for parity

Greenspan Should Have Warned Against Mortgages

Here's how it started - speaking of govenment stimulus!! Yea, Greenspan should have warned.. but the public simply is not aware of the several large actions which led to a very dangerous housing bubble being born right smack in the middle of the aftermath of the dot.com crash and recession. How'd they do that? here's how:

Oct., 31, 2000 - HUD ANNOUNCES NEW REGULATIONS TO PROVIDE $2.4 TRILLION IN MORTGAGES FOR AFFORDABLE HOUSING FOR 28.1 MILLION FAMILIES

www.hud.gov/library/bo...

And the housing bubble was born.

Torturing Statistics on the Housing Bubble

Here's how it started - speaking of govenment stimulus!!

Oct., 31, 2000 - HUD ANNOUNCES NEW REGULATIONS TO PROVIDE $2.4 TRILLION IN MORTGAGES FOR AFFORDABLE HOUSING FOR 28.1 MILLION FAMILIES

www.hud.gov/library/bo...

And the housing bubble was born.

S&P / Case-Shiller Housing Numbers Show That March Wasn't Pretty

<<But where is the sentiment rise coming from?>>
The national media is hanging onto every bit of rhetoric from the forces of change in the Obama WH, and presenting all as promises soon to be fullfilled. The public is in awe of what they've accomplished.

??

I hear it from folks all the time, "oh my goodness - isn't it amazing what they are doing to help us recover from the greed and fraud that caused all of this?"
To which I respond, I know, I know. I'd wonded for a long time if we'd ever recover from that dot.com era of greed and corruption in the late 90's; well until, I learned that Clinton/Cuomo's HUD, in late 2000, as a part of numerous historical efforts, ordered Fannie/Freddie (already in a stragetic with Countrywide Financial) to lower standards on mortgages and to guarantee $2.4 Trillion in loans for 28.1 Million low income Americans. This helped pull us out of a historic crash in the early 2000's, and enabled demand for housing to greatly outstrip supply, resulting in a phenomenal housing bubble. Average people, wall street - most all would jump onto yet another run away bubble to disaster, guaranteeing that it would fester for years longer than any Fed Chief could envision. And standing ready in the wings, were the staunch allies in congress of ACORN and the future boy president, Obama, ready to attack any and all efforts (weak efforts) by the Bush administration, and others, to put a lid on the event before it took the world down.

Why the rising sentiment? Cause it feels so good - this 'change' in the air.

On May 26 04:36 PM Fighting Yoda wrote:

> If you look at the 10 city index in some detail and strat from 2003:
>
>
> Current Peak reached in June 2006- about a 50% jump in 3 years (Greenspan
> couldn’t see this bubble). Now fallen 33.09% in about less than 3
> years.
>
> The index fell 18.65% year on year, and a 2.06% month on month.The
> index currently is at July 2003 levels.
> Some markets like San Francisco are at June2000 levels (46% fall),
> Phoenix at March ’01 levels (53% fall from peak); Detroit at July
> 1995 levels (44% fall), Miami at April 2003 level (47% fall), Vegas
> 50% fall from peak.
> Some markets like Phoenix fell 4.5% MoM, even a sedate market like
> Minneapolis fell a whopping 6% MoM.
>
> Not a pretty picture, and no end in sight. But where is the sentiment
> rise coming from?

S&P / Case-Shiller Housing Numbers Show That March Wasn't Pretty

would be very curious to see a comparative chart sitting on top of this one - one which showed the % increase from, say the 2001 values to the values at the recent top of the market.

Do the Rich Really Get Richer?

The chart's a little tight, that's all - In reality it trails the crashes. See The Tax Foundation Fiscal Fact No. 135, by Gerald Prante - July 18, 2008 for the data. (;~>

On May 06 02:08 PM Daniel Harrison wrote:

> What's interesting is that the top 1% share fell before each of the
> market crashes (we can't see what happened in 2007/8 however). That
> makes sense: stocks decline after the big money stops coming in to
> the high rollers. This may be a good indicator of market performance
> if it's studied closely.

Do the Rich Really Get Richer?

It's a very good chart - and should be reproduced in every national news outlet. The Obama/Biden/Democratic team sold to the public that, as Joe Biden said last fall; 'Not since the roaring 20's, under this Bush administration, has the top 1% of income earners earned 21% of all income." Widely supported, and pushed, by the national media, it was blatently false. The top 1% share of income rose from 14% in 1993 to 21% in 2000. Then it crashed, with the collapse of the dot.com bubble and the resultant recession, etc. - falling back to around 16%. True enough it rose back up to 21% - perhaps 22% (and has again crashed) - but the divisive hatred was planted in the minds of tens of millions of US workers and voters - the hatred that all of this is because of one party only. The same is true, naturally, of the infamously utilized average CEO Pay to worker pay ratios. It soared during the Clinton years, and only pulled back during the Bush years - still is falling.

It's a great chart. It's accurate. If the discussion is about greed, then the American public needs to understand that the era of exceptional greed was during the Clinton years, not the Bush years.

The Housing Blame Game, Redux

Good piece, Mr. Jackson. Here's a thougt for you and the readers.

What administration (president) wants to collapse the economic bubble which is occuring on their watch - whether they played much of a role in it's existence, or not?

Consider that both Clinton and Bush in the last year or so of their administrations were sitting on top of historic economic bubbles by some measure or another. One the dollar and dot.com tech bubble, followed by the real estate and credit bubble. Warnings were loud from many fronts - but to actually pull the plug ahead of time, which would have softened the hit both would inflict, is a bit much to ask of mere political mortals, is it not?

I might note, that there was one more event in the last months of the prior administration, which greatly fueled this housing bubble, and hence the Fannie/Freddie issue: HUD, Nov., 2000. New regulations, forcing $2.4 Trillion in mortgages targeting 28.1 low to moderate future home buyers. Talk about pushing the supply and demand relationship off the map. www.hud.gov/library/bo...