Demea wrote:
But the government probably shouldn't be underwriting (read: guaranteeing) sub-prime mortgages in order to artificially increase the rates of home ownership, as recent history would suggest.
Yup. Which is exactly what I meant by "Sub-prime lending will take care of itself if there *isn't* a government hand in there trying to build social good-will by helping poor people buy houses." I think part of the confusion is that the term "regulation" gets used for different things. If it's actually "regulating" the industry (ie: making it work better, preventing fraud, setting standards, etc), that's fine. But when it's being used to manipulate the industry to produce a social outcome, it's almost always going to end badly.
EDIT! That's what I get for not reading the rest of the damn thread! You guys have the attention spans of like people with really short attention spans.
Edited, Sep 17th 2010 3:02pm by gbaji