Capitalism Guarantees Rising Inequality

[RKMBrown]

Last time........... yes, or no.... did the housing price bubble that burst in 2007, start in 1997. Look at the graph. Yes or no.

I want a yes or no, answer. If you can't answer that, then you shouldn't be talking about a subject you are too ignorant to comment on. Answer the question.

Yes or no. The housing price bubble that burst in 2007, started in 1997.

Dude, he said yes.

Yes, but he's trying to deny that it was because of anything that started in 1997, which if you look at the graph, prices were stable from 1992 to 1997.

Which indicates that it wasn't some random spike somewhere.

He won't just admit that hey "the housing price bubble started in 1997, and therefore, something likely caused it".

It wasn't a gradual increase from economic growth. It wasn't because of interest rates.

A market caused spike, would have happened over time. This was a complete reversal of prices, from a slow stead decline over 5 years, to a drastic increase.

This guy doesn't want to admit to anything, and seems to be making up qualifiers for his answers.

Nah your just wanting him to say your right. His point is that prices always go up and down, which is correct. As I mentioned earlier the dot com boom also increased price pressure at the same time. His point is merely that one of the important aspects of the bubble wasn't CRA. Which is correct. CRA was just one of the many failures going on. He can correct me if he wants to, but I believe his real point is ... stop scapegoating the poor folk, they were not the sole reason for the crash.

 

[RKMBrown]

This is why it's so important to understand what the term "inalienable right" actually means. It's not the same thing as "need". The Constitution doesn't guarantee us that our needs will be met, and it doesn't assign government the role of providing them.

I think you forgot to finish you sentence. Inalienable right is an assurance to each citizen they will be born with the ability to choose life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

.

HUH? WTF?

HOW can anyone be assured of anything?


It would be nice if parents ---BEFORE SCREWING -- made sure that they can afford to feed and clothe their progeny.

But the welfare state tells parents not to worry about it - according to welfare state purveyors - that is the taxpayers and producers' concern.

.

Ability to choose how you live was assured by the Constitution back when it was written. Surely, since the Constitution was changed to take life and liberty away from us, with due process, that is no longer the case, not since the civil war amendments.

 

[gnarlylove]

I repeat mantras.. Everyone who says something I disagree with is bigoted.

Exactly, I'm bigotted. I'm the refuse to budge.

WoW. You are so convincing.! It comes down to you maintaining your core worldview that supports your daily actions. I know you are a decent person supporting a family or whatever but when it comes to thinking outside your window, you prefer to stay inside. You won't admit we live in a plutocracy, not a democracy. You won't admit a lack of opportunity is the problem for those on entitlements.

You dismiss anything that even remotely questions your capitalist worldivew. You are the archetypal cog capitalists hope to create. Someone who fights for the working class to remain underfoot and for the rich to get richer. Maintain the status quo because America needs a strong working class to support the extravagance of the rich and upper class folks. Someone who promotes the message of the country when it fits and to deny its countrymen.

This isn't a problem of me being bigoted or retarded or insane. I don't think your bigoted or insane but I know you have no tolerance for those who disagree with you. That you've rarely if ever engaged in introspection leading to self-doubt. You repeat the same horse shit I hear on the TV. Don't bother replying, I could paste it from above because you won't say anything new. I hear it from everyone all day long. Maybe I can rephrase it so it helps you understand your position.

"You're an idiot. Having read Chomsky you are brainwashed. You are a leech sucking from my hard labor. I won't admit increased worker productivity due to mechanization and availability of jobs has anything to do with poverty but I will admit they are a bunch of schmucks who are less of a human than me who refuse to work and can't earn their way. I am so good and wholesome because I donate more money than you. You may serve in soup kitchens weekly and actually co-exist with homeless and poor people but I'm a better person/more responsible than you because I pay their entitlement programs and donate."

 

[gnarlylove]

There is no law forcing you to live with a den of thieves, you are free to move about the country to find and make your opportunities.

Laws are not the only means of getting people to obey. Having never grown up in poverty one will not know that the opportunity to choose to leave the neighborhood or stay is not there.

Peer pressure, social pressure, going where the money is (crime) can constrict one's innate ability to choose liberty. Indeed, they can leads to bad decisions and it's often because people are ill informed. Our education system panders to wealth just like opportunities to work do. Though more service jobs exist than ever, they are often shameful and are dead end.

