Category: Legislation and policy

Housing reform legislation: yes, it *is* that big a deal: Part 3, the future

30 July, 2008 (08:55) | GSEs, HERA, Legislation and policy, Policy, Subprime, US News | No comments

[Continued from yesterday’s Part 2 and the previous Part 1.]
 
While the main consequences of HR 3221, the great big deal known as the Housing and Economic Recovery Act (HERA) of 2008 (this Reuters summary is as good as any), are the financial and regulatory coup that completes a fundamental revolution within the financial system, changing […]

Housing reform legislation: yes, it *is* that big a deal: Part 2, housing

29 July, 2008 (08:41) | GSEs, HERA, Legislation and policy, Policy, Subprime, US News | No comments

[Continued from yesterday’s Part 1.]
 
Yesterday we got rolling on the consequences of HR 3221, the Housing and Economic Recovery Act (HERA) of 2008 (this Reuters summary is as good as any).  Yes, it is a big deal: a huge deal. 
 

 
We’ve seen that it completes a fundamental revolution within the financial system, a financial […]

Housing reform legislation: yes, it *is* that big a deal: Part 1, the GSEs and banking

28 July, 2008 (09:44) | GSEs, HERA, Legislation and policy, Policy, Subprime, US News | No comments

Yes, it is that big a deal.
 

Zeus, this is a big deal
 
I almost never comment on legislation in process, because the factory puts so many twists in the sausage that speculations are largely pointless – and this legislation, for all its multiple motivations and antecedents, probably would never have been enacted but for the Fannie/ […]

Seller-paid down payments: fundamentally flawed

25 June, 2008 (08:14) | Hard equity, Legislation and policy, Regulation, Theory, US News | No comments

There are times when being right is no consolation, it merely makes you angry.
 

Sometimes you wish you hadn’t been so right
 
A year ago, in a post entitled 3% altruistic, I wrote about the FHA’s ‘non-profit-donated’ down-payment program
It sounds like a misprint — a non-profit that gives low-income borrowers money for the down payment on […]

Reform step 1: license the brokers

29 May, 2008 (08:53) | Capital markets, Finance, Legislation and policy, Regulation and Reform, Subprime | No comments

          
“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.”
Henry VI, Part 2: Act iv, scene ii.

Of whose state, so many had the managingThat they lost France, and made his England bleed
 
While the total scale of the global credit compression hasn’t been fully measured, most of that disruptive wave is behind us, as demonstrated […]