I ran across Brooks at Economist Mom, http://economistmom.com/2010/02/why-paygo-isnt-enough-but-why-well-take-it/#comments , and started to get into a debate about Paul Krugman's writing.  That's not the place for a debate, but we can continue it here.

Unfortunately, I did not click through on Brooks' initial comment or I would have seen that most of my points had already been covered here by knocienz.

Posted as an article on Source of Title . Not sure how much interest SC will have in the stuff I write nowadays as a part of my duties at my home site; much of it will be related to the title insurance industry, and the rest will probably be mostly related to real estate in some fashion.   In this case, I think there could be some general interest because  1.) FHA's policy portfolio has exploded in the past 12-24 months as the agency has taken over the market for the "subprime" home buyer and the private market for no-money-down loans, option ARMs, NINJA loans and the like have evaporated, and 2.) FHA's financial position is in question as defaults on FHA insured mortgages have spiked, and there have been predictions of a bailout.

Lend America ceased operations earlier this week in the wake of a case brought against it documenting 40 cases of mortgage fraud involving FHA-backed loans, cases which likely only scratch the surface of the true scope of the fraud committed by the company.  The situation prompts the question: how is such widespread fraud possible to maintain for such a long period of time, especially when dealing with a federal agency?  A closer look at FHA's policies, and one might start to wonder why massive frauds like Lend America aren't more common.

Cross-posted from Source of Title

As I wrote about in my last post, "Debate over New York title insurance public option seems to miss the point ", a group of New York state legislators have proposed legislation to create a "public option" for title insurance.  These legislators have pointed to Iowa's Title Guaranty Program, a system of public land title insurance established by Iowa state law.

Unfortunately, there seems to be some confusion on the part of the New York legislators as to the nature of Iowa's land title laws.  In short, it appears that they have leaned too heavily on the vast online encyclopedia Wikipedia in their research of the issue.

No, not that one. This one : Fascism.

I know, I know... It's a bad, bad word to throw out there in serious discussion and a word that will surly get taken to mean something other than intended when talking about it in an economic context.
 

That phrase was coined by Frederic Bastiat back in the mid 1800s. The wisdom and relevance of that phrase was echoed 100 years later as the heart of Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson .

With regard to the Cramer vs. Stewart affair, Will Wilkinson offers some commentary based on this great piece by Glenn Greenwald .

Greenwald's main point:

...there's absolutely nothing about Cramer that is unique when it comes to our press corps. The behavior that Jon Stewart so expertly dissected last night is exactly what our press corps in general does --

...

How to judge economic phenomena is often in the eye of the beholder. One man's problem is often another man's comfort. One country's helpful subsidies to a particular sector can be a bane to that same sector in another country.

I came across a pretty scary story this morning regarding the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

That's what I take from a couple of articles written by social democrats that I've read over the weekend. The pronounced and unmistakable willingness of some to justify having less as long as long as the better off have EVEN less in relation to the worse off is indeed troubling to me. The mental gymnastics that I see these people put themselves through with the full knowledge and implications of their wishes known to them is indeed cause for pause.

The New York Times has an article now about what's happening with the $25 Billion that were set aside for loans through the Energy Department for automobile companies and start-ups to hasten the arrival next-generation auto technology using batteries.

As of right now, the amount of money dispersed has been: $0.00.

But it's not for lack interest in companies looking for the loan money:

Obama has released his FY 2010 Budget , and there's a lot to digest in there. NPR has a helpful overview by department. My personal, overall impression is that there is some great stuff in there, but it is too big.

Yet another example of Paul Krugman's transition from economist to partisan hack

I absolutely hate them. Few things get my free market juices flowing like disgusting cartels propped up by slovenly favoritism and privilege from government.

What follows below is perhaps the best explanation of the credit freeze (and what caused) I've seen to date. It's very balanced, explaining how some Wall-street exuberance and some Main-Street irresponsibilty all played a part in this economic decline we're experiencing. Check it out, and shoot some questions/comments my way. Have a terrific weekend.

Mesmerized by Melodic Rhetoric: Guns Versus Hope

Joel S. Hirschhorn

"I've been through Y2K and I've been through 9/11. I have never seen people so afraid as what we are seeing right now,” said gun shop owner Scott Moss recently. With more guns per capita – easily 250 million privately owned ones – and certainly more people in prisons than any other democracy, the intriguing question in this still worsening economic calamity is: If Americans found the courage for political rebellion now, would it preempt massive criminal violence, social havoc and armed rebellion later?

Brink Lindsey has a new paper out called Nostalgianomics . Love that picture!

Many will recall by entries on his recent book The Conscience of a Liberal. See here and here for a follow-up to the first.

I'd been lightly following this Clive Crook story from afar without reading the actual article. Then I saw, via Will Wilkinson , that it's still growing and that Clive's original article even got responses from the two high profile macroeconomists mentioned in the article: Barro and Krugman.

See here .

Here's his summation at the end and it's really, really good:

Please...let's all pay close attention ;

This one will be rather short (well maybe not), but I was thinking about this more and more recently and wanted to get my thoughts down on some electrons while the idea was fresh.

When talking about economic transactions, one often hears the story of the two gentlemen who, without any coercion on either's part, come to an agreement.  The buyer agrees to pay $X for a widget sold by the seller. Both men are ostensibly "better off" for the deal, which becomes a point for increasing free trade.

I suppose that both men are "better off" from their own point of view, but what about from an objective point of view?  Is there even a way to objectively measure this?  I'm bold enough to say there is!

Using a continuum, we can "visualize" the price at which a buyer would buy a good or service and at which the seller would provide the good or service.  So long as their pricelines match somewhere, they will come to an agreement.  I'll switch terminology and say that both are equally "worse off" if the area of overlap on the priceline is bisected; at this bisection is the objective "worse off" point.  This would be the point at which neither person is, comparatively speaking, better/worse off than the other.

I'll also talk a bit about fairness here, too.  This point of objectivity is also the most fair price point at which a good or service could be sold.  Being that I'm still a philosophical liberal, I enjoy government intervention on behalf of whomever is getting the more raw deal.  Nine times out of ten the seller, because he has a greater reserve of capital, can afford to be more discriminating than the buyer, which is why I support any government efforts (done within constitutional parameters, mind you) to level the playing field as it were.

Now this is under complete information assumptions.  Under incomplete information assumptions a different definition of "objective" occurs.  The "you paid WHAT for that?" is the very trival (and fuzzy) benchmark for objectivity there.  Veblen comes to mind as well when thinking about objectivity.

What say you?