There is so much that can be said here but if you are unwilling to recognize the disparity in this country is not just income, it runs all the way down into the psyche. I know because I grew up in it and have been homeless. If you haven't lived that way you simply have no genuine idea what really means and what the causes are. You hear others who've never been homeless talk about it but that's as good as the info gets. It's an entirely different world to be in poverty, it's plain and simple and no one is willing to try that because poverty is not inviting.

59% of Americans will experience poverty for a year or more. If you haven't then you aren't part of the majority of people. You may want to recalibrate your understanding to account for the breadth of this problem. It's a human problem stemming from bad policy and greed. There is a war going on against the poor and working class. The 2 minute video explains this with rigor.
War on the Poor

 

[gnarlylove]

if a right is alienable, it can be taken away.

if a right is inalienable, it is suppose to not be able to be taken away under any circumstance.

if you read closely you would see i carefully worded it to be accurate: people may not choose liberty, but if they want to they should be able to. unfortunately this is simply not the case since people are stuck in pursuing survival daily instead of liberty and happiness. i know. i was there for quite some time.

 

[RKMBrown]

There is no law forcing you to live with a den of thieves, you are free to move about the country to find and make your opportunities.

Laws are not the only means of getting people to obey. Having never grown up in poverty one will not know that the opportunity to choose to leave the neighborhood or stay is not there.

Peer pressure, social pressure, going where the money is (crime) can constrict one's innate ability to choose liberty. Indeed, they can leads to bad decisions and it's often because people are ill informed. Our education system panders to wealth just like opportunities to work do. Though more service jobs exist than ever, they are often shameful and are dead end.

There is so much that can be said here but if you are unwilling to recognize the disparity in this country is not just income, it runs all the way down into the psyche. I know because I grew up in it and have been homeless. If you haven't lived that way you simply have no genuine idea what really means and what the causes are. You hear others who've never been homeless talk about it but that's as good as the info gets. It's an entirely different world to be in poverty, it's plain and simple and no one is willing to try that because poverty is not inviting.

59% of Americans will experience poverty for a year or more. If you haven't then you aren't part of the majority of people. You may want to recalibrate your understanding to account for the breadth of this problem. It's a human problem stemming from bad policy and greed. There is a war going on against the poor and working class. The 2 minute video explains this with rigor.
War on the Poor

Please explain how the "man" stopped you from becoming more than you were.

 

[kaz]

Please explain how the "man" stopped you from becoming more than you were.

He gave my job to Chico...

 

[Andylusion]

I looked at the data. I explained myself to you. You chose to ignore that. I will explain myself again.

There are a lot of reasons why the prices will go up in 1997 including a growing economy. This FACT is demonstrated in YOUR OWN GRAPH. In fact your graph rather clearly demonstrates that price spikes are not unusual. What it does show is that it is unusual that the spike did not stop. So I looked at reality with the question in mind and by golly there are rather clear reasons why it did not stop. There are also rather clear reasons why it kept rising so high and then crashed.

See in the real world when presented with data people don't assume an answer and match data to an answer. Your analysis is about as intellectual as creationism.

Last time........... yes, or no.... did the housing price bubble that burst in 2007, start in 1997. Look at the graph. Yes or no.

I want a yes or no, answer. If you can't answer that, then you shouldn't be talking about a subject you are too ignorant to comment on. Answer the question.

Yes or no. The housing price bubble that burst in 2007, started in 1997.

It is like you want me to think you are a clown.

I have explained what I thought about the price increases in 1997 like 3 times now and you don't know if I know the prices increased in 1997.

I owe an apology. I thought you had repeated the idea that it didn't start in 1997. My mistake. I jumped too quick in my reply.

Now I can move on from that point.

Saying that a price spike is not unusual, doesn't mean anything. Nor does it change anything that I have said.

The price spikes in the 1970s were the result of high inflation, which drove up prices. Drastic devaluing of the currency through high inflation, typically results in people investing in property. That increase in people investing in property as a hedge against inflation, naturally results in a price increase. If you look, the housing price bubble started in 1976, right after inflation peaked in 1975 at 12%.

