Our esteemed lawmakers are busy at work inventing new ways to screw not only this generation but all offspring and the offspring's offspring.  According to inman news, Reid has proposed an amendment to HR 3548 to extend the $8,000 first time home buyer credit, along with modifying limits and caps thus enabling more and more people to participate.   See, someone got the bright idea that our entire crisis is predicated on the bursting of the housing bubble and while the bubble pop ushered in troubling fiscal meltdowns the housing bubble was merely a catalyst.  America's history over the past 30 years has been largely governed by Greenspan's new economy, an idea built on the fact that an infusion of readily accessible money can stimulate a lagging economy.  It worked in 1987, early 90s and early 2000s so the assumption is that it will work again.  It has indeed provided many years of prosperity to people and allowed many to become filthy rich, however the soundness of the nation's financial structure has been significantly compromised.

See, everytime Greenspan performed an infusion of artifical cheap money the result was a skewing of the free market system and negatively altered the landscape of investments, business expansion and personal responsibility.  Why not expand a business when money is cheap?  Why bother saving when cash is trash?  Each time the central bank acted irresponsibly they did so with a greater amount of force and each time this intervention lead to an inevitable purge they intervened again! 

So where are we now?  We are broke as a nation, our debt to GDP ratio has climbed through the roof and this you can squarely blame on Congress and Republicans/Democrats.  Americans are in debt.  This you can squarely blame on monetary policy stemming from the likes of Greenspan and Bernanke.  We are flooded with goods we either do not need or cannot afford and this means cars, houses, appliances and regrettably school loans. 

What HAS to happen?  This is so painfully obvious, I doubt this needs clarification.  We need to either pay off our debt (through hard work and saving) or let go of the items we cannot afford so that the value of the items correct themselves.  Too many people own houses they cannot afford, this is artificially holding up prices.  Let the system clean itself and once the prices fall, houses will be bought again.  I promise.  If that means real estate must plummet 50%, then so be it!  As someone who owns more than one property this is not an attractive prospect, but continuing to prop up an artificial market with artificial cash is lunacy, madness, idiocy and border-line criminal.  Same for autos and any other tangible asset!  Yes, this is exactly what Congress is doing.  Big sigh.  Huge.