridge while looking for signs to Whitestone. Not the end of the world, but not a real confidence builder either. Arrived around noon after driving thru rain showers. Took three hours to schlep all the stuff down from the fifth floor and tie a tarp over the top. Trip back was long. Didn't get in til after midnight. It rained and a lot of wet got under the tarp. Truck used 44 gallons of gas for $180. Round trip on Amtrak is a lot less than that. Truck only gets 16.4 mpg even with a very tall gear and a V6. My Caddy DeVille does a lot better at 27 mpg. I guess the truck has more frontal area, a worse drag coefficient and more weight to push up hills. Today the yard is full of drying stuff.