Comments on: Econ Round Up: Truncated Version

By: The Raven

The Raven — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 17:50:34 +0000

BTW, the sharper commentators on the left are seeing a post-election deal that embraces some version of Bowles-Simpson. We may hope that this gets lost in partisan conflict. If not, economy meet bus.

By: The Raven

The Raven — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 17:36:43 +0000

The residential property system in the USA hass been trashed, with millions of titles in question. Entire neighborhoods have been thrown to the tender mercies of the banking system. No-one sensible will take out a mortgage until the banking system is cleaned up, and I see no signs of that in less than five years.

People will, of course, go into the housing market anyway. I can’t imagine what the market is going to look like after more years of banking abuses. It is possible that, by 2015, the vast majority of the public will be unwilling to take on even safe mortgages.

Yeah, it’s worse than it looks, even now.

Donna, Obama could start by ordering Treasury to reign in the OCC, which has been complicit in mortgage abuses, and also pressing the banks to undertake principal modifications. The first is something that could be done in a day: Treasury is part of the executive and under Obama’s direct authority. The second is probably something that could be done quickly under HAMP.

By: Donna

Donna — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 16:55:22 +0000

Regarding housing–specifically underwater homeowners–is there anything at all President Obama can do, other than cajole, to ‘cut red tape and help responsible homeowners refinance their mortgages at today’s lower rates’–which is what he is asking Congress to do.

http://www.barackobama.com/jobs-now

Refinancing at lower rates would, of course, provide our economy a much need jolt–so Republicans in Congress will block it at all costs.

It’s always instructive to hear your take on MSNBC.

By: N. Nyberg

N. Nyberg — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 13:59:24 +0000

That last sentenced really sums it up. It seems that politics used to be the means to reach the ends of achieving one’s preferred governance solutions. I wonder more and more whether governance hasn’t turned into the means to reach the end of political dominance for its own sake. The subordination of the actual running of the country, and dominance of political goals is hurting our economy and our country, imho.

Take for example the ACA, AKA Obamacare. It couldn’t be more clear that most Republicans had no genuine governance/ideological reason to oppose it — it was composed mostly of their own ideas, after all. They shot holes in it and badmouthed it (death panels!) for purely political reasons, mangling what a vast majority of politicians knew was pretty good governance for the sake of politics. Tossing solid agreed-upon governing ideas overboard for the sake of pure politics is a luxury we cannot afford. I fear we are about to see it happen again with the fiscal cliff.