Gutless

This describes the current state of most politicians, everywhere, ours included. 

Read this and tell me you don't want to punch somebody (or several people) in the face.

The head of ING Direct Canada, the country's sixth-largest mortgage lender, is warning Ottawa not to pull back too quickly on mortgage rules, lest that causes the very thing everyone wants to avoid – a swooning housing market.

Really? In my previous post, Canadian Banks want WHAT? the big 6 wanted TIGHTENED lending rules.  Now piss ass #6 is doing an about face, Seriously, the "save your money" guy from TV.  I'm fucking sick of banks DICTATING to politicians what they should do.  Seriously, any politician with balls would say "Thanks for the advice, now shut the fuck up."

“High level, one-stroke fixes are too simple, and can have a very large impact,” said ING Direct chief executive Peter Aceto. “I worry about government-based tightening of the mortgage rules creating a much worse reaction – too fast of a cooling, which is not really good for anyone.”

Bullshit. It's certainly good for homebuyers in that maybe we could actually restore housing affordability to Canadians.   And while we're at it, was the high level one-stroke fix of dropping interest rates to historic lows a problem? How about throwing money at homeowners in useless tax credits to build a deck?  How about allowing CMHC to cover next to every high ratio mortgage in the country?  Oh right, those are all "good" fixes.  Hypocrisy's a bitch, ain't it?

He stopped short of saying Canada is in a housing bubble. Still, the market “is hot and we are seeing some irrational behaviour” such as people engaging in bidding wars and waiving all conditions in buying a new house, he said.

Right, everything is just FINE as long as we don't use the B word.  Don't say it.   It doesn't exist if we don't say it does.  Seriously, don't say that fucking word or the shit will hit the fan.  Yes...we'll just say that homebuyers might be a little irrational, and that banks are being accomodative.  Problem solved...just don't say that word...you know...the one we talked about...rhymes with trouble...SHHH.

"You can't go from 100 km/h to zero in a nanosecond without suffering harsh consequences," they wrote. "Newton's third law is the best caution that can be served up with respect to abruptly altering Canadian mortgage rules as per some of the whisper talk leading up to the March 4th federal budget after the currently government sharply liberalized the mortgage market in early 2007."

No shit.  We're talking about taking our foot off the gas and possibly braking, not about stopping...you know, before we run into a giant fucking brick wall of DEBT which WILL stop the car when we run into it at 200kph.   The bigger we blow this bubble the more pain in popping it, so maybe we should stop talking around the issue,  pretending it doesn't exist,  and actually deal with it.

Pop it.  Prove you're not a bunch of gutless cowards.