What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Obama apparently had so much fun during the original Housing Bubble, he’s setting up another.

President Obama’s economic advisers and outside experts say the nation’s much-celebrated housing rebound is leaving too many people behind, including young people looking to buy their first homes and individuals with credit records weakened by the recession.

In response, administration officials say they are working to get banks to lend to a wider range of borrowers by taking advantage of taxpayer-backed programs — including those offered by the Federal Housing Administration — that insure home loans against default.

Housing officials are urging the Justice Department to provide assurances to banks, which have become increasingly cautious, that they will not face legal or financial recriminations if they make loans to riskier borrowers who meet government standards but later default.

Read: Again, the government will socialize the risk, while privatizing the rewards.

Posted

April 5, 2016

Business, The Economy and The Markets, Capitalism v Socialism

Mitch Berg

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18 responses to “What Could Possibly Go Wrong?”

Bento Guzman

April 5, 2016

Housing officials are urging the Justice Department to provide assurances to banks, which have become increasingly cautious, that they will not face legal or financial recriminations if they make loans to riskier borrowers who meet government standards but later default.

Setting up another bank bailout. Dear God, I am beginning to believe that even the sub atomic particles that make up the atoms that make up the cells that make up Obama are stupid.
Bento Guzman

April 5, 2016

Wait just a second! I can see how, in true capitalist fashion, I can take advantage of the C-in-C’s incompetence. When these news buyers jump in and the bubble inflates, I take out a lot home equity loans as the bubble inflates. I bank the money. When the bubble collapses I stop paying the mortgage. It will take a long time — maybe years — before they foreclose and evict me. At that point I go to the mortgage holder and offer to take the house off his hands at the now deflated price.

“I told you once before that there were two times for making big money, one in the up-building of a country and the other in its destruction. Slow money on the up-building, fast money in the crack-up. Remember my words. Perhaps they may be of use to you some day.”

-Rhett Butler
SmithStCrx

April 5, 2016

Housing officials are urging the Justice Department to provide assurances to banks, which have become increasingly cautious, that they will not face legal or financial recriminations if they make loans to riskier borrowers who meet government standards but later default.

Translation:

Make loans to people that won’t be able to pay back the loans or we’ll call you racist and prosecute you. Then when they default, we’ll blame you for loaning money to people you should’ve known wouldn’t be able to pay the money back. All while partially bailing you out, say about 85%ish.

Sincerely,

The same government that did this previously.

Will we learn before it all comes tumbling down?
kel

April 5, 2016

the rich and the poor for differing reasons prefer the status quo. The middle class have the capacity for discretionary spending which is what frightens the extreme left/progressives because when the middle class focuses any of that spending on political issues it tends to fund change not stasis. The conceal carry legislation of the last 20 years is an example of this.

The housing bubble of ’08 worked really well at temporarily defanging an impatient middle class – no reason it shouldn’t work again.
swiftee

April 5, 2016

Bento may be speakinig tongue in cheek, but his outlook is the one to have.

We are surrounded by reprobates of all stripes. The inmates are truly in control of the asylum and there isn’t much we can do to stop them. That leaves three responses:

Rage at the machine; gnash your teeth, tear your hair, howl in anger.

Do nothing; just sit there and take it.

Jump in with both feet; take everything you can before the conflagration consumes it.

Logic demands profiteering. Logic says now is the time to buy up all the crap housing you can possibly finance, make only those repairs necessary to pass an inspection, and sell it to Democrats at outrageously inflated prices. Not only is that logical, patriotic citizens are called to this duty out of love of our Obamanation.
Joe Doakes

April 5, 2016

The same idiotic plan keeps coming up because the underlying theory is never defeated. Liberals believe home ownership is the escalator out of poverty and into the middle class because homes always increase in value, eventually. The trick, in their minds, is getting on the first step and that’s where these helping-hand programs come in.

The problem, of course, is that owning a home is not a passive activity like riding an escalator, the work to keep up a home is like dragging half the hardware store up a staircase. People who can’t accumulate the money to hire it done, and can’t gain the skills to do it themselves, find their homes deteriorating. People who can’t assemble a “cushion” in savings also can’t weather a temporary layoff or interest rate hike so they go into default and can never recover. People who can only afford to buy a cheap house in a poor neighborhood can’t refinance when their home value plummets because the neighbors are in foreclosure.

Glenn Reynolds (The Instapundit) has it exactly right: Liberals confuse the causes of middle class success with the markers of middle class success.

https://philoofalexandria.wordpress.com/2010/09/25/reynolds-law/
Bento Guzman

April 5, 2016

I believe that MBerg has missed an important step between the government doing something stupid to destroy the economy and doing the same thing a second time and destroying the economy — hire teams of financiers and bankers to tell you that what happened the first time wasn’t the government’s fault.
If what happened in 2008 (now as distant in time from us as 1937 was from the crash of ’29) was due to a lack of regulation, then it can be stopped from happening again by more regulation. Let’s call it ‘smart regulation’! That oughta convince the skeptics!
bikebubba

April 5, 2016

I’ve always been hesitant to assume a guy who passed the bar is stupid, but given the historic difference between the concept o being wise and being cunning, I think I can firmly say the former editor of the Harvard Law Review is cunning but not wise.

