Economics Notes 'n' Quotes.

The argument for meaningful sustainable living, in the language of economics:

"Since the 1980s we've been drawing down the biosphere's principal rather than living off its annual interest. To support our consumption, we have been liquidating resource stocks and allowing carbon dioxide to accumulate in the atmosphere."

- Wayne Ellwood, 'Nature's Bottom Line,' The New Internationalist, July/Aug 2010.




"The battle between Wall St and Main St may be a caricature of complex conflicts among different economic groups...

In this new variant of the old conflict, the banks held a gun to the head of the American people and said, "If you don't give us more money, you will suffer."

- Source: Joseph Stiglitz, 'Freefall', p50

"It has become cliche to observe that the Chinese characters for crisis reflect "danger" and "opportunity." We have seen the danger. The question is, Will we seize the opportunity to restore our sense of balance between market and state, between individualism and the community, between man and nature, between means and ends?

We now have the opportunity to create a new financial system that will do what human beings need a financial system to do; to create a new economic system that will create meaningful jobs, decent work for all those who want it, one in which the divide between the haves and the have-nots is narrowing, rather than widening; and most importantly of all, to create a new society in which each individual is able to fulfill his/her aspirations and live up to his/her potential, in which we have created citizens who live up to shared ideals and values, in which we have created a community which treats out planet with the respect which in the long run it will surely demand.

These are the opportunities. The real danger now is that we will not seize them."

- Joseph Stiglitz, Freefall, p 296 - 297.

"Everybody drank the Kool-Aid" said David Zugheri, co-founder of Texas-based lender First Houston Mortgage. They knew if they didn't give the borrower the loan they wanted, the borrower "could go down the street and get that loan somewhere else."

The loans were also immensely profitable for the mortgage industry because they carried higher fees and higher interest rates. A broker who signed up a borrower for a liar loan could reap as much as $15,000 in fees for a $300,000 loan. Traditional lending is far less lucrative, netting brokers around $2,000 to $4,000 in fees for a fixed-rate loan.

During the housing boom, liar loans were especially popular among investors seeking to flip properties quickly. They were also commonly paired with "interest only" features that allowed borrowers to pay just the interest on the debt and none of the principal for the first several years.

Even riskier were "pick-a-payment" or option ARM loans _ adjustable-rate mortgages that gave borrowers the choice to defer some of their interest payments and add them to the principal."

- Source: "Liar Loans" Threaten to Prolong Mortgage Crisis', The Huffington Post (Aug 18 2008)