Archive for May 12th, 2009

The Myth Of Deleveraging

It’s pretty much an accepted article of faith that the world — governments, business and individuals collectively — must deleverage (God I will be glad when that word along with systemic and second derivative are no longer in vogue). Any day now it’s going to happen, there will be hell to pay and we will […]

The FHA No Down Loan

In January I wrote a post about down payment assistance plans and called them the bad idea that won’t die. It looks like I was right. Now the government agency that fought tooth and nail to get rid of them is all set to introduce their own version. I thought I heard something about this […]

Did Cap-And-Trade Die Today?

Did the Obama administration put a knife in cap-and-trade intentionally or was it just a government snafu? In case you missed the news, the White Office Office of Management and the Budget wrote a memo warning of adverse economic consequences that might result from regulating carbon emmissions and questioned the application of the precautionary policy […]

Better Days Ahead

I’ve been getting some comments on various sites where my posts get reprinted that I’m too gloomy. Looking back over the last few, I have been a bit on the negative side, so here to even things out is Christine Romer explaining how we get out of all of our travails and proceed to the […]

The Social Security Safety Net Has Big Holes

The Trustees for Social Security and Medicare issued their annual report today and it does not make for nice reading.  Social Security is now forecast to begin paying out more than it receives in 2016 and be insolvent in 2037. Previously it was expected to be revenue negative in 2017 and insolvent in 2041. Medicare is […]

Pimco Sees Slow Growth For Some Time

For what it’s worth Pimco’s CEO, Mohamed El-Erian, has a fairly bearish view of the world’s economy over the medium term — three to five years. He sees higher unemployment, slow global growth and persistent government intervention as the “new normal.” “Relative to where it is coming from, the financial system will be de-levered, de-globalized, […]