In the 1980s, the cause was a sudden lowering of interest rates, and a high GDP growth rate. The boom started right at 1984, when the growth rate hit nearly 10%, and the interest rates were cut in half from their 1970s high.

Both of these have clear policy causes.

If you look at the broad spectrum of the graph, house prices have been relatively stable from the late 1940s, until 1997, with only those two exceptions of the 1970s inflation, and the 1980s interest rate cut and high GDP.

What happened in 1997? None of these. There was no huge inflation. There was no spike in interest rates, or sudden drop in interest rates. There was no boom in the economy, which was fairly steady at 4% to 5%.

There is no explanation, and yet the housing market made a drastic increase in prices.

You have not given any satisfactory explanation to why that happened. I suggest I did. Freddie Mac, validating Sub-prime Mortgage Backed Securities, with a AAA rating, in 1997, would explain why there was suddenly a drastic increase in sub-prime loans, and that would explain why prices dramatically increased, because lowering the lending standards, by securitizing sub-prime loans, increased the number of people who qualified to get a mortgage. Increased Demand, static supply... price goes up.

Again, unlike the prior two booms, you can't blame it on interest rates going up or down, because they didn't in the late 1990s. You can't blame it on inflation driving investment, because there was little inflation. You can't blame it on a booming economy, because there was no booming economy.

There is no logical, identifiable reason for this price bubble, other than what I have outlined.

So again, here is your opportunity to give your own reason. What do you think caused the price bubble in 1997?

Interesting side note, the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, was pushed by liberals as a solution to so-called mortgage discrimination, and passed in 1975. Odd that directly after the very first attempt at mortgage affirmative action, that there was a bubble. However, I can find no evidence linking the bubble to this act. It was more likely the high inflation rate. It is an interesting coincidence.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Please explain how the "man" stopped you from becoming more than you were.

He gave my job to Chico...

You didn't have to shoot him though.........

 

[kaz]

Please explain how the "man" stopped you from becoming more than you were.

He gave my job to Chico...

You didn't have to shoot him though.........

How'd you kn... I mean, it was suicide. I mean self defense. No, wait, suicide, that's what I'm going with. Final answer....

 

[georgephillip]

There is no law forcing you to live with a den of thieves, you are free to move about the country to find and make your opportunities.

Laws are not the only means of getting people to obey. Having never grown up in poverty one will not know that the opportunity to choose to leave the neighborhood or stay is not there.

Peer pressure, social pressure, going where the money is (crime) can constrict one's innate ability to choose liberty. Indeed, they can leads to bad decisions and it's often because people are ill informed. Our education system panders to wealth just like opportunities to work do. Though more service jobs exist than ever, they are often shameful and are dead end.

There is so much that can be said here but if you are unwilling to recognize the disparity in this country is not just income, it runs all the way down into the psyche. I know because I grew up in it and have been homeless. If you haven't lived that way you simply have no genuine idea what really means and what the causes are. You hear others who've never been homeless talk about it but that's as good as the info gets. It's an entirely different world to be in poverty, it's plain and simple and no one is willing to try that because poverty is not inviting.

59% of Americans will experience poverty for a year or more. If you haven't then you aren't part of the majority of people. You may want to recalibrate your understanding to account for the breadth of this problem. It's a human problem stemming from bad policy and greed. There is a war going on against the poor and working class. The 2 minute video explains this with rigor.
War on the Poor

Their War on the Poor

"Most Americans are on a downward escalator. Median household pay is dropping, adjusted for inflation. A smaller share of working-age Americans are in jobs than at any time in the last three decades.

Only 113,000 jobs were added to the U.S. economy in January, on top of a paltry 75,000 in December.

"We need a new WPA to rebuild the nation's crumbling infrastructure, a higher minimum wage, strong unions, investments in education, and extended unemployment benefits for those who still can't find a job.

"When 95% of the economic gains go to the top 1%, the middle class and poor don't have the purchasing power to keep it going."

 

[Andylusion]

Just because prices started to increase in prices in 97 that doesn't mean something didn't happen in 98 or 99 or 00 or 01 or 02 or 03 etc that kept the prices increasing. YOUR OWN GRAPH shows that price increases are not uncommon.

