Entries for March 2007

How fitting that the symbol of economic angst in America has turned out to be a store. The displacement caused by globalization, the anxiety felt by the undereducated and the have-nots, the national addiction to stuff we don't need: Wal-Mart embodies it all.

Boohoo. I am just distraught over the thousands (millions?) of high-risk borrowers who got mortgages over the past few years and are now unable to pay back their loans. And the poor lenders! They were so generous, offering loans with practically no interest at the beginning, so that people who couldn't otherwise afford a home could enjoy the American Dream. And now they're being vilified just because the interest rates rose to usurious levels in the third or fourth year of the loan. Hey–I'll bet that brief taste of homeownership will make those defaulting borrowers better citizens! Better to have owned and lost than never to have owned at all.