This is it for me, at least for this chapter. I am off to join some people who don’t much appreciate voices singing out of key, and while they might be able to get over my public disdain for coaches who punt in opposing territory, it would be rather awkward to continue to point out [...]
Archive for the ‘Housing Policy’ Category
The End of the Internet
Posted in Corruption, Education, Energy Policy, Health Care, Housing Crisis, Housing Policy, Industrial Policy, Inspirational, Labor Policy, Meltdown, Middle East, Miscellaneous, NAFTA, Obama, War on Terror on December 15, 2009 | 29 Comments »
Affordability
Posted in Housing Policy on December 10, 2009 | 9 Comments »
Steve Dodson over at the Idea Locker sent me this map and asked for my take. The site is an interesting mapping mashup that goes neighborhood by neighborhood in New York and tries to measure median income and housing affordability. Call it TIGER for dummies. The problem is in the text overlay essentially complaining that [...]
As Night Follows Day
Posted in Housing Crisis, Housing Policy on November 13, 2009 | 1 Comment »
If I may quote myself, from September 4: When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. Except the Bernanke/Summers/Geithner team, who seem to believe you try to dig your way through to the other side of the earth. Call it the Martingale Strategy of government finance. Like every other problem gambler, this team is [...]
Policing the Police
Posted in Basketball, Corruption, Housing Policy, Labor Policy, Meltdown, Obama, Soccer on November 9, 2009 | 3 Comments »
James Kwak over at Baseline has an post about the accounting treatment of Bank of America and Fannie Mae; quoting John Hempton: If Bank of America were to provide at the same rate its quarterly losses would be 50-80 billion and it would be completely bereft of capital – it would be totally cactus. It [...]
The Model State
Posted in Corruption, Education, Housing Policy, Labor Policy on November 2, 2009 | 6 Comments »
William Voegeli has an LA Times article on the two different models of large state – Texas and California: California and Texas are not perfect representatives of the alternative deals, but they come close. Overall, the Census Bureau’s latest data show that state and local government expenditures for all purposes in 2005-06 were 46.8% higher [...]
Spare the Rod
Posted in Domestic Policy, George W. Bush, Housing Crisis, Housing Policy, Industrial Policy, Labor Policy, Obama on October 20, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Two Russians, Ivan and Peter, struggle to survive in farm country. Eventually Ivan gets a goat. His life improves; he has milk and help with the grasses. A genie comes to Peter and says “I can grant you your deepest wish.” Peter is shocked. “You’re going to kill Ivan’s goat?” That was always the gallows [...]
College and Debt
Posted in Finance, Foreigners, Labor Policy, Housing Policy, Football, Transportation Policy, Education on October 15, 2009 | 6 Comments »
Mike Konczal has an interesting post that is popping up all over the place (here, here, and here, and probably somewhere else by now) analyzing a throwaway human interest piece on a woman named Karen King from the Wall Street Journal: Her biggest chunk of debt, $26,000, stems from student loans to pay for her [...]
Tell Us What You Really Want
Posted in Corruption, Housing Crisis, Housing Policy, Meltdown on October 1, 2009 | 4 Comments »
Courtesy of Mike Konczal at Rortybomb (itself a thoughtful compilation of a variety of articles, especially this one from Interfluidity), this gem from the Mortgage Bankers Association: The centerpiece of MBA’s recommendation is the creation of a new line of mortgage-backed securities (MBS). Each security would have two components – a loan level guarantee provided by [...]
Olympics of Stupid
Posted in Basketball, China, Corruption, Football, Foreigners, Germany, Housing Policy, Labor Policy, Olympics, Soccer on September 30, 2009 | 10 Comments »
Not long after saying that health care was more important than lobbying for the Olympics, Barack Obama decided to make the trip to Copenhagen to lobby to put the 2016 Olympics in Chicago. On this one, here’s hoping he loses.
Stop Digging
Posted in Housing Crisis, Housing Policy, Meltdown, Tim Geithner on September 4, 2009 | 13 Comments »
Courtesy of Calculated Risk, a fantastic example of the government’s inability to grasp the root cause of our economic woes: The Federal Housing Administration, hit by increasing mortgage-related losses, is in danger of seeing its reserves fall below the level demanded by Congress…”They’re probably going to need a bailout at some point because they’re making [...]
