It's intended to soften up the opponents of the real bailout to follow. You see, the Bush Administration has seen the light and realized that unregulated capitalism is really bad for us. So they've been sitting around the Oval Office for weeks now thinking about how to bail out beleaguered homeowners (and maybe even provide some benefits to tenants too) and realized that there would be a lot of opposition to that--unless the potential opponents had already received a bailout. "We'll get 'em," Cheney said, sneering. "They'll natter on about how awful bailouts are, and we just put out one of those PowerPoints showing how much money they got in THEIR bailout."

Posted at July 23, 2008 2:51 PM in response to Wanted: Legitimate Reasons to Bail Out Fannie and Freddie Stockholders

Amazingly I think that the rating agencies can't be sued for their recommendations. Ratings agencies aren't like banks or other commercial institutions that, theoretically at least, have to release financial information. They have the power they do only because the buyers and sellers of financial instruments agree that S&P, Moody and Fitch should determine the value of any bond issue or SIV or whatever. There's no regulation or oversight and their ratings are legally simply opinions. It's as though everyone suddenly started paying attention to my financial pronouncements, the media starting reporting that PeonInChief had approved this or that SIV, and the Wall Street Journal nodded approvingly.

Posted at July 19, 2008 8:42 PM in response to Credit Cards, Bankruptcy Laws and the Mortgage Meltdown

This silliness is actually pretty old. When the Reagan administration was promoting marriage for young African American women as the Solution to All Our Problems, Barbara Ehrenreich pointed out that at the average wage for a young African American male, our young mother would require four husbands to achieve a moderate income for her household. But I don't think that this is what these men have in mind when they talk about stable families. And why does the right wing get to repeat the same old tripe over and over?

Posted at July 14, 2008 6:26 PM in response to Gender, Jobs, and the Working Class Family

What is it with men--that they can't get their heads around the idea that mothers and children are pretty tightly bound together for at least 18 years or so. And this means that stigmatizing irresponsible parenting, unwed motherhood, illegitimacy, means stigmatizing most of all the children. Gee, we won't give tax breaks to single parents--that'll show them. Yeah, and it will also impoverish kids. Will these men ever take up thinking?

Posted at July 14, 2008 6:13 PM in response to What Women Want

JonF311

In California credit checks by landlords are so common that the price landlords can charge tenants is regulated by state law. In fact, tenants should be wary of landlords who don't do credit checks, as it often indicates a landlord who is about to be foreclosed.

Posted at July 14, 2008 11:19 AM in response to Rescuing Fannie and Freddie: Let's Draw Blood

Hey, comrades,

I can't believe I'm defending an economist. The only economist I really like is Francisco Soberon, and I view economists as so committed to their theories that they're willing to defend them by squashing the little bugs. And I can't believe that people are criticizing him for not calling the exact moment of the bubble, when what I think was the important part of his work was warning low- and moderate-income homeowners that they might be getting themselves into a real mess. And now it's happened. It's not only recent homebuyers, but people who had owned their homes for 18 or 20 years and who refinanced from cheap mortgages to more expensive ones to, for instance, pay medical expenses.

And what's happening to the foreclosed is a disaster. The lucky ones are doubling up with family of friends. Most rental housing is closed to them, as they have low credit scores, so they are taking whatever they can get at whatever price. In more than a few cases they pay huge deposits ($5,000 in one case), only to find that the house they're renting is in foreclosure and they're going to have to move again, as well as try to recover their deposit money. Quite a number of people have been forced to move twice, and some have been forced out three, four or five times.

And don't get me started on the tenants who are being evicted because their landlords faced foreclosure.

Posted at July 13, 2008 7:06 PM in response to Rescuing Fannie and Freddie: Let's Draw Blood

I wish that, in every discussion of private individual health insurance, reporters would be required to note that only a tiny percentage of the adult population can purchase policies. If you had childhood asthma, a broken bone, surgery of any kind, a suspicious mole, any infection, you will not be able to buy an individual policy. In such a system, the vast majority of the population would have to be insured through the government. Maybe McCain's plan is government-sponsored health insurance through the back door, as those who couldn't obtain private insurance would be forced into the government pool.

Posted at July 1, 2008 11:02 AM in response to Barack Care Versus John Care: Health Care Under the Next President

Even our local paper was reporting the percentage of ARMs--although they didn't seem to mind, as the real estate advertising section of the paper had mushroomed to four separate sections.

Posted at June 16, 2008 11:53 AM in response to The Washington Post Is Still Missing the Housing Bubble

I think only tenants are "subject" to the discipline of the free market. Investment bankers have shown that they are so intelligent and competent that they shouldn't be subject to the same discipline. And why do we bother with the Democrats?

Posted at May 17, 2008 11:17 PM in response to Will Low-Income Renters Pay for the Housing Bailout?

Why are so few people screaming about this:

1. It allegedly involves economics, which most people don't understand. In fact, it involves arithmetic, which is easily understandable. Calculators are available for those, like myself, who are "arithmetic-challenged."

Also threaten people with economic collapse and most people wouldn't be sufficiently secure in their knowledge of the ways of CDOs and SIVs to say "what bunk."

2. Homeowners make up the majority of the electorate and are fearful of declining prices. Many people have their retirement money entirely in their houses and a decline in those prices will insure a meager retirement income. Further there are a lot of homeowners who took equity out of their houses to pay down credit cards, pay medical expenses etc., and will be upside down (even if they can pay the bill) if prices slide much more.

3. Most local and state governments are heavily dependent on property tax and developer revenue, and cannot afford fewer housing starts and declining property tax revenue. (That many government entities may suffer for years of reduced sales tax revenue because people are paying inflated mortgages and can't purchase other goods.

4. Have you any idea how much money banks, real estate organizations and home builders give in campaign contributions every year?

Posted at May 15, 2008 12:22 PM in response to Progressives and the Housing Bailout