Did I say wind down? No I meant expand! —The President comes up with a new scheme for bailing out underwater real estate investors and Wall Street firms stuck with “toxic assets.”
Tag Archives: FHA
Stealth Bailout for the Big Banks, Write Downs
In yesterday’s New York Times Gretchen Morgenson examines the plight of Ed DeMarco who is the acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Committee. He has suffered the slings and arrows of many in Washington because he hasn’t forced Fannie and Freddie to write down principal for underwater homeowners. He says he has an obligation to the taxpayer not to do so. Barney Frank disagrees. (Others do too.)
The author makes the argument that such write downs actually constitute yet another bailout for the banks.
FHA Is Screwing Up the Housing Market Even More
Peter J. Wallison and Edward J. Pinto at the American Enterprise Institute delve into the accounting practices of the Federal Housing Authority which has risen to new prominence in the wake of the Freddie and Fannie dual implosions. It’s not pretty.
Mortgage Market Follies
As the article below points out, 20% of all the new American mortgage loans made in 2012 are expected to be financed with the Fed’s money created out of thin air. It’s not that the Fed will be printing new money for this purpose. It will just use some of the vast quantities of money it newly printed in the last few years.
