wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

Comments

• [1] barry from Manhattan October 08, 2008 - 09:28AM

  Any thoughts on this? I saw Jim Kramer on Colbert last night, he said housing crash was due to Fannie and Freddy loaning to unqualified buyers

  for the last 16 or so years

  "Colbert: So we can safely not blame this on the Bush Administration?

  Cramer: No. You can't. Actually, you can't blame it on the Bush Administration.

  Colbert: You cannot?

  Cramer: No, you cannot. I'd love to but it is historically incorrect."

  
  
• [2] Derek from Brooklyn October 08, 2008 - 09:48AM

  Maybe this isn't totally on topic, but I'd like to hear your guest's opinion on the newish McCain plain to buy up mortgages.

  My impression is that housing prices are still too high, so is "stabilizing" them really the right idea?

  Also, is this a more effective measure than simply requiring lenders to allow homeowners to restructure through bankruptcy court or something similar? Thanks

  
  
• [3] barry from Manhattan October 08, 2008 - 10:09AM

  Brian enjoyed your posts last night.

  I think the "root of the problem is the housing crash.

  Lost value (which was way over-inflated)

  McCains proposal, or some version of it, makes sense.

  
  
• [4] barry from Manhattan October 08, 2008 - 10:13AM

  Fanny and Freddie lent money to unqualified buyers for years and it drove up the market.

  Home prices need to drop, the surplus homes used up and at the same time, revalued mortgages are bought up by the Fed and eventually resold to new home owners down the road

  
  
• [5] barry from Manhattan October 08, 2008 - 10:17AM

  Nice clip Brian

  
  
• [6] Hugh Hales-Tooke from Jersey City October 08, 2008 - 10:18AM

  Aren't the billions from the massive sell off stocks introducing liquidity into the system?

  
  
• [7] John from Brooklyn October 08, 2008 - 10:21AM

  Your guest is correct. McCain's mortgage proposal is nothing new. It is one of the options that already is written into the rescue plan. McCain simply is saying that that's the option he would pick.

  
  
• [8] Inquiring Minds October 08, 2008 - 10:23AM

  Brian

  Even more, the economy needs rebuilt in more "sustainable" ways.

  The work of Elizabeth Warren of Harvard Law School is salient in this regard. (she has an excellent lecture on YouTube)

  The argument is that the US economy has received several -- unsustainable -- "injections" since WW2.

  First, women, who had been stay-at-hom-moms, entered the workforce; later, both mom and dad worked longer hours; finally, the household relied on consumer debt. Each "injection" sustained consumption. The question is: WHERE DOES THE NEXT FIX COME FROM?

  I don't see one.

  
  
• [9] jawbone from Parsippany, NJ October 08, 2008 - 10:25AM

  Since McCain gave few details about his mortgage assistance for homeowners in difficulties or even "upside down," this is a guess, but it seems very much like the 21st Century version of FDR's HOLC (Home Owners Loan Corporation)--which Hillary Clinton has proposed weeks and weeks ago--now calling in HOME. It worked well during the Depression.

  I understand why the guest might not know about this, but surely the WNYC newshounds/political watchers do know what their junior senator has been talking about, proposing.

  Then again, once the MCM decides someone is not worth its time and attention, that does spread from the Villager MCMers to the outlier MCMers, even those in public radio in NYC.

  
  
• [10] Moss DiFalco from Westchester October 08, 2008 - 10:26AM

  The mortgage help that McCain would like to claim as his own idea sounds a lot like what Bank of America has started per their announcement on Monday of $8.4 billion they are setting aside to rework loans for 400,000 formerly Countrywide home owners.

  
  
• [11] evelyn dunn from new york October 08, 2008 - 10:27AM

  I feel that Barack is smarter and have more knowledge on what's needed for the presence.

  Also, McCain is very insulting and when you have that it just shows the inmautrity of him.

  Barack will be the next president

  
  
• [12] jawbone from Parsippany, NJ October 08, 2008 - 10:41AM

  Re: Obama's healthcare plan, whatever it really is, David Cay Johnston was interviewed on Democracy Now (Amy Goodman's show) and said the proposal is the wrong approach. Healthcare should not be a for profit endeavor--especially if it is a right, as Obama said it is last night.

  There are many different approaches to providing this right, but it is a societal responsibility. It could be done through the House proposal of extending Medicare to everyone, one single-payer approach. Or, it could be done a some other nations have, with private companies, but government regulated and prices capped.

