Housing Hell: Revenge of the Appraisers
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on July 28th, 2011 4:31 am by HL
Housing Hell: Revenge of the Appraisers
Steve Malanga, RealClearMarkets
Among the many guilty co-conspirators in the housing bubble were appraisers who succumbed to pressure from loan officers, buyers and real estate agents eager to get deals done. Wary of losing business, these appraisers submitted home valuations that were unrealistically high, contributing to an upward spiral of prices that was unsustainable.Appraisers' lack of independence brought calls for reform once the market melted down, including a spate of new federal regulations commencing in 2009, the latest in a long string of efforts by the government over the last half century to reform the…
So Long, Speaker Boehner?
David Morris, The Kiplinger Letter
House Speaker John Boehner is stuck between the tea party and a hard place. No matter what happens in the debt ceiling debate, it shouldn't surprise anyone if the Ohio Republican is the top dog in the House for just one term.On the surface, the Ohio Republican seems perfectly suited for the role of negotiator. You can't grow up as one of 12 siblings in a house with just two bedrooms and one bathroom without learning something about the art of compromise. But Boehner is in a bind, knowing that the U.S. debt ceiling has to be raised soon, but caught between tea party Republicans who…
Medicare Board Could Be Obama’s Achilles’ Heel
Doug Schoen, Huff Post
As President Obama continues to push for an ambitious deficit-reduction deal in advance of the August 2nd deadline for raising the debt limit, one thing is clear: Medicare reform will be a critical part of any budget agreement — now and in the future.And while essential to curbing our government's rising spending, reform must be done in a way that protects policies and programs that work while eliminating or avoiding policies and programs that prove both costly and ineffective.
Fundamentals Don’t Favor Obama’s Re-elect
Jay Cost, Weekly Standard
The next presidential election is about fifteen months away. And even though the outcome is highly uncertain, we nevertheless can get an early read on the “fundamentals” –and these do not look good for President Obama.First, a little historical background. From 1936 until about 1984, Democratic partisans vastly outnumbered Republicans in the broader electorate. This meant that GOP nominees not only had to win their base, they also had to do extremely well among independents and carry a good number of Democrats. However, with the success of the Reagan administration, the percentage…
Let’s Not Pretend This is Austerity
Michael Tanner, National Review
‘It is clear we must enter an age of austerity,” House minority leader Nancy Pelosi mourned as she endorsed Harry Reid’s proposal for raising the debt ceiling. Austerity? Really?The Reid plan would theoretically cut spending by $2.7 trillion over ten years. Even if that were true, it would still allow our national debt increase by some $10 trillion over the next decade. But, of course, the $2.7 trillion figure is mostly fiction. About $1 trillion of the savings would come from the eventual end of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, savings that were going to occur…
