Both Parties Move to Aid Homeowners

It’s about time.  The NY Times reports on a growing trend within both parties to provide relief directly to homeowners, not just banks.  Both need to be helped if we are going to get out of this mess in an expedient fashion.

Atheists in Fox Holes

The one-liner is something like, “there are no atheists in foxholes and no libertarians in a financial crisis”. So, I don’t think there will be too many objections to this recent comment from Obama, as reported in today’s WSJ, Obama Keen to Regulate Finance:

“We have been asleep at the switch, not just some of the regulatory agencies, but some of the congressional committees that might have been taking a look at this stuff,” Mr. Obama told reporters in Chicago. “We have not been as aggressive, and we’ve had a White House that started with the premise that deregulation was always good.”

It’s clear that the push for deregulation started in the Clinton administration, but why quibble?

Blame

I’ve been speaking to clients and others a lot about how we got into this mess, a topic that is too big for today, but I am a little frustrated by a particular theme I keep hearing.  The housing bubble was NOT caused by the Clinton administration’s attempt to get more lower-income people into housing.  The damage from the bursting of the housing bubble was done in higher-end housing, not lower-end.  It is the evaporation of wealth in the middle and upper classes that is rippling through our economy.

This topic is covered well here and here.