Affordable Housing Institute : US

[Continued from yesterday’s Part 1.]
 
In yesterday’s post, we saw hold the large Canadian financial institutions pulled together, via the Montreal Accord, to recapitalize their assets by pooling them into a new shared vehicle that I first heard about when sharing an International Union of Housing Finance panel with Andy Asselin of Canada Mortgage and Housing […]

Last fall, with a very Canadian minimum of fuss, our neighbors from the Great White North pulled off a deft exercise in recapitalization and the triumph of shared interests, in what they all call the Montreal Accord.  To quote the Financial Times:
 
Under an August 16 deal, known as the Montreal Accord, a group of […]

[Continued from yesterday’s Part 1.]
Yesterday’s post, taking as its text a provocative and compelling Financial Times article, Asia’s Revenge,  by Martin Wolf, described how overpriced oil was bartered (via the capital markets) into overpriced financial assets.
 

Mine’s overpriced?  So’s mine!
 
Unbalanced global capital flows show up directly in housing – because what else can you buy […]

Which is cause, and which effect?
 
For every effect, there must be at least one cause.  For there to have been a massive runup in the prices of financial assets, aside from a massive compression in risk spreads, there must have been a glut of money – specifically dollars – to buy them. 
 
Where those dollars […]

“Yawning is contagious,” I told the International Union of Housing Finance (IUHF) audience.  “Sneezing is contagious.  As we saw last night at the boma dinner, dancing is contagious.”  Small chuckles.  “Drinking is contagious.”  Larger chuckles.  “Risk-taking is very contagious.  And for a decade or so, the world has been drunk with risk-taking, and become de-sensitized to […]