2004-2007 Redux: Crisis officially wasted, history on schedule to repeat

Revealed: The home loan that could save you a fortune:

ING Direct, Australia's fifth largest lender, is preparing to sell loans that have no fixed term and no requirement to repay any capital along the way.
...
Repayments would be kept to a minimum, allowing borrowers to benefit from capital growth in their property.
"People are needlessly being denied the chance to buy a property while prices spiral rapidly out of their reach" ING Direct CEO Don Koch said.
"There is an urgent need to provide more affordable options and borrowers should be able to choose whether they want to repay the capital, or not."
Mr Koch wants to position the bank as a "mortgage partner for life", with borrowers carrying the same interest-only loan from property to property for as long as they wish, accumulating equity from rising house prices as they go.

Remember how well this worked for us? For what it's worth, the correct way to never have to repay capital is to rent. This sounds more like indentured servitude than progress. Next thing you know we'll be voting-in feudalism. This is totally going to end in tears.

This is not progress: Move Your Politician’s Money?

 From The Baseline Scenario:

what happens when the location of political candidates'own money starts to matter. As early as this fall's primaries, expect to hear people ask politicians in debates and through various kinds of interactions: (1) where do you, personally, keep and borrow money, and (2), in all relevant cases, where did you put public money when it was up to you?

Make them put the money where their mouth is? Seems plausible for demand deposits, notes and revolvers; however, who you gonna call when you need to place $3B of callable notes in the muni mkt? Hopefully not your friendly neighborhood credit union. Investment Banking: somebody gotta do it.

Don't government agencies have to use the service provider of least-cost that meets all of the stated deliverables? What happens when Mayor Joe Corrupto decides to do all the town banking through the local Bank that his biggest campaign donor is heading?

Don't get me wrong, I think the idea makes a tiny bit of sense. But only if local banks can provide the same or better service for equal or lesser cost than TBTF banks. Any other way is just begging for favoritism and corruption.