Wow....reading you type, is like seeing a mirror of me type. It's insane how much we agree on. I feel like I have been trying to dispell these myths here on HN

Wow....reading you type, is like seeing a mirror of me type. It's insane how much we agree on. I feel like I have been trying to dispell these myths here on HN for the last 2.5 years and here you come along spouting the EXACT same stuff I been saying. It's soo refreshing :) As for Ron Paul's abolition of the Fed, I couldn't agree more. It's a bunch of crock. All you have to do is look at the history of recessions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_United_States#Free_Banking_Era_to_the_Great_Depression http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_Unite... I mean...really, the longest time period between recessions in that approx 90 years (1836 - 1926) was 5 years. Imagine that, literally...over other year (almost) America had a recession. That's batshit crazy. Is THAT what we want to go back to? Fractional reserve banking and central banking is the damn cure to all of that. Ron Paul is off his knockers when he talks about this stuff, and the most painful part is that so many people listen to him. They don't know any better. As for your questions, as far as I understand it, the housing bubble CDOs were just the tip of the iceberg. When I lived in FL, there were many small community banks, that went bust because they held tons of CDOs backed up by subprime car loans and credit cards - YES!!! These guys were insane. As for Canada, the truth is, I don't quite get that one either...because as far as I know, the 'standard' mortgage up there is actually a variable rate. I haven't done much research into it, but I have a few friends that live up there and are goin through the house-buying phase now. It's so bad that we had a debate about whether 30-year fixed mortgages even exist anywhere in the world. I kindly linked him to the relevant US regulators that explicitly show rates on up to 40-year fixed. He was flabbergasted. So, I honestly don't know what's happening over there. I agree that we should know, I am sure the data is there...I have just been busy trying to keep my startup dreams alive (no time to do all that research - as much as I would love to).