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The un-American solution to the subprime mess
Among the remedies mentioned for the subprime crisis, I haven’t seen listed the system I went through when getting a mortgage in England back in those days. Here is how it worked: the first step would be for you to open an account with a building society; then you would start saving, sending a check…
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Since we can’t fix the subprime mess can we at least make sure it doesn’t happen again?
One of the greatest American traditions is for families to get together at Christmas and watch with ever-renewed delight Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Recent events in the financial world, and in the mortgage business in particular, suggest that the movie should be introduced with this important disclaimer: “WARNING: The movie you’re about to…
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Woody Allen’s “Death Knocks”
In Death Knocks, Woody Allen provides a new treatment to a classical theme: a man seeing himself on a final mission succeeds in buying time from the ineluctability of death by challenging a personified death to a game that he wins, gaining so a temporary reprieve. The allegory reminds us that life amounts in every…