Tom B

How to Spend $700B and Actually Solve the Problem

There are two main problems: 1) "opaque" instruments, like CDO's riddle with shaky mortgages 2) mortgage defaults. I support some intervention to deal with CDO's and a return to regulation of banks to prevent future abuse. As for 2, wages have been stagnant and housing prices did a huge "bubble". I think restructuring loans -- freezing ARM resets for example-- could help a lot. As for the "redlined" poor causing the mess as scrooge opines-- that attitude is contemptible. It is only a small part of the problem. The banks SHOULD have denied bad loans. And people of all income brackets are involved in this mess. Some people got into ARMS and "stretched" too much. Others willfully abused lax credit standards and bought multiple properties, hoping to "flip". The fact that real estate lloked for a long time like a "magic" investment that always goes up, clouded people's judgement. I have long looked at ratios of average salaries to housing prices. And the ratio of renting costs vs ownership costs. I could see years ago that trouble was brewing.

Now What for Apple Investors?

Buying opportunity. Have to watch the ticker carefully today.

Changes in Market Cap for Biggest U.S. Companies

Oh, cool: Apple's about 12 months away from passing MSFT!

Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News

"Slowdown, not recession - Bush. President Bush said the U.S. is not heading in to a recession, merely a 'slowdown,'"

Bush is "reality challenged". Troubles will continue at least until lenders start offering mortgages at competitive rates again.

Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News

"BlackBerry goes black - again. For the second time in 12 months, Research In Motion (RIMM) was hit with an extended outage to its BlackBerry email service, a development which threatens to undermine its high-profile reputation."

This is actually GOOD news, because it will favor less proprietary systems, like the iPhone.