Promises, promises. Hey Mitt, can I have a turbo-charged Pony too?
Vanna can you help Mr Romney buy an economic clue?
Mitt Romney's Housing Plan Has Got To Be A Joke
by Joe Weisenthal, businessinsider.com -- Sep. 22, 2012
[...]
This is honestly a sentence in his white paper on The Future Of Housing Policy:
The Romney-Ryan plan will completely end "too-big-to-fail" by reforming the GSEs.
Romney and Ryan believe that "too-big-to-fail," which generally refers to the assumption that a collapse of a major Wall Street institution would be catastrophic to the overall economy, thus making a bailout imperative, would be solved by the reform of Fannie and Freddie. Or maybe Romney and Ryan believe that only Fannie and Freddie are too big to fail, and that the collapse of a mega-bank would be fine. Those are the only possible readings of that sentence.
[...]
So basically there are no details at all. Too Big To Fail will be fixed by reforming the GSEs, and the GSEs will be fixed ... somehow.
Other than that, in the paper, Romney talks about "responsibly" selling 200,000 government-owned homes, getting rid of Dodd Frank, improving the job market, and making foreclosures easier.
[...]
Meanwhile, back on the Reality Ranch ...
This member of the Fed Reserve board knows that the lingering "Toxic Assets" in the Housing Market -- need some real corrective medicine -- NOT more voodoo "free the markets" Bush-style economics:
Lockhart Says More Fed Easing May Be Needed if Jobs Stall
by Steve Matthews, Bloomberg News -- Sep 21, 2012
Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President Dennis Lockhart said the central bank may ease beyond its current plan to buy mortgage-backed securities if the labor market doesn’t show signs of greater strength.
“MBS purchases will continue until we see a better employment situation,” Lockhart said today in a speech in Atlanta. “If we do not see improvement, more action may be taken. And inflation will be monitored closely and kept near 2 percent.”
[...]
“By maintaining downward pressure on mortgage rates and by encouraging growth of mortgage-financed purchase activity, sales activity in the Southeast and nationwide should accelerate, and upward pressure on home prices should contribute to consumer confidence,” he said. “The policy action should have positive sector-specific effects with spillover to general conditions.”
[...]
The Housing Market appears to have found its bottom, generally speaking anyways -- even without Romney's rehash of the Bush-Greenspan
Liar-loans omelet recipe:
Housing Expected to Show Improvement Even Without Fed Factor
by Patti Domm, CNBC Executive News Editor -- 18 Sep 2012
[...]
“When I look at home prices now, I see evidence across all the important home price series of signs of a turn,” said Deutsche Bank Chief U.S. economist Joseph LaVorgna. LaVorgna said that was apparent in CoreLogic data, which showed a national 3.8 percent price increase year-over-year in July, and a 7.2 percent rise in prices year-to-date.
“The important thing is when you see home prices are going up that‘s only going to reinforce positive builder sentiment because nobody wants to invest in or buy a declining asset,” he said.
The National Association of Home Builders index jumped to 40 in September from 37 in August, better than expected and the best since June, 2006. However, any number below 50 is still negative.
[...]
Once a market finds its bottom, usually a full-fledged turn-around is not far away. Once the "average person" realizes it will be better for them to "buy now" -- as opposed to "buy later." It's at that stage, that recoveries take on a life of their own.
And what better way to back-stop that average Consumer "confidence" when it comes to "daring" to buy a home:
A) Have Romney clear the way for the same unregulated financiers who cooked up the toxic mortgage mess in the first place
or
B) Have someone with clout, the Fed, take on and write-off those lingering toxic mortgage debts, that far too few bankers feel any moral responsibility to do themselves. For as long as it takes ...
???
Sometimes an economic "cancer" just has to be cut out. In those times it's best to have a well-qualified Doctor
-- and not some spoil-rotten political hack -- who probably profits from the flailing Housing Market no matter which direction it takes -- when left to its own "free market" devices.