All Posts Tagged With: "housing policy"
Getting Off Track: How Government Actions and Interventions Caused, Prolonged, and Worsened the Financial Crisis and The Housing Boom and Bust
These two books are must-reads for anyone wanting to have a working understanding of the economic and financial crisis. They complement each other and together form a civics lesson for an informed electorate. Economists are prone to write turgid prose and employ a jargon-filled style. Not these two gems. Each author is a deservedly well-regarded [...]
22Sep2010 | Gerald P. O'Driscoll, Jr. | 2 comments | ContinuedFan and Fred Lied, Too!
Has anyone any doubts about the federal government’s role in the housing and financial debacle? From Peter Wallison’s latest in the Wall Street Journal: New research by Edward Pinto, a former chief credit officer for Fannie Mae and a housing expert, has found that from the time Fannie and Freddie began buying risky loans as [...]
30Dec2009 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | ContinuedHere We Go Again
I saw a television commercial today in which a lending company urged people to refinance their homes. It made a special appeal to those who have been unable to refinance: FHA (Federal Housing Administration) now requires less documentation than before and no appraisal of the property.Isn’t this the sort of thing that caused so much [...]
29Sep2009 | Sheldon Richman | 1 comment | ContinuedWho Watches Our Guardians?
Predictably, the leading inquisitors into the causes of the financial turmoil are themselves among the most culpable: Rep. Barney Frank, Sen. Chris Dodd, and New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. AIG got into trouble because it in effect wrote insurance policies (credit default swaps) against the failure of securities based on mortgages, many of which were waiting to blow up when the housing bubble burst. Who created the housing bubble?
21May2009 | Sheldon Richman | 1 comment | ContinuedState Capitalism in Crisis
The transfer of risk through government privilege — the removal or weakening of market discipline — more than accounts for what’s going on these days.
26Sep2008 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Selfishness of the Unselfish
Several years ago, I encountered a woman at a cocktail party in Atlanta who was active in that city’s historical-preservation movement. To make conversation, I asked why she thought that stricter historical-preservation regulations were required. “Because greedy developers tear down too many old and beautiful homes or renovate them in ways that destroy their historical [...]
1May2000 | Donald J. Boudreaux | 0 comments | Continued-
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