Morning Must-Read: Dean Baker: Betting Against Subprime Mortgages Was a Good Thing

…richly deserves to be ridiculed… [for] want[ing] people to get used to lower living standards…. People are wrongly attacking Greene when they complain about his betting against subprime mortgage backed securities…. The securities were in fact bad. Greene betting against them made that clear in the markets somewhat sooner than would have otherwise been the case, bringing down the bubble earlier and more rapidly. This is good… fewer people were caught up in it than if the bubble had continued….

It would have saved people an enormous amount of pain if there had been lots of Jeff Greenes betting against subprime mortgage backed securities in 2003-2004…. Greene was acting out of greed, not a desire to help the economy and society. But this is a case where greed was good…”