There’s always something to howl about.

A new bumper sticker: Lend Locally

So this is a brilliant point from the comments section. Brian Brady says local lending is a possible solution to our present problems. Greg’s reproduced it.

Now, the problem with secondary mortgage market is that, as currently constituted, it hasn’t been a true market for generations. It’s a political game to the extent that people on Wall Street knew they could socialize the risk, but capture the upside. How else to explain such risky behavior?

Defenders of big banks will point to efficiencies of large scale movements of capital. But certainly those efficiencies are overshadowed by the significant social and economic costs of politicized subsidies.