Exactly. If you ever suggest he has a bias, you will be banned from his site.

It seems to me that any type of market will necessarily experience a range of money flow characteristics over time.

What bothered me about the piece was its attempts at balance left it giving an impression I think was a bit too rosy. Yes, the WSJ may have felt compelled not to alarm the public. But per what I have read on Bloomberg, the pros, and those are the guys who guy agency paper, are rattled. So who is left for the WSJ to worry? Most retail readers are not going to pull out bond fund prospectuses or call their fund manager to ascertain how much agency paper is in their bond funds and switch to ones with lower agency exposure.

I am bothered by the WSJ downplaying a doubling in spreads, particularly for two year paper. The difference in tone between Bloomberg and the WSj is noteworthy.

And the Journal also relegated most of the bad news to the end of the article, which in the print edition will be after the jump and may not be read.

I see. Hamilton was wrong about the housing bubble. Ergo, he is wrong about Freddie and Fannie. I’m so relieved to learn that.

From what I can tell, the discussion at the Jackson Hole conference revolved almost entirely around what interest rate policy the Fed should take. Hamilton was perhaps the only one to say that the real need was for regulatory reform.

“Bubble” is not a concept that Serious Economists are allowed to consider. You will note that Hamilton was invited to the Jackson Hole conference to speak and Roubini wasn’t. The price for seeing trouble, especially on the early side, is being an outsider.

To give you an illustration: I got in an argument with Brad DeLong (who I suspect no longer reads me) where he took issue with the idea that there were such things as asset bubbles! No joke, go read the post.

Similarly, note how academic economists (and economically respectable journalists like Martin Wolf) categorically reject the notion that speculation can have anything to do with the runup in oil prices. They see that view as being akin to believing in alien abductions.

These guys need to spend a month in a dealing room and learn otherwise. I’ve seen enough first hand to know it happens.

But to your point that the GSE’s are being the preferred vehicle for shoring up the disaster. What choice is there save to shut down mortgage finance in the country? There is no private secondary market for mortgages.

While it might not sound like it I actually liked this article a lot. There is going to be much more discussion on this topic and you deserve some credit for getting it out there. Don’t let it get buried in all of the other news.

Note to Yves: I don’t want to go on you site and promote my own but this is what I wrote earlier this evening. http://blog.metro-real-estate.com/?p=690. Thanks for providing the forum.

But after this, how long will it be until GM comes knocking at the glass too?