Bah whatever this is the 4th time I have explained this to you.

In thinking about it, I'm not sure that a whooping TWO housing price bubbles in the past 50 years, makes it completely common. Not sure you can really support that claim. Between 1948, and 1997, which is 49 years, there have been a total of 8 years out of 49, which could be considered price bubbles. And as I said, there were specific policy causes to those bubbles.

I'm not denying that bad policy may have kept the bubble going. But the start is the key. Not the end. IF they had popped the bubble in 04, that would have done nothing to prevent what happened, it would have only happened 3 years earlier. If they had popped it in 2000, it still would have popped, only 7 years earlier.

The key is to not have a bubble to begin with. That's what needs to be avoided, and the way you do that, is by finding the cause of the original price bubble, and dealing with that.

If you eliminate every cause of the bubble continuing, and don't prevent the bubble from being created to begin with, you will still have a crash.

Focusing on "well x policy continued the bubble that was already created"... well fine.... what about not having a bubble to begin with? Are you saying that economic crashes, and price bubble collapses, are perfectly good provided they are not dragged out another 3 years?

Well of course you don't believe that. But then why focus on policies that continued the problem, instead of what caused the problem? How about we deal that that?

See, because to me the "policy X continued it" is a red herring.

All of the policies that continued the bubble, were pushed for by politicians, because they believed that home ownership is inherently good. All of those policies, stemmed from the original policy which started the whole chain reaction, back in 1997.

Because even if we eliminate specific policy X, and policy Y.... they will simply be replaced with other policies that do exactly the same thing because the same false assumption is driving policy "Home ownership is inherently good".

And we see this, even now.

Obama administration pushes banks to make home loans to people with weaker credit - The Washington Post

administration officials say they are working to get banks to lend to a wider range of borrowers by taking advantage of taxpayer-backed programs — including those offered by the Federal Housing Administration — that insure home loans against default.

That's from April 2013. Apparently having Freddie and Fannie back borrowers with weaker credit worked so well, that now they are sending the FHA to do it.

It's this exact type of policy that caused the price bubble to begin with. Let's have Freddie Mac securitize sub-prime mortgages to unqualified buyers, because home ownership is inherently good for everyone.

But it's not. We just found that out. Until you deal with what CAUSED the price bubble, what CONTINUED it won't matter. Once the bubble is created, there will always be a crash.

 

[gnarlylove]

Please explain how the "man" stopped you from becoming more than you were.

Go to a soup kitchen and ask them. Ask them how their life has been. Ask them what they've tried to do but failed. Heck I know you're too lazy as an American so go buy a book on the topic. I know as a consumer first you like to buy things rather than do things, it excites your dopamine. "The Working Poor: Invisible in America" is an good book. There are many other sociological accounts but you need to hear the first hand stories.You've got the time to ask the same questions over and over but not watch that two minute video I posted on why its so hard to get out of poverty or to choose liberty.

 

[Andylusion]

There is no law forcing you to live with a den of thieves, you are free to move about the country to find and make your opportunities.

Laws are not the only means of getting people to obey. Having never grown up in poverty one will not know that the opportunity to choose to leave the neighborhood or stay is not there.

Peer pressure, social pressure, going where the money is (crime) can constrict one's innate ability to choose liberty. Indeed, they can leads to bad decisions and it's often because people are ill informed. Our education system panders to wealth just like opportunities to work do. Though more service jobs exist than ever, they are often shameful and are dead end.

There is so much that can be said here but if you are unwilling to recognize the disparity in this country is not just income, it runs all the way down into the psyche. I know because I grew up in it and have been homeless. If you haven't lived that way you simply have no genuine idea what really means and what the causes are. You hear others who've never been homeless talk about it but that's as good as the info gets. It's an entirely different world to be in poverty, it's plain and simple and no one is willing to try that because poverty is not inviting.

59% of Americans will experience poverty for a year or more. If you haven't then you aren't part of the majority of people. You may want to recalibrate your understanding to account for the breadth of this problem. It's a human problem stemming from bad policy and greed. There is a war going on against the poor and working class. The 2 minute video explains this with rigor.
War on the Poor

Their War on the Poor

"Most Americans are on a downward escalator. Median household pay is dropping, adjusted for inflation. A smaller share of working-age Americans are in jobs than at any time in the last three decades.

