9/25    I don't understand this whole thing. Haven't we learned anything
        from the Roaring 20s, highly unregulated FREE MARKET boom, good
        times, unsustainable market, politicians doing nothing... all led
        to the big crash of 1929? There are so many parallels between the
        unregulated market of 1920s and the unregulated market of home
        loans. Do we not learn from our own past?
        \_ I don't learn from my own past so I will repeat the mistake I've
           made before (here goes):  We don't learn from our mistakes, but
           they are not the mistakes you think.  The only economists pre-
           dicting the great depression were of the Austrian school and
           they believed that it was(/would be) brought on by the easy
           credit available due to the FED.  Which was Gubment action
           (The Austrian School was VERY pro "FREE MARKET").  It should be
           pointed out that this theory can fit fine with other theories
           including the French/Marxist ideas of income inequality/structural
           imbalances in methods of accumulation vs. methods of consumption
           (forgive me if my terminology is off; it has been 15 years since
           I studied this stuff and I may have the phrases wrong).
           Furthermore, having set up this fall, the FED then exacerbated it
           by tightening money supply right at the time when an increase in
           the money supply was needed to keep marginal banks from failing.
           (This was a bit of a power struggle between the New York Branch
           which wanted a looser money supply and the DC bank which won out).
           Congress then got into the act with Tarriffs and other idiotic
           protectionism, just to make sure the pooch was screwed proper.
           Nothing the Government was able to do really helped much untill
           the War came along.
           \_ Actually, the New Deal made a huge difference. The economy
              grew at 9-11% most years from 1932 to 1939.
              \_ Isn't New Deal a COMMUNIST thing?