Good Layman's guide to the financial crisis

[Ken White]

I would also add: the resurrection of personal responsibility and a renewed emphasis upon actual business ethics, rather than the recent foolishness regarded as "corporate social responsibility." Politicians, businessmen, and schools can create climates that encourage unethical behavior, but it is still a personal choice to partake in it.

which includes both the educational system and parental guidance having an impact will provide that sense of personal responsibility which has been eroded by the educators and psychological counselors emphasis on self esteem at great cost to self respect.

Educate people to be better parents instead of telling them that whatever they want to do is acceptable. It frequently is not.

Dependence on government only adds to that, people are ultimately responsible for and to themselves. Doesn't seem to me to be that hard to understand but apparently it is...

[Ski]

I'd also add in another factor that has been overlooked:

Major criminal penalties and sentences for those financial "gurus" who've conducted fraudulent business transactions or have committed other serious breaches of financial trust.

White collar financial crimes do not have stiff enough penalties to act as real deterrents in my limited opinion.

[reed11b]

which includes both the educational system and parental guidance having an impact will provide that sense of personal responsibility which has been eroded by the educators and psychological counselors emphasis on self esteem at great cost to self respect.

Educate people to be better parents instead of telling them that whatever they want to do is acceptable. It frequently is not.

Dependence on government only adds to that, people are ultimately responsible for and to themselves. Doesn't seem to me to be that hard to understand but apparently it is...

Man, this site is just brutal on both lawyers and counselors! For all of that, education is the key and if by self-respect over self-esteem you mean a healthy opportunity to compete (instead of the current "everyone’s a winner" B.S.) and a full range of educational opportunities that allow for regional differences and strengths over the current "standardized" education that I find myself in violent agreement.
Reed
P.S. Most documentation by "psychological counselors" and educators that I am aware of disagree with the current system and I think you may be looking at the wrong scapegoats.

[Ken White]

Man, this site is just brutal on both lawyers and counselors!

Hey, goats to scape, what can I say...

P.S. Most documentation by "psychological counselors" and educators that I am aware of disagree with the current system and I think you may be looking at the wrong scapegoats.

True. I should have been more clear. Showing my age; the feel good crowd ascended during the 70s and 80s, got caught out as being dangerously wrong by you Gen X-ers in the 90s and is now in fortuitous decline. Thanks to you Guys for correcting some of the ills of the Baby Boomers.

[Cavguy]

NY Times has an excellent article on how risk management models failed:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/ma...t.html?_r=1&em

[jkm_101_fso]

Army Major pens Op-Ed on military family struggles during housing crisis.

Housing and our military
Collapse especially burdens those who serve

By David S. Johnston

The collapsing housing market has prompted many political and financial leaders to make urgent pleas to aid those owners who are facing the loss of their homes. But there is one group that gets little attention in that regard: the military family.

When change-in-duty-station orders arrive, these families do not have the option of waiting out the market for a return to pre-slump prices. Many military homeowners have lost equity in their houses and now owe more for their home than they are worth.

I know this firsthand. Like many other servicemembers, I purchased a home near a military installation before the 2006 real estate decline. My family was too large to be given on-post housing in the Washington, D.C., market in 2004. But at the time, we thought, "No problem," since we had just received a small inheritance that we could use for a down payment. If we got orders to move, we planned to rent or sell the house because we had equity and the market was climbing.

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/...ur.html?csp=34

[Ski]

I was lucky with selling my house in the DC area last April. Had to take a $25K cut but still made out very well.

I have a friend who just deployed to Afghanistan who is 200K upside down on a house in Northern Virginia. He's basically told his assignements officer that he can't ever have an assignment outside MDW because he can't sell his house without going into bankruptcy, and no one is buying in his development even at the vastly reduced price points we've seen.

I am certain he is not alone.

[Surferbeetle]

From today's WSJ, written by Damian Paletta and Michael R. Crittenden

The report faulted Treasury on a variety of fronts, saying it has: no ability to ensure banks lend the money they've received from the government; no standards for measuring the success of the program; and that it ignored or offered incomplete answers to panel questions.

These shortcomings, the report suggests, could undermine the goal of various programs. "For Treasury to advance funds to these institutions without requiring more transparency further erodes the very confidence Treasury seeks to restore," the report said.