  Or a mix, which was Hillary's approach: mandated insurance, either with private insurers or through the government employees' program, a cap on the percentage of income which can be asked of a person to pay for insurance, no denials for preexisting conditions.

  
  
• [13] jawbone from Parsippany, NJ October 08, 2008 - 10:41AM

  Confession: I do have a dog in this hunt. Aetna, for myself, costs me about a hair under $1500/month; it would cost me about 2/3rds less if I could get it through the Federal employees program!! It went up 25% from 2007. And, yes, it will bankrupt me, as it will go up steeply next year again--and the next and then the next. I guess the pool for those over 60 get charged the mega rates.

  The state insurance regulatory agency only looks at the rates every 5th year. In 2007, they forced Aetna to back down on a huge increase; but, I was informed, they only check on them every 5 years. By then I will be Medicare eligible--but my savings wiped out. And who will hire a retiree with a chronic cancer, requiring ongoing tests and possible treatments? I can't leave the Aetna region to move to a cheaper part of the country as I won't get coverage for the preexisting condition--and Aetna doesn't have "a presence" where my family lives. Talk about trapped!

  
  
• [14] David from manhattan October 08, 2008 - 10:42AM

  All this talk about Obama being calm and not

  being the "angry black" man reminds me of

  Jackie Robinson.

  David

  
  
• [15] jawbone from Parsippany, NJ October 08, 2008 - 12:09PM

  http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2008/10/08/mccains-300-billion-mortgage-plan-better-than-the-700-billion-rescue/?mod=googlenews_wsj

  I'm not sure which segment had further discussion of the McCain mortgage assistance proposal made during last night's debate, but this WSJ blog has a comparison of the programs which have been proposed which are similar. The headline is telling: McCain's $300B Mortgage Plan Better tna the $700B Rescue, aka Paulson Fix Is In. Now to be implemented by contractors hired by Paulson and Treasury. Ah, yes, that's the ticket--Paulson and His Merry Banksters, plus hired guns, doing the Hanky Panky Fix.

  The McCain proposal, which may have been proposed by others but he's getting the PR, is NOT the same as what's in the Paulson Fix.

  As Kevin Phillips said a few weeks ago on Bill Moyers' Journal, the same Big Banker Boiz who started the conflagration are back with their firenmen's hats on--all the while pumping more gasoline on the fire. Transcript (bless you, Bill Moyers, for providing actual transcripts--hint, hint, WNYC and NPR) and video at link just below.

  http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/09192008/watch2.html

  
  
• [16] jawbone from Parsippany, NJ October 08, 2008 - 12:47PM

  Wow! McCain campaign gives credit where credit is due! Amazing and pretty rare for a pol. Of course, it may be a good political move as well, since McCain wants those Hillary voters really, really, really a lot.

  "The mortgage renewal idea actually originated with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, said Charlie Black, a senior adviser to Mr. McCain. And Mrs. Clinton, who proposed the idea in a recent newspaper column, borrowed it from a Depression-era New Deal agency, the Home Owner’s Loan Corporation." Quote from NYTimes article.

  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/08/us/politics/08mortgage.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin

  Moderator: Any possibility of some HTML tags for italics, bold, blockquote, even creating links from the URLs so folks don't have to copy and paste? Etc?

  
  
• [17] gaetano catelli from manhattan October 08, 2008 - 09:25PM

  whatever the details of what's being proposed, and regardless of who has proposed it, banks will NOT begin to lend or to borrow until they know that the "black box" securities on their balances sheets have some *determinable* value.

  and these securities, in turn, won't have a determinable value until the mortgages underlying them are providing a predictable stream of income.

  to bring this about, government must force payment arrangements on mortgage originators that homeowners can meet vis-a-vis that relatively smallish percentage of "rotten apple" mortgages that are poisoning the whole barrel of black box securities.

  where the homeowner simply can't make reliable payments, the government must pay off the mortgages to the originators and take possession of the houses (as in the RTC of the early 90s).

  once this is done, these mortgages will provide a predictable stream of income, and banks will *know* the value of what's on their balance sheet, and will begin to borrow and lend again -- without the Fed giving away money at below-inflation-rate interest (ie, *negative* real interest, which the Bank of Japan tried for a long time -- with *no* success at starting up their economy).

  until this is done, no amount of money "thrown at the top" will restore the confidence of banks.