Today’s “Socialist” Housing Market Nice summary (below) of the challenges facing the housing market in the years — and decades — ahead. After the last 18 months, arguably the same issue is confronting the banking system, the auto industry, the installment credit (credit card) market, the commercial paper market, etc. Government officials generally agree that...Read More
TARP Mystery . . . Solved! OK, it’s taken me almost a year to puzzle out, but I think I’ve finally got it: Superficially, the hundreds of billions in TARP money handed over to the financial sector’s worst actors only looks like a stupendous reward for failure — and not a little like ransom money,...Read More
Dropping Mortgage RatesStill “Artificially” HighWhere should mortgage rates be right now? If historical relationships held, the rate on a 30 year mortgage would be 3.5%(!). No, that’s not a typo; going back a decade or more, long-term mortgages cost typically cost about 150 basis points more than the 10 year U.S. Treasury Bond yield. The...Read More