Recently, my mom made the point that all children (minors) should receive healthcare. Legally, children are not expected to bear the same burdens as adults. If they don't have parents, they are taken care of. If they don't have food, school lunches are provided. If they commit a crime, they are not punished as severely. If their parents cannot take care of them, they are taken care of. This should certainly include healthcare.

However, a curious case would develop if every child had a right to healthcare. Let's pretend that this is the case, every child is covered by some form of healthcare. Now, let's pretend an uninsured 20 year old woman becomes pregnant and intends to have the child. She is not a minor and therefore is not covered by child healthcare. At some point she needs to go to the doctor for the health of her unborn child. Since it could be argued that the doctor's visit is for the child's health, it could also be argued that child healthcare should cover the visit. By going to the doctor, this woman is acknowledging that she is carrying a child (not just a fetus).

Since it is a child, it should be entitled to all rights protecting a child. Including the right to live. And, if this child has the right to live, all children of a similar stage of development should be extended the same right. Children's healthcare dictates a cut-off point for abortions.

Given this situation, when should a fetus be covered by healthcare? If you wait too long, you could endanger both the fetus and mother. If you don't wait long enough you make the majority of abortions illegal.

Wait, they're making another Incredible Hulk movie? Is the public demanding this?

What's weird, is that the first movie came out like 4 years ago, but this new movie is NOT a sequel. It's made by a different production company and has totally different actors playing the same exact roles. Do they think we forgot that Jennifer Connelly played the female part just a couple of years ago? Did she not do a good enough job? Couldn't she audition and say 'Yeah, i just played this part in this same BS movie franchise like last week'?

Also, who likes the Hulk? I never got into that. He gets angry and loses control. I get it. Not exactly the most intellectually stimulating of the superhero stories. Everyone knows Batman is a badass. The more they make the Batman concept seem realistic, the more I like it (loved the last one).

"I think all public policy, or as much public policy as possible, ought to encourage people to own something." - President Bush

It has been a central tenet of the Bush administration's domestic policy to push property and home ownership as a means to make people more self and less government reliant. The free market banking institutions would provide the captial for this owership society. The people would be the rational consumers of the financial products and use the capital to join the ownership society. The government would leave the details of the dealings to the marketplace.

The banks saw opportunity. They invented new financial products that would entice consumers with big interest rate savings up front if they promise to pay more "if" the rates ever were to go up. Banks viewed it as a 'give a little now, get a lot later' situation. The American people (being products of the American culture) took a short-term view of the loans. They saw the low interest rates and huge appreciation in the value of their property. 'Why care if rates go up in 5 years? I'll sell my home by then and make big money!'

Economists no doubt laughed at the short-term view held by the consumers of these adjustable rate mortgages. Free markets are free so people are allowed to make personal mistakes (and allow the banks big profits). Besides, banks are just providing additional options to rational consumers.

When interest rates went up very modestly (and I mean slightly), people started defaulting on their loans. You see, Joe America was dumb to take out an adjustable rate mortgage. When the interest rates went up 1/10 of a percent, he couldn't afford the extra 7 dollars on his mortgage per month. Economists smiled and thought to themselves "Stupid consumer, that's what you get" and "isn't the free market great? The system really does work". And they were right. It really does work.

Then the housing bubble burst. The price of people's houses began to decline. A house that was purchased before for $150,000 may now only be worth $125,000. This created negative equity. Say the person took out a loan for the full $150,000. Even if they sold their house, they would still owe the bank $25,000. Couple this with the fact that the mortgage may have been an adjustable rate mortgage. It became untenable (not to mention irrational in an economic sense) for the consumer to pay more and more for a house that is worth less and less. So consumers began to default on their loans. The bank would take the house as collateral but it was worth far less than what was owed. This created a credit crises in the financial markets.

The Federal Reserve's power to reduce and increase money flow is its greatest weapon to fight inflation and recession. However, by raising interest rates (to stop inflation) you are literally making the mortgages of millions of people more and more. This could be thought of as a tax on working families.

So what is the situation we are in now? First, the Federal Reserve's ability to affect monetary policy has been severely eroded because of the adjustable rate mortgages. Second, we have people going bankrupt from not being able to afford the adjustable rate mortgages they have (and no economic interest in doing so while they're house is depreciating). Finally, we have a widespread crises in the lending institutions. If banks stop lending to corporations, small business, and responsible consumers, the economy will deflate. With no money to buy ipods and new tires, the economy will shrink and a possibly very difficult recession will follow.

So RIP prolonged prosperity. You were infused with laissez-faire capitalistic greed (by both lenders and borrowers) and ignored by economists and policy makers. The system works. But just remember that if left unchecked, the system will eventually take a large bite out of everyone.