Sat, 20 Sep 2008

In praise of financial subsidiarity

From Johanna Maurice's editorial in the Charleston, West Virginia, Daily Mail on this week's financial collapses:

But it would help if we restored to their rightful places the flinty local bankers once considered such an impediment to the extension of the American dream. They didn't give mortgages to people they feared couldn't repay them, because they would have had to eat the losses. This is a useful governor of behavior, and kinder, too. They didn't screw up like this.

We've finally escaped from debt slavery in the last year (aside from our mortgage) and, like our Depression-era parents and grandparents, we now have a healthy horror of debt. Speaking of which, we get lots of mailings from local loan sharks in Champaign and Decatur - payday loan outfits, car dealerships and the like. One of them had the gall to call me a couple of days ago to check whether we'd received his mailing, and I had a marvelously entertaining time heckling and harassing the bastard til he hung up.

14:18 | link | | | tags:

Sat, 13 Sep 2008

For future reference

Why gas prices will rise for a while after the hurricane. Via Instapundit.

10:54 | link | | | tags: ,

A facility for quotation covers the absence of original thought.—Lord Peter Wimsey

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