It Wasn't Illegal?

On 11 December, President Obama was interviewed on 60 Minutes.  The transcript is here.  The interview is pretty much what you'd expect.  Then, about three-fourths of the way through, comes this:

I can tell you, just from 40,000 feet, that some of the most damaging behavior on Wall Street, in some cases, some of the least ethical behavior on Wall Street, wasn't illegal.

Excuse me?


First, it must be nice to deal with US news media, which consist almost entirely of ignorant tyros who do what they're told.  Steve Kroft swallowed that comment and just kept pitching softballs.  A BBC interviewer would have gone straight at that comment and pointedly asked the President just what in Hell he was talking about.


Second, loan fraud is illegal, and we've had well over 31 flavors of it in this mess, with new ones cooked up by B of A, Chase, and RBS every day.  Securities fraud is illegal, including stuffing investment instruments with cherry-picked, bogus "assets" and then betting against them (I'm looking at you, GoldSacks.).


Mr. President, as a former prosecutor I can tell you that, just because your boys aren't pressing charges, all this garbage has suddenly been washed clean.  And yes, Mr. President, the DOJ folks are your boys, however much you may want to hide behind prosecutorial independence.  You picked Holder, you picked the US Attorneys.  Their decisions are your decisions.  Own them.

Forecast for Next Winter: Cold

One of the things that doesn't seem to be brought up much when discussing real estate (but that you, gentle reader, should factor in when looking at any real estate) is the cost of heating the place. Heating bills are rising beyond people's ability to pay even faster than mortgage payments. In the Spring of 2007, after the Winter cut-off moratoriums (imposed on utilities by those nasty regulators so we don't have an outbreak of people freezing to death in their homes) ended, 1.2 million households were disconnected. These were almost exclusively electric and natural gas houses, since propane and fuel oil aren't provided by regulated by utilities (As an aside, the local providers of propane and fuel oil aren't obligated to keep supplying those who can't pay, unlike the regulated utilities. Given that those two heating fuels have shot up 30-40% over the last year and are still rising, this part of the market is likely to turn into a slaughterhouse. Time to invest in companies that make space heaters and potbellied stoves.). Electricity and natural gas prices have been relatively stable (if you can call increases of less than 10% stable, which should give you some idea of the state of the energy market), but they won't stay that way.

Now is the time to come up with a plan to deal with next Winter, when prices will undoubtedly be worse. I'm afraid you're on your own on this because, if you were expecting any sort of a national policy that meaningfully addressed the problem, remember that this is an election year, and two of the three people with any chance of becoming the next president think it's a good idea to cut the gas tax for the Summer. So we shall limp into next Winter about like Napoleon and Hitler limped back from Moscow.

There will be blood.