Blog

America is obsessed with the issue of trade unions again.  Labor unions have gained new prominence as Democratic legislators from Wisconsin and Indiana have left their states for the greener pastures of Illinois to avoid participating in votes to cut back or eliminate collective bargaining rights for public employees.  Thousands of protestors have taken up […]

Even though the rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage has dipped below the five percent mark – to 4.95 percent —  new home sales slid by 12.6 percent in January. The mortgage rate declined five percent last week and was 5.05 percent just one year ago.  The slightly less popular 15-year fixed-rate mortgage also fell, […]

Republican congressmen searching for sizeable spending cuts are targeting Wall Street’s regulators over a plan to slash millions from the budgets of several vital agencies. They are setting their sights on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).  The workload of both agencies is expected to increase significantly as […]

Canada avoided the collapse in housing prices that devastated American homeowners and the U.S. economy, thanks to tighter financial regulations, the lack of subprime lending and securitized mortgages. Foreclosures are rare.  As a result, Canadian real estate steadily appreciated while property values in Florida, Arizona and other hard-hit American markets tanked. According to James MacGee […]

Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne says it best:  “Mayor Rahm. It will be a hoot. It could even be good for Chicago.  And in a way he has never had to do before, Rahm Emanuel will finally reveal who he really is.  If he’s slick, it’s because he’s un-slick.  All transactions with him are of […]

Wisconsin’s Republican Governor Scott Walker – a Tea Party favorite — accused the state legislature’s 14 Democratic senators of “vacationing” because they walked out of the State Legislature and took refuge in Illinois to avoid a vote that would strip most of the state’s employees of their collective bargaining rights.  Because of the Democrats’ absence, […]

The Obama administration and the Treasury Department have decided that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — the public-private housing finance model in place for the past four decades – will come to an end, although they pledged to continue backing the agencies’ existing obligations. “The GSE (government-sponsored enterprise) model is dead,” an Obama administration official […]

President Barack Obama is proposing an option to create an insurance fund for mortgage-backed securities, similar to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation that protects Americans savings accounts. The proposal consists of three legislative options for making long-term changes to the housing finance system, while taking short-term moves to gradually reduce the government’s role in the […]

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is knocking heads with Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI), the new chairman of the House Budget Committee, about how to best control inflation while buying billions of dollars worth of Treasury bonds to build up the economy in a process called quantitative easing 2 (QE2). As the nation’s debt climbs to […]

President Obama recently took a short stroll from the White House and through Lafayette Park to give a speech in what might be termed enemy territory – the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The subject was jobs and what the Chamber can do to jump start hiring by the companies that form its membership.  Noting that […]