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After the Bailouts, Washington's the Boss
The Wall Street Journal ^ | 12-28-09 | BOB DAVIS, DEBORAH SOLOMON and JON HILSENRATH

Posted on 12/27/2009 6:40:44 PM PST by GOP_Lady

In 2008 and 2009, Washington strove to save the economy. In 2010, Americans will get a clearer picture of how Washington has changed the economy.

Only as the recession recedes will it become fully evident how permanently the state's role has expanded and whether, as a consequence, a new, hybrid strain of American capitalism is emerging.

One thing is clear: The government is a much bigger force in today's U.S. economy than it was before the financial crisis. "The frontier between the state and market has shifted," says Daniel Yergin, whose 1998 book "Commanding Heights" chronicled the ascent of free-market forces starting in the 1980s. "The realm of the state has been enlarged."

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Editorial; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: bailouts

1 posted on 12/27/2009 6:40:44 PM PST by GOP_Lady
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To: antivenom; Blonde; catnipman; goodnesswins; JDoutrider; La Enchiladita; okimhere; tubebender


To be added or removed from the
"Wall Street Journal" Ping List,
FReepmail
GOP_Lady.

2 posted on 12/27/2009 6:41:37 PM PST by GOP_Lady
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To: GOP_Lady

Wow. Nothing gets past the financial geniuses at the WSJ does it.


3 posted on 12/27/2009 6:45:23 PM PST by Lurker (The avalanche has begun. The pebbles no longer have a vote.)
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To: GOP_Lady

Just great look at the kinds of loans we own

She can afford it she just doesn’t want to pay for it now!

Many homeowners who are tens thousands of dollars underwater on their mortgages — meaning they owe more than the value of their homes — have decided it’s just not worth it. Some, like Heather Baker, can even afford their payments, but they’re walking away anyway.

Baker is done with being a homeowner. Last month, she stopped paying her mortgage.

“Who says that my American dream has to be a home with a white picket fence and all of that?” says Baker, sitting at her dining room table.

But that’s not what she was saying three years ago when she bought her four-bedroom home in a distant suburb of Washington, D.C. Baker was about to turn 40 and felt like she needed to own.

“I was like, ‘Wow, you know, I need to have a home. I need to be in a home,’ “ Baker says. “My birthday was in September. I purchased the house in August. So I got the house before I turned 40, but it wasn’t a great investment.”

A Bad Investment

She figures the house she bought for $465,000 won’t sell for more than $225,000 now. That lower figure is what a house down the street went for earlier this year in a foreclosure auction. Like a lot of people, Baker bought her house with no money down.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121907594&surl=http://www.mpbn.net/&f=module-nprnews


4 posted on 12/27/2009 6:51:21 PM PST by FromLori (FromLori)
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To: FromLori
Debtor's Dilemma:  Pay the Mortgage or Walk Away
In Down Real-Estate Market, Homeowners Are Deciding to Abandon
Their Loan Obligations Even if They Can Afford the Payments

American Dream 2:  Default, Then Rent
Thanks to a rare confluence of factors, more families
feel that the new American dream home is a rental.

5 posted on 12/27/2009 7:01:15 PM PST by GOP_Lady
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To: GOP_Lady

The great thing is that all of this can be transfered back to the private sector by the next conservative administration!


6 posted on 12/27/2009 7:26:34 PM PST by orinoco
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To: GOP_Lady

Translation: They own your a$$.

0bummerCare.


7 posted on 12/27/2009 7:55:10 PM PST by Uncle Miltie (Ben Nelson is a WHORE. Mary Landrieu is a WHORE.)
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To: GOP_Lady; All
I keep telling you all what it really is...

 

8 posted on 12/28/2009 3:04:13 AM PST by backhoe (All Across America, the Lights are being relit again...)
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To: GOP_Lady
The headline is both inaccurate and misleading! Reason?

Despite all of the tyrannical actions of elected representatives in Washington, "We, the People" still have a written Constitution of the United States of America which provides the only constitutionally valid means of amendment within itself in Article V. That Constitution strictly limits the taxing and spending powers which "We, the People" grant to those we elect to serve us, and though they have expanded the interpretation of those taxing and spending powers under the guise of a re-interpretation of the so-called "general welfare" clause, never has there been a valid in accordance with Article V constitutional amendment which gives them the power to ride roughshod over the rights of the people they were intended to serve.

As a result, no matter what these "pretenders to power" do, the written constitution which allows them their office, also leaves the valid power to the people."All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately. . . ."
- Thomas Jefferson Letter to Roger C. Weightman. Washington ed. vii, 450. Ford ed., x, 391. Monticello June 24, 1826

"The Utopian schemes of leveling [redistribution of property] and a community of goods [common ownership] are as visionary and impractical as those which vest all property in the Crown. [These ideas] are arbitrary, despotic, and, in our government, unconstitutional." - Samuel Adams

"Until the people have, by some solemn and authoritative act, annulled or changed the established form, it is binding upon them collectively, as well as individually; and no presumption or even knowledge of their sentiments, can warrant their representatives [the executive, judiciary, or legislature]; in a departure from it prior to such an act." - Alexander Hamilton

9 posted on 12/28/2009 9:17:37 AM PST by loveliberty2
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