Housing

This morning I was reading Simon Johnson’s excellent post “President Obama’s Regulatory Reforms Announcement: A Viewer’s Guide” about what Barack Obama should say when he makes his regulatory reform pitch today at 12:30 PM.  I agree…

The chain of events whereby easy money leads to malinvestment that impoverishes a society is now fully manifest in the United States.  You remember Victorville, CA where new homes were being demolished because it cost more to maintain them…

Here is the SEC press release regarding the fraud and insider trader alleged to have been perpetrated at Countrywide Financial, now a part of Bank of America (emphasis added):

It’s about time.  The SEC has finally charged a high level executive in the banking industry in connection with activities that led to the largest bubble in U.S. history.  The accused, as expected, is Angelo Mozilo, otherwise known as “The…

Jim Cramer is not just calling a stock market bottom, but now he’s calling a housing bottom too.  In fact, he says go buy a house.  “Buy a house and buy Bank of America too?”  Cramer says: “This is patently obvious.” Take a…

Asset bubbles are strange animals. Ideally, you would like to punch the air out of them relatively early before they become a real danger but, in practice, it is not quite so simple. Ben Bernanke and Alan Greenspan have actually both argued…

Is the housing market in the U.K. bottoming?  Many pundits are talking as if it is and now we get the Nationwide data for May 2009 which shows a second rise in three months.  I am sceptical that we are at a bottom, so let’s see what the…

Actually, I lied.  He really is not that bullish at all.  But he does sound relatively upbeat by comparison to 5 months ago. I have seen Whitney Tilson of T2 Partners a lot in the media of late.  The two most recent…

Earlier today I posted an article about how accounting was favourable to banks in that it could help them weather the storm and appear well-capitalized until a recovery is underway.  Afterwards, a buoyant economy would increase…

If you thought house prices were about to show some price gains, think again.  The Case-Shiller Home Price Index for March 2009 was released this morning and it paints a fairly grim picture.  The Composite-10 index shows an18.6% decline in…