Only 113,000 jobs were added to the U.S. economy in January, on top of a paltry 75,000 in December.

"We need a new WPA to rebuild the nation's crumbling infrastructure, a higher minimum wage, strong unions, investments in education, and extended unemployment benefits for those who still can't find a job.

"When 95% of the economic gains go to the top 1%, the middle class and poor don't have the purchasing power to keep it going."

I just don't see that in my world. Do you know a bunch of people who are earning less and less every year? I am not. Nor do I know anyone who is.

That magical "them" and "those people" who are earning less, where are they? Nearly everyone I know is doing better now, than ever before in their life. Just as they were 5 years ago, and 10 years ago. Back in 2001, I knew a guy who just got hired on as $8/hr parts get at an auto parts store. He's now store manager of his own store, earning six figures plus a profit sharing bonus at the end of the year.

Now no doubt there must be some who are. For sure, there's always someone somewhere, but you really think over the broad economy that everyone is earning less?

I kind of doubt that, and certainly the evidence doesn't support it. At least not the evidence you gave. You cited "household incomes".

That's not the same as individual incomes.

Take for example, a married couple with an 18 year old. The 18 year old is working minimum wage at Wendy's. The wife works part time $30K job. The husband a $70K job.

Now say they divorce, which is very common, right?

The 18 year old, moves out, and goes to college, and gets promoted to manager, and is now earning $20K.

The Wife divorced, now works full time, earning $35K.

The husband without a family throws himself in his work, gets over time, and now makes $80K.

Before you had one household, earning $115K, and now you divided it into three households, making $20K, $35K, and $80K.

Now arrange that into any statistics, and find the median, the median is going to fall, while the incomes of each individual has actually gone up.

You have to remember something.... prior to the 1970s, kids stayed at home until they finished college. It was rare for them to move out. And married couples rarely ever divorced. They still had a belief system of "we're in it for life, whether we like it or not", instead of the more modern "the only one who matters is me, and if I'm not happy, I'm gone" belief system.

The claims that wages are falling, are very suspect and ambiguous. Not nearly as concrete as statistic manipulators claim. (not you. You are just citing what someone else came up with)

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."
- Mark Twain

Now of course, you can find some useful information from statistics, but you need to be careful, and investigate them carefully.

 

[RKMBrown]

Please explain how the "man" stopped you from becoming more than you were.

Go to a soup kitchen and ask them. Ask them how their life has been. Ask them what they've tried to do but failed. Heck I know you're too lazy as an American so go buy a book on the topic. I know as a consumer first you like to buy things rather than do things, it excites your dopamine. "The Working Poor: Invisible in America" is an good book. There are many other sociological accounts but you need to hear the first hand stories.You've got the time to ask the same questions over and over but not watch that two minute video I posted on why its so hard to get out of poverty or to choose liberty.

Huh? What? Sorry I was busy earning a living.

 

[gnarlylove]

I just don't see that in my world. Do you know a bunch of people who are earning less and less every year? I am not. Nor do I know anyone who is

That is called a bunch of things but groupthink covers it. This is the phenomena where you isolate yourself and insulate yourself from something, in this case poverty. Why do you think there have been literal programs to kick homeless out of a city? It scares people with money. People won't shop near dirty people. We keep people with money happy and free of doubt about how policy is treating the rest of Americans.

My area is mostly poverty along the Ohio River of dead industry. It's like this for hundreds of miles: Appalachian poverty. The forgotten land. My county is not big but with 30,000 ppl the median income is $29,000.
Yep, and counties surrounding me are doing worse! Why? Rust belt. No jobs. it's all walmart or fast food service jobs. Just because your community is doing fine, and each one you travel to is doing fine, is not representative of America. It's a fallacy of hasty generalization.

Even if you've been to 100 communities, there are tens of thousands of communities across America. Your sample size is probably smaller than 100 and has extreme bias since you don't need to be a sociologist to know social classes tend to hang out with each other. People of wealth like David Koch tends to not hang around people like yourself and you don't hang around poor people. It's the way our society (in India the poorest are called untouchables and they "caste" them from society). This has been set up so we don't see how bad it is. Its fucking awful I can assure you having lived homeless in 5 cities out West.

