Bawney Fwank is gweat at dodgeball.

This Harvard student completely OWNS this lying, holier-than-thou, pitiful joke of a public servant. The fact that this guy spends five minutes talking, yet doesn't address the initial question should tell you all you need to know about this guy and his involvement of the financial crisis. This guy couldn't get elected for Student Council, yet he's chairman of the Finance Committee? Give me a flippin break.

AIG Execs Give the Middle Finger to the American Taxpayers...Again

In an attempt to be complete jackasses, execs for AIG were discovered visiting an elite resort in Phoenix last week just one day after asking for another 85 Billion and promising the lenders (me and you), and congress that they wouldn't spend any more money on weekends like this. Apparently, they had attempted to keep their soiree a secret from those rascals in the press by forbidding anyone at the resort from even uttering the word/letters AIG. Their plan would've worked if it weren't for those pesky kids and that dog. Scooby Dooby Doo...oh also pissed off, dead broke taxpayers.

Polar Bear...

I'll tell you what's awesome. It's really awesome when politicians use our superfluous taxation to bail out poorly managed financial institutions while their respective "leaders" like Stan Oneal, Chuck Prince, Dick Fuld collect nearly a billion in payouts for which they never have to answer. AIG continues to collect "bail out" monies from the US taxpayer, yet pampers their executives and high level management with spa treatments in California in a weeekend costing over 440,000 dollars of the 85 billion the American taxpayer was duped into covering. If the taxpayer owns 80% of AIG, how is this allowed?

Also, according to Paulson, the root cause of the economic meltdown is the decline in the housing market:

"And that root cause is the housing correction which has resulted in illiquid mortgage-related assets that are choking off the flow of credit which is so vitally important to our economy. We must address this underlying problem, and restore confidence in our financial markets and financial institutions so they can perform their mission of supporting future prosperity and growth."

Phillip Brewer, a writer of money matters, completely and insightfully disagrees:

"But for addressing this financial crisis, all we need to understand is that the correction is not the root cause. The root cause is that house prices got so high that the average household couldn't afford an average house. Once that happened, a correction was inevitable.

The way to address the root cause is to let house prices drop to where an average house is within the means of an average household. (Or, alternatively, boost the income of the average household to the point that they can afford an average house. But that's very hard. Letting houses prices go on falling, although painful for everyone who owns a house or who has lent money to someone who owns a house, is very easy.)

Now, some sort of bailout plan may be necessary to keep the financial system from simply collapsing under the weight of all that bad debt. But if that plan is focused on keeping house prices from falling, it's a hopeless plan. If you successfully kept house prices up, we would remain mired in this problem until incomes rose enough to make house prices affordable."

Being a responsibe consumer is something Americans haven't been in a very long time. The housing boom is no different. If this has taught us anything, it's taught me to bury my money in the back yard, don't be a homeowner, but instead rent a house or preferably a mobile home, immediately get into the hospitality industry for large corporations, and most importantly, listen to my friend Aaron and short the financials(May 08)i.e. Bear, Merrill, Lehman.

http://www.wisebread.com/philip-brewer