While
Joshua Gans agitates for an AussieMac (an equivalent of the American Fannie Mae and Fannie Mac) and the consequent socialization of the Australian mortgage market,
James Grant argues the opposite, that the socialization of mortgages in the name of ensuring liquidity is skewing the market and ultimately a form of rent seeking by the banking industry. It also encourages politicians to deal with the issues by sweeping them under the carpet into the financial lending institutions with public money.
At this writing, the Federal Reserve, the ECB, and the Bank of England are taking extraordinary measures to accommodate the demand for liquidity from the institutions that couldn't seem "to learn the difference between a Mortgage and a Bill of Exchange," or between a triple-A corporate bond and a triple-A mortgage, which is a slightly different kind of confusion.
To bail out these slow learners, the central banks are lending government securities against the inherently illiquid mortgage collateral that never had a place on the balance sheet of a properly run monetary institution in the first place. In fact, in Hankey's day, it was a breach of good form for a central bank even to acquire government securities (the preferred assets were commercial loans, foreign exchange, and gold). How far the world has come: Gold, the most liquid of monetary assets, today is officially demonetized, whereas mortgages, the least liquid of banking assets, are now -- all of a sudden, because there seems to be no choice -- being embraced, or, at least, tolerated. Certainly, they are being monetized.
The problem is that the financial markets and institutions have not faced economic retribution for their risk taking. Part of this is because central banks have been constantly bailing them out by dropping interest rates or sweeping the horrors of the banking industries incompetence under the carpet through social institutions such as the lending window and Fannie Mac/Mae.
Australia has a high level of home ownership already, I do not believe that a centralised and politically controlled government institution is necessary for the mortgage market even with the potential challenges facing the world lending market through bad policy and practice by banks, central banks and politicians.
Most Popular on South Sea Republic
The articles that have been viewed the most:
Most Popular Restaurants in Phoenix
Phoenix Eats Out is the restaurant review site for
Phoenix,
Scottsdale and
Old Town Scottsdale which lists the modernist and contemporary restaurants, taverns and bars in the greater Phoenix area.
This is the list of the most popular restaurants pages from phoenixeatsout.com that have been viewed the most;
My personal favourite restaurants in Phoenix are
AZ88,
Postinos,
Bomberos with
Grazie,
Humble Pie,
Orange Table,
The Vig,
Fez and others coming close behind. View the complete list with the photo-journalistic style images on
phoenixeatsout.com
Most Popular Hikes in Arizona
Arizona is an outdoor state and has lots of hiking in the city and around the state. Phoenix is unusual for most cities in having several large mountains in the center of the city with great hiking. Anyone who comes to Phoenix has to do the
Echo Canyon trail on Camelback and the
Summit Hike on Squaw Peak or Piesta Peak. The views of the city, suburbs and surrounding mountains are wonderful from Camelback and Piesta Peak.
For more experienced hikers there is the McDowell Mountains in North Scottsdale that has several difficult and strenuous hikes in
Tom's Thumb and
Bell Pass. Alternatively, you can hike the highest mountain in Arizona. At 12,600 feet
Humphrey's Peak is a long and difficult hike.
Alternate Australian Constitutions
Between 2004 and 2009 this site,
southsearepublic.org, was a constitutional blog based on scoop which focused on Australian and global constitutional issues.
One of the strongest aspects of it was the development of constitutions by those involved in the blog. These constitutions are the outcome:
The constitutions were built using principles from Montesquieu's separation of powers, the enlightnment's universal political rights and the ancient Athenian technology of sortition and choice by lot.
Archives For South Sea Republic
South Sea Republic started in 2004 as an Australian constitutional blog in 2004 based on scoop software. It was an immigrative outgrowth of Kuro5hin. The archives for each year since then;
The articles are ordered by views.
Who Is Cam Riley
I am an Australian living in the United States as a permanent resident.
I am a software developer by trade and mostly work in Java and jump between middleware and front end.
I originally worked in the New York area of the United States in telecommunications before moving to Washington DC and
working in a mix of telecommunications, energy and ITS. I started my own software company before heading out to
Arizona and working with Shutterfly. Since then I have joined a startup in the Phoenix area and am thoroughly enjoying myself.
I do a lot of photography which I post on this website, but also on flickr. I have a photo-journalistic website which lists
the modernist and contemporary restaurants in phoenix. I have a site on the
Australian Flying Corps [AFC] which has been around since the 1990s and which I unfortunately
lost the .org URL to during a life event; however, it is under the
www.australianflyingcorps.com URL now.
The AFC website has gone through several iterations since the 90s and the two most recent are
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2004-2002) and
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2002-1999) which are good places to start.
Websites Worth Reading
Websites of friends, colleagues and of interest;
