catobase

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8834

This is entertaining to watch politicians falling over each other trying to come up with some solution which is seen as helping the consumer. What would however be of the greatest benefit to the consumer is not 'bailout loans' or fixing interest rates on sub-prime mortgages. It's information, real information, on the nature and terms of their mortgages. People seem utterly mystified by the banking world as it is, and then those papers that sign over 15-30 years of lifetime seem completely bewildering. What's more, looking over who has sub-prime rates according to the research, it's people who'd already bought a house and were refinancing. People who had already done at least one decision, which may have been good or bad, and then decided to do something which may have been utterly stupid. Or at least, it was fine so long as housing prices continued to rise, a foolish assumption. What the government can do is provide in effect a standard loan disclosure such that a bank would have to provide, in English, the terms and conditions of a loan as agreed to. In the modern environment, it's possible to take one's business elsewhere if they don't like what they're seeing 10-15 years down the road.

For an idea what this would look like:
http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.26179/pub_detail.asp
It's one page with two pages of explanation of terms. That's it. None of this 30 page of lawyerese crap.

http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-605.pdf

That one's a big bigger story. But suffices to say, anything which alters the arrangement between school taxes and school districts such that money follows students and not the other way around is fine by me. The unions would be another problem, but one that can be marginalized in other ways.

http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa587.pdf

This was an interesting perspective in that the 'diversity' culture that we've developed under the idea that schools and other publicly funded efforts blend our people is an utter waste of time. Which I already knew. But that one way to get around it was the prospect of school choice, giving parents both less belligerence and control (something which happens when choosing colleges for example).

For example, with all the evangelicals keeping their children home schooled, giving them a school which uses those 2000 year old teachings instead of modern science is fine by me. It will keep them backward and idiotic for easy identification.