Someone linked this up in the weekend open thread, and I thought it was a pretty good summary of why I am not convinced that we are presently on the road to recovery, so I thought I’d share it here. Are We Living In Zero Hour Now? If I tried to excerpt some of the…
Category: Economy
Economic news, statistics, and commentary
Extension to Fraud-Laced $8k Homebuyer Tax Credit to Piggy-Back on Unemployment Bill?
Here’s a pair of somewhat conflicting stories about the push to extend and expand the inefficient, expensive, economically stupid $8,000 first-time homebuyer tax credit. From the real estate news source Inman News: Final push for tax credit Real estate industry trade groups are mounting a final push for an extension of the first-time homebuyer tax…
Desperately Searching for a Truly Positive Sign
[Warning: The following commentary is only marginally related to real estate / housing.] Despite what some of my readers in the real estate industry may think, I’m a generally upbeat, optimistic kind of guy. I like to believe that things will be better tomorrow than they are today; that American ingenuity and hard work can…
$8k Tax Credit: Inefficient, Expensive, Economically Stupid
The intensity of the push from a couple of major national lobbying groups (NAR and NAHB) to extend and/or expand the $8,000 first-time homebuyer tax credit seems to have increased since we last discussed the topic on these pages. With the supposed end of the program coming up in about seven weeks, now seems like…
Elizabeth Warren: We’re Not out of the Woods
This is a few weeks old, but it’s definitely worth watching if you haven’t yet. Elizabeth Warren, chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel (which was created to oversee TARP), has some frank words about the current state of the banks: Here are a few transcribed excerpts. Scarborough: “Are we out of the woods when it…