The administration wants to get properties like his. It wants to be able to control the market place. By owning malls and other property it is now in the position of landlord and can therefore demand businesses act in conformity to administration policies. Want to do business? Lease a storefront and, oh by the way, allow the pay czar to regulate your salaries and the government will meddle in your union contracts etc, etc.

I think the standard ought not be whether the Fed acquired bad assets (defined as eventual proceeds in excess of amount loaned, assumed, etc.) but rather whether we (collectively) would have lost more had the Fed not taken those actions.

If my 'share' of the Fed loss (including my share of the stimulus, deadbeat homeowner relief, etc.) is $X, but that saved me from losing $3X in my 401(k), brokerage accounts, home value, job prospects, etc., then that was a good deal.

I don't think it is a good deal, as I think all of the bailout dollars did very little for people like me, but that's the formula we ought to use.

"I think the standard ought not be whether the Fed acquired bad assets (defined as eventual proceeds in excess of amount loaned, assumed, etc.) but rather whether we (collectively) would have lost more had the Fed not taken those actions."

The problem lies in figuring that out - it being just a slightly difficult thing to prove a negative result.

As it is, we've got $X spent, and we're told that if we had not then the cost would have been $X times two or three - but in many, many cases that cost would have been born by the financial companies themselves, through either bankrupcies or a 'fire sale' of the assets for whatever the market would have actually paid.

Is it really worth 'saving' $2X or $3x, if the value of the dollar is shortly thereafter cut by two thirds or more?

Time will tell, but I've got my doubts.

Jlawson: agreed that it is a tough calculation and one that can never by definitively proven, but it isn't different in theory from what people do everyday: 'are we better off with Obama than we would have been with McCain?', would I be happier if I went to see 'Couples Weekend' instead of playing golf? and 'am I better off having married my wife instead of holding out for an even more perfect mate?'

Thus, I think the verdict on Obama's bailouts is going to be based largely on whether things get better. If they are, Obama will take - and get - the credit, if they're aren't, he'll take the blame.... no matter how much he tries to blame Bush.

Interesting discussion. Steve, you're right. We always base our decisions on incomplete information and are unable to know what the outcome would be had we chosen an alternative path.

I'm looking at the overhead of that property in Oklahoma and it occurs to me that some creative entrepreneur could find something quite exciting to do with the property! I suspect that frequently the fact that properties like this go begging is a lack of imagination on the part of the owners.

That property has lots of potential for something other than a shopping mall. It would make an incredible indoor shooting range, or paint ball range etc that you could train survival groups/militia at. It could also be a giant homeless shelter and soup kitchen. A little work on the parking areas and gardens could be planted.

The Government might want to use it as an urban internment camp for displaced persons, GITMO inmates, refugees etc.

7:

Better idea, urban internment camp for those on welfare. If you don't want to work for a living then you are welcome to move to this facility where you are only required to help grow food or make clothes etc. We could even provide free cable.

Communism alive and well, I think most of those people would be thrilled to be new age hippies!

/only slightly sarcastic

Don't worry SS, faith in government isn't flagging, it's going extinct. Just wait 12.5 months and spin us a postive yarn.

I was a teen when Crossroads Mall first opened - and it was THE mall to go to for a long, long time. Two (count' em, TWO) excellent hobby stores, two bookstores, a huge food court - we were there 'most every weekend. It has been sad to watch this icon of my youth slide into decay. No other mall in OKC today has the appeal that Crossroads did in its prime.

If you like public housing projects, if you like what HUD, and local scum politicians and their contractors have done to Detroit, Cleveland, Oakland, Newark and hundreds of cites, and now to entire states....you're going to love what socialist central planning has in for America!

Give. It. Up. Suckas!

At least this place had a period of prosperity long ago. A few miles down the road from my house, there is a quite large and nicely appointed strip mall that effectively has no tenants. There is a Subway sandwich shop open but that could just as easily have been one of the numerous such fast food outlets within walking distance. It doesn't need to rest of the mall to justify the location. (This runs alongside the I-5 a few miles south of the Grapevine.)

There was a motorcycle shop but it has already died. And a furniture store in what has to be the worst imaginable location for a furniture store. That is it, out of 40 or so shop spaces built just a year ago.