DES MOINES — Texas Gov. Rick Perry swung through Des Moines on the caucus campaign trail last week, bringing a touch of Texas swagger to the Iowa Credit Union Convention while again railing against federal regulations.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency filed suit Friday against 17 national and international banking giants for their roles in the toxic mortgage securities scandal that led to the current housing crisis.
This afternoon, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Office of Management and Budget Acting Director Jeffrey Zients gave one final report on the United States’ fiscal year:
Due to careful stewardship of the emergency programs, their effect on the deficit was much smaller than previously estimated. The Troubled Asset Relief
Today, J.P. Morgan Chase revealed that it made a third-quarter profit of $4.4 billion, despite dwindling revenues. The bank set aside far less money — $6.6 billion, or 67 percent, less than it did at the same time last year — to cover losses on things like mortgages and More…
Tyler Cowen writes:
Many smart people say we should. It seems increasingly clear that we must. For how long can the government prop them up? Are we never to have a private market in mortgages again?
This weekend, the New York Times featured an unusual story on housing. Its argument goes like this: The government has done a lot to ensure that home prices do not slide too precipitously. But houses are still too expensive — and if the government were to pull its interventions, More…
Felix Salmon links to a post by Barbara Kiviat asking: If the government wants to build more incentives for affordable rentals, and more and more people will need to live in rentals since the housing bust, who is going to rent out all those houses?
Another principle most participants in the “Future of Housing Finance” Treasury Department conference agreed on: The country needs more, better rental housing. But what kind of rental housing? In Newsweek, Alyssa Katz writes about a federal voucher program for low-income families. The families can use the vouchers in any More…
For reforming housing finance, there remain more questions than answers — a fact highlighted at yesterday’s “Future of Housing Finance” conference at the Treasury Department. But policymakers in Washington seem to agree on one thing: There will be no more Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, at least not in More…
Yesterday, the Treasury Department held a conference on the “Future of Housing Finance.” The summit — drawing together major governmental, housing-industry research and private-industry figures — came as the Obama administration develops a plan to overhaul Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored enterprises that have required a $150 More…
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