09-25-2009, 04:25 PM
Grieve Wrote:The same principle for fast food joints, or cigarettes. Yes, people should know better, but they don't. People are stupid and uneducated, and looking for the easy option, whether it's a Mickey-D's burger, no-payments-no-interest for a year, or a mortgage where they pay next to nothing for 3 years. Maybe the answer is better education, maybe it's more regulation, but let's face it...people aren't going to change their habits without some major catalyst.
I guess we agree but it's a matter of degree. Here's what I worry about. Say the government decides that to "protect the uneducated consumer" they will stop McDonalds from making Big Macs. Yes, they will save the 100,000 morons who eats Big Macs everyday from dieing of a hard attack. But they will screw the 100,000,000 people who eat and enjoy Big Macs responsibly once a month. Ditto with 7 year ARMS. There are cases for responsible borrowers to use an ARM. But in order to protect the uneducated consumer, they're denied to everyone. As always, this results in a race to the bottom and a "least common denominator" mentality.
"Hamilton is really a Colossus to the anti republican party. Without numbers he is an host within himself. They have got themselves into a defile where they might be finished but too much security on the republican part will give time to his talents and indefatigableness to extricate them. We have had only middling performances to oppose to him. In truth when he comes forward there is nobody but yourself who can meet him. His adversaries having begun the attack he has the advantage of answering them and remains unanswered himself. For God's sake take up your pen and give a fundamental reply to Curtius and Camillas" - Thomas Jefferson to James Madison