Triple:
Dude...look I realize you are trying to learn and I have no problem helping. As I said above I am in it everyday. I do very vigorous DD in order to devise a plan for our trades for the IB I work for. They range from any where to a day trade to a trade we may put on for a 12 month or longer period and trade around it.
That being said it seems you are hell bent on blaming this on Bush. I don't know if you waved to him and he walked over and kicked you in the nuts or stole your puppy but if I was you I wouldn't play the market you are way too stubborn. When looking at the economy, the market and really the global economy, you need to be flexible, you need to see the whole picture. I don't think they should be cutting rates but that doesnt mean I don't have trades on that will make money in the short term b/c of those rates cuts as well as trades out a little longer that will benefit when/if the rate cuts don't work. If I am wrong I will quickly cut my losses and reassess. You are missing World trying to squish ants.
Too low too long: 1.25% was actually a negative real interest rate when inflation adjusted which was basically free money...you would've been crazy not to borrow and buy anything you could....Trust me I did this, as well as borrowing YEN to buy everything under the sun denominated in USD. I used the YEN as a financing currency this is called the carry trade. I took that trade off around in ’05 or so and went the other way.
Secondly home ownership is not bad, those who own get richer those who don’t, don’t….I know seems easy right? This is one of the few things that Bush got right. I voted for Bush twice and trust me I wish I hadn’t. I am soooo pissed he has continued to treat the American people like children and insult our intelligence by not just telling the truth. People who own are helped by inflation people who don’t own are not helped by inflation (credit expansion); nobody is helped by deflation (credit contraction). This is what Bernanke is most afraid of right now. The problems now are problems created by financial engineering and people taking on too much debt (being too greedy)…which is fine if you have the income to pay back that debt. This once again was not bush’s fault...this is the American consumers fault.
I am gonna say this but you probably will not believe it but the Fed is independent and charged with setting Monetary Policy. The Fed meaning neither Greenspan nor Bernanke had policies handed to them from the Whitehouse. Let me reiterate that, they are not handed policy from the Whitehouse. They receive no money from Congress. They are independent and the Board of Governors can span the terms of multiple Presidents. Its part Public and part Private.
Let me be clear when rates were that low taking down debt is not a bad thing it can be a very useful tool to growth when not overused, it’s bad when you over load and all of the sudden the asset side falls while your liability side stays the same. When you take out debt you are basically arbitraging one future dollar of income against the present value of that dollar today. Trying to make that future dollar worth two now, then you can pay back that future dollar. For instance back in the 80s it took $1 of debt to produce $1 GDP that is more like 7:1 now. These figures are just off the top of my head so they maybe off just a hair, but the point is the same.
You ask were the demand for housing came from LOW/NEGATIVE REAL INTEREST RATES…and let me say this buying a house when rates were that low was a great idea, buying too much house, buying 5 houses when you could afford 1, or getting ARM or option ARM loans to buy those houses and not understanding rates were gonna go up and you should actually be using those types of loans when rates are high and going lower bad bad idea. That was not Bush’s fault….Greenspan was not persuaded by Bush, or Clinton or the First Bush on his Interest Rate policy. He felt as though for the economy’s sake rates should stay low. Greenspan can be blamed for telling people to take out these ARMs though.
Bush and his Fiscal policy are not outside the blame, but as I have continually said….there is enough blame to go around.