mortonfox | Obsessing over Watsessing (Reply)

This evening, I thought I would go get a geocache before the rain started, so I went for Snoopin' Around The Park 1. It was at Watsessing Park in Bloomfield, a typical Essex County urban park with paved jogging path and big ditch. This geocache was a very easy find so I had plenty of time afterwards to go to Garden State Plaza to pay a bill and have some pseudo-Thai food.

My camera is still working despite the lack of a shutter. However, the first bid I placed at eBay won that auction so I'll be getting a replacement camera of the same model.

I tried to summon up an appropriate amount of outrage over the Housing Bailout Bill but I'm just worn out. There's nothing I can say about it that I haven't said before, in this journal and on Twitter, FriendFeed, and Wise Bread. I knew it would get to the point where the government would absorb all the worthless mortgage securities by adding on to the national debt and printing money. Why? Because it is politically expedient to throw more credit and money at a problem (and distribute the pain to everyone subtly via inflation) than to step aside and actually let people suffer the consequences of their actions. Responsibility? What's that?

Let's start with the $10.6 trillion debt ceiling, a new milestone in profligacy. There was a time in history when legislators were gun shy about raising the debt ceiling. These days, it's almost an afterthought buried in a 600-page bill. Even that does not worry me as much as the unlimited line of credit given to the US Treasury to buy Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac securities. They'll use that only in the event that a rescue is needed, which is no comfort because I'm certain there'll be rescues upon rescues coming. In total, we taxpayers could be on hook for up to $5 trillion in mortgage securities, which is a staggering amount even if only a fraction of that is bad. And that fraction could be as high as 90%!