QuestionerThe U.S. government was seemingly complicit in enticing the American public to buy a home and therefore a mortgage at any cost. Do you think our legislators are doing the same thing now, and are we creating a bubble?
WarrenNo, I don't think we're remotely near a bubble in terms of housing now. And I certainly think that your statement is accurate but not complete. In terms of what went on before, I mean, the whole the whole country almost, every really kind of went crazy in terms of housing. And the government was a very big part of it because they're a very big part of the financing of it. And it's certainly true that the plenty of legislators were encouraging Freddie and Fannie to be doing things that they shouldn't have been doing. And not just in retrospect. I mean, if you looked at it at the time. I mean, it could come to that conclusion. But there were an awful lot of people doing the same thing. I mean, it was coming from all sources. And it had that aspect to it, which bubbles do, where year after year for three or four or five years, whatever it might be, that the skeptics looked like idiots and that the people who jumped on the bandwagon were the ones that were refinancing their houses at ever higher prices. And people who were speculating. on other houses. So it just looked all so wonderful. And people are really susceptible to that sort of bandwagon effect where they see their neighbors making easy money. Everybody's making easy money but them, and they finally succumb. It's just, it's the nature of things. And it doesn't mean the people that Freddie or Fannie were necessarily evil. A few of them were. or that legislators necessarily were evil, although, again, a few of them probably were. But overwhelmingly, I think most people just get caught up in a grand illusion. And, you know, it's happened many times in history. It'll happen again. And you can use that very much to your product.
CharlieWell, the main problem was that as things got crazier and crazier, the government could have intervened by pulling the way the punch bowl before everybody was totally drunk. And instead, the government increased the proof. And this was not a good idea. But you, it's hard to get governments in a democracy to be pulling away the punch bowl from voters who want to get drunk.
WarrenWell, it's almost impossible.
CharlieYeah. Yeah.