Alan Greenspan was a Republican - though the Fed (and Greenspan) has done a good job of remaining fairly apolitical. While fiscal policy issues are playing into the housing boom/bust concern, the Fed will be the first to react, with monetary policy changes. In fact, the Fed is already reacting to this and other monetary concerns. Not everything comes down to Repub vs. Dem, or liberal vs. conservative. I know the board would empty out without those playground antics, but still...

People are doing some crazy and idiotic things right now. Some are doing it to just get in a place to live (that they can call their own). Others are playing real estate investor (speculator) on the side... making one or two flip deals that nets them $80K or 90K in a few months and believing that next year they'll be challenging Mort Zuckerman for his NY empire. Those (moronic) people are helping to inflate the real estate market, just as the Mike Milken wannabes, who chased phantom companies with no earnings, helped to inflate the NASDAQ in the mid-to-late 90's.

What some people are concerned about are the interest only, low/no doc and non-conforming mortgages that are beginning to show up all too often. These high risk borrowers are the ones most likely to walk away and cause problems in the banking sector. The speculators and flippers are another concern. In their case, I think it'll be more a case of easy come, easily gone. The smart ones will leave the tables before the dealers start taking their money back.

But I think this will be more of a regional thing than a broad based problem. It's the medicine that the Fed might dole out that concerns me - that could be broad based.

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"Tweeter was a Boyscout before she went to Vietnam and found out the hard way... nobody gives a d@mn."