Being sold a car without a steering wheel

The Brits (at least the press) do enjoy the misery of the Americans... right here!

From The Times (or "The Times of London" as Americans insist on calling it)

• “For all the headlines we are seeing, this situation is going to get worse,” said Kathleen Day, a C.R.L. spokeswoman. “There has been irresponsibility all along the line. Many of these loans were made to people who never had the ability to repay. It’s ridiculous, like selling someone a car without a steering wheel and then being surprised when they crash. Sub-prime loans need not be bad but once you stop assessing the borrowers’ ability to pay and the interest payments don’t reflect the borrowers’ ability to pay, that’s crazy.”

(Not sounding much better in the UK either, actually, but let's leave that for the time being.)

It sounds harsh, but in my view, at the end of the day, too many people who "shouldn't" (financially speaking) own homes in the US do, and until they no longer own them, one way or another, the housing related problems in the US will persist. That's why I remain cautious of the markets, regardless of progress on the monoline front and all the recent helicopter activity from the Fed.

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Yanks getting their own back on the Brits here though, in one of my favourite articles from last year (also in The Times... of London.) "What the hell happened to all the beautiful (English) girls I knew? My first assumption was that one half of them had eaten the other half and washed them down with a crate of lager." Don't complain to me - write to the journo.