And the really scary thing here is that if you DON’T help those with poor credit scores buy a home, they don’t…..housing prices will drop vs. what they would otherwise have been…..and then those same people will be able to buy a home WITHOUT risking their financial future in a housing crash. But doing nothing doesn’t write memoirs, I guess.
Bill C

April 5, 2016

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Obama and his architects of destruction are not stupid. This is all being done by design, not by accident. In my opinion, they saw that the 2008 bubble wasn’t bad enough because, despite all their attempts to prevent it, we HAVE recovered, albeit slowly (thanks to capitalism, what’s left of the free markets, and human nature). They’re trying again, and I bet they have more tricks up their sleeve to make the bubblepop worse this time around.

And, regardless of the Trump/Cruz battles, Hillary and the annoying little gnat who keeps buzzing around her (Sanders), I still won’t believe Obama won’t pull something to prolong his presidency/extend him term, until I see Roberts shake Hillary’s hand and say “Congratulations, Ms President.”
DMA

April 5, 2016

“We cannot forget the past, but when we find the courage to confront and we find the courage to change that past, that’s when we build a better future.” President B.O Last Month
Bill C

April 5, 2016

And yes, sadly, I’ve come to believe in the last couple weeks that Hillary will win. There are too many TrumpTrain riders who are all in for Trump and won’t vote for Cruz if he manages to get the nomination (because Trump will go 3rd party), and there are too many #NeverTrumpers who won’t vote for Trump for any reason, no matter what. It’ll be a repeat of 1996 Dole/Perot/Clinton.

We’ll lose SCOTUS, and therefore, the 2nd Amendment. At that point, the only thing left is county sheriffs. Stanek is good, but he’s no David Clarke.
Prince of Darkness_666

April 5, 2016

Bill I think you give Obama too much credit. I think that they really believe this will work. Nevermind that this is exactly the same thing Clinton did to cause the crash of 2007-08. They believe that this will work because they are insane, doing the exact same thing expecting different results.
Prince of Darkness_666

April 5, 2016

Trump won’t go 3rd party, he won’t spend the $2 billion necessary to. Jesse Ventura 2016, because if were going down in flames lets at least make it entertaining.
DMA

April 5, 2016

What makes Bill think it’ll be EITHER Trump or Cruz. Do the GOPe have to spell it out for ya? It’s going to be neither.
Prince of Darkness_666

April 5, 2016

If they do that I’m starting my own 3rd party. The party of the damned. Our logo will be the grim reaper.
bosshoss429

April 5, 2016

Bill C;

I would challenge the assessment that the economy has really improved.

The Fed has printed millions in fiat currency, kept interest rates artificially low and allowed Wall Street to cash in at the expense of the economically illiterate minions.

The GNP is abysmal, the actual unemployment rate is about 17% and inflation is also actually in double digits, due to their voodoo monetary policies.

I do agree though that he’s got something up his sleeve. There will most likely be a false flag event, most likely in Chicago, aided by his buddy Fish boy. He will then declare martial law and maintain it through the election cycle.
Joe Doakes

April 6, 2016

Remember when Al Franken was funny? Well, sort of funny? He had a bit about “How does this affect Al Franken?” The driving force in American politics is Baby Boomers. When analyzing any policy, ask “How does this affect Baby Boomers?”

Flooding the housing market with unqualified buyers holding subsidized dollars ran up housing prices, which gave Baby Boomers home equity to spend on boats and vacations. The crash was not a policy to rob Americans (indeed, Democrats like Chris Dodd and Barney Frank resisted Bush’s efforts to reform Fannie and Freddie), the crash was an unforced error (Chris Cox implemented “mark-to-market” that revealed the house of cards and caused a panic). Blunder, not policy.

The last decade of bailouts and stimulus propped up housing prices and also propped up stock prices. Why prop up stocks? Because every retirement account is invested in the stock market. If the market fails, pension, 401(k), Health Care Savings, Education Savings . . . it all fails.

When the Baby Boomers are no longer the dominant force in American politics, the voters will refuse to fund them and there will be a massive downward adjustment. In the first Great Depression, America was a less populous and more rural nation, people lived on farms and at least could feed themselves. In this next go-around, cities will starve, residents will flee, farmers will resist . . . .
justplainangry

April 6, 2016

Trump may not be able to go third party. I heard one of the “experts” on the drive in that apparently there are “sore loser” laws in 17 states that would prevent Strumpet from appearing on the ballot. I did not double check myself yet, but hope it is true.