You are right, in one sense, but please chew on the following:

Every creditor who at predatory lending rates has been able to show himself credit worthy is also evidencing that he should in fact not been charged those rates to begin with and that what he is doing is paying the cost of those creditors that confirmed they were not credit worthy… at least while paying those predatory interest rates.

Sorry to say you are absolutely misinformed. It was the credit rating agencies, those appointed by the regulators survey the risks, that gave this securities AAA and with that wings to fly all over the world offering such a juicy bargain as “good returns with no risks” and so much did they fly that the first bank that went broke because of investing in those securities was a German bank that had never given a mortgage in Germany.

And now Merkel, the German Chancellor (and with the French doing the same) is even asking for a European credit rating agency so as to correct the bias that exists by which she must mean she wants European bias.

And if cracking down on so-called predatory lending makes credit less accessible to the 90+% of people who are credit worthy, you've failed.

P K,

"Q. Why is life not simple and straightforward?
A. So that PhDs can also make a living, trading freely their grand definitions!
Posted by: Per Kurowski | Jun 14, 2008 4:45:40 AM"

Your answer is biased, prejudicial, judgmental, bigoted, envious, nasty, mean spirited, liberal, and unworthy of a guest. (wow, hows that?)

Q. Why is life not simple and straightforward?

You have two choices for the answer:

1. Christian: God has an unrevealed plan and he works in mysterious ways.

2. Secular: Mother Nature is nothing but random change.

From either of those two platforms we humans are subjected to dealing with complexity and learning flexibility.

Actually I sensed that you and I were basically on the same page and I thought my response made that obvious, I was really pointing the nit piking finger at the others.

Perhaps we weren't as close in thought as I thought my thoughts were thinking.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make with the reference to the mortgage meltdown. You seem to be saying that the credit rating agencies cost "sophisticated victims" a lot of money. I assume that the people you're talking about are the purchasers of mortgage-backed securities, not the homeowners.

For the large part, those purchasers did not depend on the credit rating agencies. Mortgage backed securities underwent a lot of due diligence, looking into exactly the mortgages that were pooled together. Purchasers knew, or had the opportunity to know, exactly what they were buying. If these securities had been registered and sold to the public, I would agree with you. But, they weren't.

Agree. That has nothing to do with free trade… just as cracking down on the financial regulator´s outsourced risk surveyors, the credit rating agencies, and who by committing human errors that should have been expected by the regulators have now cost sophisticated victims thousand fold what Nigerian con artists might have cost their unsophisticated victims, should have nothing to do with free trade.

But the above also opens up a different set of questions like… does the professor’s “adult” mean “knowledgeable”… meaning that free trade applies only to trade between informed consumers…among Ralph Naders? Friends, where is this professor taking us? Could it be that it was not as much nit picking as initially thought?

Q. Why is life not simple and straightforward?
A. So that PhDs can also make a living, trading freely their grand definitions!

Absolutely… I confess! But someone’s got to do the nit picking too.

In my own take, children obviously benefit from free trade, especially children in the developed wealthier nations. And, it goes beyond the obvious that their benefit flows through the ability of their parents to provide a varied diet, health care, and education unavailable in the quantities and consistency that is ours today; but, to the children themselves who very frequently have disposable income of "their own" and therefore benefit from free trade in the disposal of their own money.

However, that being said, a merchant would be and is well advised to not try and engage children in any kind of contractual way because he will lose in the end.

But, I think that this is really just nit picking what Don posted and I doubt seriously he intended to ignore the benefits of free trade to children. It seems to me to be something that, if I were at his keyboard, I wouldn't have bothered expounding on either.

In a free society, the parents have the right to decide whether their children should benefit from free trade.

Children under the age of majority are considered to not be able to exercise full (enough) control over their actions to be truly "free". That's why they have parents/guardians, and why those agents must give consent for the children.