Let the bad investments die already

From the Mercury News:

LAS VEGAS — President Obama unveiled a $1.5 billion program to aid the states hardest hit by the foreclosure crisis, a small but targeted effort to address a housing problem that continues to resist government solutions.

The program, which administration officials called an "innovation fund," is modest in size and reach and comes as the administration's chief foreclosure-prevention program faces criticism for not doing more to help borrowers.

Speaking to the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, Obama said the program would allow states to find new ways to help struggling homeowners. "That means that here in Nevada, we're going to be able to prevent some foreclosures that otherwise would have happened," he said Friday afternoon. "The goal is to target communities at the center of the crisis and to empower local agencies that know these communities best."

Obama made the same promise at a town hall meeting earlier in the day, telling about 1,700 people in Henderson, a suburb near Las Vegas, that "government has a responsibility to help deal with this problem."

VH: Here we go again. The Federal government riding the white horse over the hill to "help" out distressed homeowners. So instead of letting these bad investments go quickly to bankruptcy and clearing out the housing market, we have a vain attempt to prop up a market that shows very little signs of improvement. I don't see how this helps people who, after this small injection of public funds, will most likely lose their homes because they can't find a job or the value of their homes are much lower than what they are shelling out each month in mortgage payments. The irony in all this is that it was the Federal government that led all of these poor people down this path of destruction by implementing all sorts of "affordable housing" incentives. If the Feds want affordable housing now and they want a quick recovery of the housing market, why not let prices drop to their equilibrium? Instead, we get more public funds thrown at lost causes.

Obama's $100 million budget cut

HT: The Bobo Files

Funny but true...so true

HT: Liberty Pen

Best post I've read today on our economic pickle...

From the Economist's Cookbook on Time magazines torpid reporting:

So TIME spends paragraphs talking about easy money. But they neglect to clearly state that the easy money is the fault of the Federal Reserve! It's asinine to blame all of this on the greed of wall street. Greed is a constant factor of life. It's like blaming gravity when a plane crashes.

How government stoked the mania---more from Russell Roberts

Russell Roberts (professor of economics at George Mason University) has a great article on the housing collapse and the financial mess that has reared its ugly head in today’s Wall Street Journal . The simple-minded meme from the Left these days is that all of this has to do with deregulation and the voracity of the free market. It seems to be a popular, if not populist, argument. The issue is far more complex than we are being told.

Kling on Freddie and Fannie and the Recent History of the U.S. Housing Market

Quite possibly one of the most educational podcasts that I have listened to regarding the debacle of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is this one on Econ Talk with Russell Roberts and Arnold Kling. The discussion covers all the intricacies and mechanisms between government and these large congress-created behemoths. If you don’t believe that government had a hand in the collapse of these two GSE’s (government sponsored enterprises), take some time and listen in.

More on the financial crisis and the big government cronies that caused it

From Charles Krauthammer:

The mob is agitated, but hardly blameless. While the punch bowl -- Alan Greenspan's extremely low post-9/11 interest rates -- was being held out, few complained about cheap loans and doubling home values. Now all of the sudden everything is the fault of Wall Street malfeasance.

I have little doubt that some, if not many, cases of malfeasance will emerge. But what we conveniently neglect is the fact that much of this crisis was brought upon us by the good intentions of good people.

For decades, starting with Jimmy Carter's Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, there has been bipartisan agreement to use government power to expand homeownership to people who had been shut out for economic reasons or, sometimes, because of racial and ethnic discrimination. What could be a more worthy cause? But it led to tremendous pressure on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- who in turn pressured banks and other lenders -- to extend mortgages to people who were borrowing over their heads. That's called subprime lending. It lies at the root of our current calamity.
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