That's why we do statistical analysis to get accurate readings (unbiased) of national averages etc. So you can call 1500 Americans and given the right parameters, you can generalize within 3 percentage points of error. Some samples need 3000 but rarely do they need to go higher since we have a firm grasp on statistics and how to apply our data. There are tons of sociological databases if you had access through a university or company.

You Mark Twain quote has been referred to by me before and I've always liked it. But you need to be careful what you apply it to because sociologists (of which I am one) know how to achieve low margins of error and sufficiently larges unbiased samples. The one about 59% of American's will be in poverty for a year or more is a + or - 2%. You need to read it to get an idea:
Poverty in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[dblack]

This is why it's so important to understand what the term "inalienable right" actually means. It's not the same thing as "need". The Constitution doesn't guarantee us that our needs will be met, and it doesn't assign government the role of providing them.

I think you forgot to finish you sentence. Inalienable right is an assurance to each citizen they will be born with the ability to choose life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

...

Unfortunately, that's not what an inalienable right is. That's not a slam, hardly anyone gets this and it's the source of a lot of unnecessary confusion. An inalienable right is an inherent freedom, a byproduct of volition. No one has to do anything for you to have your inalienable rights. They just have to avoid interfering with you.

When the Constitution tasks government with protecting our inalienable rights, it's not saying the state is responsible for empowering us to exercise our rights. It's just supposed to keep others from interfering with our efforts to do so.

 

[bripat9643]

Please explain how the "man" stopped you from becoming more than you were.

Go to a soup kitchen and ask them. Ask them how their life has been. Ask them what they've tried to do but failed. Heck I know you're too lazy as an American so go buy a book on the topic. I know as a consumer first you like to buy things rather than do things, it excites your dopamine. "The Working Poor: Invisible in America" is an good book. There are many other sociological accounts but you need to hear the first hand stories.You've got the time to ask the same questions over and over but not watch that two minute video I posted on why its so hard to get out of poverty or to choose liberty.

You didn't explain jack. As always, you spouted a bunch of pinko propaganda. When I want to read pinko propaganda, then perhaps I'll pickup a book written by a pinko sociologist on the government payroll.

 

[bripat9643]

This is why it's so important to understand what the term "inalienable right" actually means. It's not the same thing as "need". The Constitution doesn't guarantee us that our needs will be met, and it doesn't assign government the role of providing them.

I think you forgot to finish you sentence. Inalienable right is an assurance to each citizen they will be born with the ability to choose life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Unfortunately America is not 100% this way. Gated communities, suburbs, North Side of cities etc. are were these rights are inalienable.

Wrong. It's simply in inherent property of human nature that requires society not to interfere in the individual's pursuit of his own ends. When written into a constitution it requires government to avoid interfering in your life. It place no obligation on society to provide you with anything.

When you are born into a situation where you can't get the food you need, this stunts development in kids (1 in 7 kids in America today experience hunger insecurity--not knowing where their next meal is coming from.) Furthermore, we can't put 100% blame on parents who happened to have good jobs who were laid off etc.

That may be the case, and it may be sad, but it doesn't constitute a violation of their rights.

I'm not saying people will always choose what's best for themselves or the economy. I'm not saying that everyone must be provided anything they want or need. I'm saying we fail to give the widespread opportunity to pursue liberty and happiness. drug addicts often choose that life because there are no options for them.

Yes, you are saying that everyone must be provided with something, namely the things you claim they can't be free if they lack.

Your rights and how you are treated depends on what family you were born into, not what country you live in. Just because a person was born in the good olde USA doesn't mean you automatically can pursue you happiness. often survival is the first and only consideration of many of my fellow sojourners.they aren't pursuing liberty because they can't since there are so few opportunities for so many people.

Nope. Your rights do not depend on the circumstances of your birth. Rights have nothing to do with your material circumstances. Rights have nothing to do with having "opportunities." Although opportunities tend to multiply in countries that respect individual rights.

 

[Bombur]

Last time........... yes, or no.... did the housing price bubble that burst in 2007, start in 1997. Look at the graph. Yes or no.

I want a yes or no, answer. If you can't answer that, then you shouldn't be talking about a subject you are too ignorant to comment on. Answer the question.

