The following, in today's New York Times, contains the beginnings of the
wisdom that Robert Reich, and the bunch gathered around Obama, doesn't
have. Governments could then do the same with banks and big business.
Without the moral hazard of knowing that if they're big enough they will be
rescued from foolishness by governments, they'll quickly sort themselves
out just like the Californian '49ers. After all, at bottom they depend on
mass consumer support quite as much as, if not more than, governments. It
was only when governments went hyper-militaristic and started printing
money to buy armies and pay for warfare a century ago that the rot really
started. Both left-wing and right-wing political ideologues (eager for
governmental power for themselves) are still in denial about this. Now that
the major powers can't afford big nationalistic wars any longer, and can
only pick on weak, small nations (and not very successfully either),
perhaps we are actually at the beginning of a solution.
Keith
------
Housing Woes Bring New Cry: Let Market Fall
By
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/david_streitfeld/index.html?inline=nyt-per>DAVID
STREITFELD
The unexpectedly deep plunge in home sales this summer is likely to force
the Obama administration to choose between future homeowners and current
ones, a predicament officials had been eager to avoid.
Over the last 18 months, the administration has rolled out just about every
program it could think of to prop up the ailing housing market, using tax
credits, mortgage modification programs, low interest rates,
government-backed loans and other assistance intended to keep values up and
delinquent borrowers out of foreclosure. The goal was to stabilize the
market until a resurgent economy created new households that demanded
places to live.
As the economy again sputters and potential buyers flee July housing sales
sank 26 percent from July 2009 there is a growing sense of exhaustion with
government intervention. Some economists and analysts are now urging a dose
of shock therapy that would greatly shift the benefits to future
homeowners: Let the housing market crash.
When prices are lower, these experts argue, buyers will pour in, creating
the elusive stability the government has spent billions upon billions
trying to achieve.
Housing needs to go back to reasonable levels,said Anthony B. Sanders, a
professor of real estate finance at George Mason University. If we keep
trying to stimulate the market, thats the definition of insanity.
The further the market descends, however, the more miserable one group
important both politically and economically will be: the tens of millions
of homeowners who have already seen their home values drop an average of 30
percent.
The poorer these owners feel, the less likely they will indulge in the sort
of consumer spending the economy needs to recover. If they see an identical
house down the street going for half what they owe, the temptation to
default might be irresistible. That could make the markets current malaise
seem minor.
Caught in the middle is an administration that gambled on a recovery that
is not happening.
The administration made a bet that a rising economy would solve the housing
problem and now they are out of chips,said Howard Glaser, a former Clinton
administration housing official with close ties to policy makers in the
administration. They are deeply worried and dont really know what to do.
That was clear last week, when the secretary of housing and urban
development,
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/d/shaun_donovan/index.html?inline=nyt-per>Shaun
Donovan, appeared to side with current homeowners, telling CNN the
administration would go everywhere we canto make sure the slumping market
recovers.
Mr. Donovan even opened the door to another housing tax credit like the one
that expired last spring, which paid first-time buyers as much as $8,000
and buyers who were moving up $6,500. The cost to taxpayers was in the
neighborhood of $30 billion, much of which went to people who would have
bought anyway.
Administration press officers quickly backpedaled from Mr. Donovans
comment, saying a revived credit was either highly unlikely or flat-out
impossible. Mr. Donovan declined to be interviewed for this article. In a
statement, a White House spokeswoman responded to questions about possible
new stimulus measures by pointing to those already in the works.
In the weeks ahead, we will focus on successfully getting off the ground
programs we have recently announced,the spokeswoman, Amy Brundage, said.
Among those initiatives are $3 billion to keep the unemployed from losing
their homes and a refinancing program that will try to cut the mortgage
balances of owners who owe more than their property is worth. A previous
program with similar goals had limited success.
If last years tax credit was supposed to be a bridge over a rough patch, it
ended with a glimpse of the abyss. The average home now takes more than a
year to sell. Add in the homes that are foreclosed but not yet for sale and
the total is greater still.
Builders are in even worse shape. Sales of new homes are lower than in the
depths of the
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/r/recession_and_depression/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>recession
of the early 1980s, when mortgage rates were double what they are now,
unemployment was pervasive and the gloom was at least as thick.
The deteriorating circumstances have given a new voice to the do
nothingchorus, whose members think the era of trying to buy stability while
hoping the market will catch fire called extend and pretendor delay and
prayhas run its course.
We have had enough artificial support and need to let the free market do
its thing,said the housing analyst Ivy Zelman.
Michael L. Moskowitz, president of Equity Now, a direct mortgage lender
that operates in New York and seven other states, also advocates letting
the market fall. Prices are still artificially high,he said. The government
is discriminating against the renters who are able to buy at $200,000 but
cant at $250,000.
A small decline in home prices might not make too much of a difference to a
slack economy. But an unchecked drop of 10 percent or more might prove
entirely discouraging to the millions of owners just hanging on, especially
those who bought in the last few years under the impression that a
turnaround had already begun.
The government is on the hook for many of these mortgages, another reason
policy makers have been aggressively seeking stability. What helped support
the market last year could now cause it to crumble.
Since 2006, the
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/f/federal_housing_administration/index.html?inline=nyt-org>Federal
Housing Administration has insured millions of low down payment loans.
During the first two years, officials concede, the credit quality of the
borrowers was too low.
With little at stake and a queasy economy, buyers bailed: nearly 12 percent
were delinquent after a year. Last fall, F.H.A. cash reserves fell below
the Congressionally mandated minimum, and the agency had to shore up its
finances.
Government-backed loans in 2009 went to buyers with higher
<http://www.nytimes.com/info/credit-score/?inline=nyt-classifier>credit
scores. Yet the percentage of first-year defaults was still 5 percent,
according to data from the research firm CoreLogic.
These are at-risk buyers,said Sam Khater, a CoreLogic economist. They have
very little equity, and thats the largest predictor of default.
This is the risk policy makers face. If home prices begin to fall again
with any serious velocity, borrowers may stay away in such numbers that the
market never recovers,said Mr. Glaser, a consultant whose clients include
the
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/national_association_of_realtors/index.html?inline=nyt-org>National
Association of Realtors.
Those sorts of worries have a few people from the world of finance
suggesting that the administration should do much more, not less.
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/william_h_gross/index.html?inline=nyt-per>William
H. Gross, managing director at Pimco, a giant manager of bond funds, has
proposed the government refinance at lower rates millions of mortgages it
owns or insures. Such a bold action, Mr. Gross said in a recent speech,
would provide a crucial stimulus of $50 to $60 billion in consumption,as
well as increase housing prices.
The idea has gained little traction. Instead, there is a sense that, even
with much more modest notions, government intervention is not the answer.
The National Association of Realtors, the driving force behind the credit
last year, is not calling for a new round of stimulus.
Some members of the National Association of Home Builders say a new credit
of $25,000 would raise demand but their chances of getting this through
Congress are nonexistent.
Our members are saying that if we cant get a very large tax credit one that
really brings people off the bench why use our political capital at
all?said David Crowe, the chief economist for the home builders.
That might give the Obama administration permission to take the risk of
doing nothing.
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England
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