Yes or no. The housing price bubble that burst in 2007, started in 1997.

It is like you want me to think you are a clown.

I have explained what I thought about the price increases in 1997 like 3 times now and you don't know if I know the prices increased in 1997.

I owe an apology. I thought you had repeated the idea that it didn't start in 1997. My mistake. I jumped too quick in my reply.

Now I can move on from that point.

Saying that a price spike is not unusual, doesn't mean anything. Nor does it change anything that I have said.

The price spikes in the 1970s were the result of high inflation, which drove up prices. Drastic devaluing of the currency through high inflation, typically results in people investing in property. That increase in people investing in property as a hedge against inflation, naturally results in a price increase. If you look, the housing price bubble started in 1976, right after inflation peaked in 1975 at 12%.

In the 1980s, the cause was a sudden lowering of interest rates, and a high GDP growth rate. The boom started right at 1984, when the growth rate hit nearly 10%, and the interest rates were cut in half from their 1970s high.

Both of these have clear policy causes.

If you look at the broad spectrum of the graph, house prices have been relatively stable from the late 1940s, until 1997, with only those two exceptions of the 1970s inflation, and the 1980s interest rate cut and high GDP.

What happened in 1997? None of these. There was no huge inflation. There was no spike in interest rates, or sudden drop in interest rates. There was no boom in the economy, which was fairly steady at 4% to 5%.

There is no explanation, and yet the housing market made a drastic increase in prices.

You have not given any satisfactory explanation to why that happened. I suggest I did. Freddie Mac, validating Sub-prime Mortgage Backed Securities, with a AAA rating, in 1997, would explain why there was suddenly a drastic increase in sub-prime loans, and that would explain why prices dramatically increased, because lowering the lending standards, by securitizing sub-prime loans, increased the number of people who qualified to get a mortgage. Increased Demand, static supply... price goes up.

Again, unlike the prior two booms, you can't blame it on interest rates going up or down, because they didn't in the late 1990s. You can't blame it on inflation driving investment, because there was little inflation. You can't blame it on a booming economy, because there was no booming economy.

There is no logical, identifiable reason for this price bubble, other than what I have outlined.

So again, here is your opportunity to give your own reason. What do you think caused the price bubble in 1997?

Interesting side note, the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, was pushed by liberals as a solution to so-called mortgage discrimination, and passed in 1975. Odd that directly after the very first attempt at mortgage affirmative action, that there was a bubble. However, I can find no evidence linking the bubble to this act. It was more likely the high inflation rate. It is an interesting coincidence.

Like I said before there are many reasons why the prices would have started to increase in 1997. If I was only given two choices, lower standards on loans or the rise of MBS that hid those sub-prime loans I would go with the MBS. That said there were other nations seeing a rise in home prices and it is very hard to know exactly why there was a boom in 1997.

There is no doubt that MBS played a massive part in the boom and bust as I have already talked about. No one is denying this as far as I am aware and the single biggest problem with the MBS is the hidden risk. A risk that increases drastically in a bubble and hides poor behavior by those creating the mortgages in the first place.

A lot of people at these financial institutions and ratings agencies get paid a lot of money to know the risk on an investment. Decision makers are paid a lot of money to know and make the right decision for their companies. The idea that a government agency is at fault for hiding risk from them is absolutely ridiculous. I don't care if F&F rated them AAA(which they have no authority to do), there is no way a private company would outsource the health of their own company to a government agency's analysis. The system doesn't work that way and you keep suggesting that it does which is absurd.

While I am uncertain about 1997 I am certain that the drop in interest rates played a big part in the crisis as did the proliferation of sub-prime loans that were not mandated by the government.

You can blame the government for failing to regulate and failing to enforce regulations. You can blame F&F for not understanding the risk of the MBS. You can blame government for repealing Glass-Steagall. You can blame the The Commodities Futures Modernization Act. You can blame interest rates. You can blame anyone who ever thought markets could regulate themselves. Blame is everywhere but very little of it actually rests at the feet of some poor people getting a sub-prime loan. That is what this issue is ultimately about, not blaming government generally or capitalism or whatever. There is enough blame for everyone except the people who actually need these laws. The economy doesn't come crashing down because some poor people got a mortgage.