The Housing Boom and Bust (edit title)

Shelfari edited the description of The Housing Boom and Bust Tuesday, August 11 2009.

• This is a plain-English explanation of how we got into the current economic disaster that developed out of the economics and politics of the housing boom and bust. The “creative” financing of home mortgages and the even more “creative” marketing of financial securities based on American mortgages to countries around the world, are part of the story of how a financial house of cards was built up—and then suddenly collapsed. The politics behind all this is another story full of strange twists. No punches are pulled when discussing politicians of either party, the financial dangers they created, or the distractions they created later to escape their own responsibility for what happened when the financial house of cards in the financial markets collapsed. What to do, now that we are in the midst of an economic disaster, is yet another story—one whose ending we do not yet know, but one whose outlines and implications are explored to reveal some surprising and sobering lessons.

Shelfari edited the contributors of The Housing Boom and Bust Tuesday, July 21 2009.

• reordered the contributors.
• 1 : Thomas Sowell:

Shelfari edited the contributors of The Housing Boom and Bust Thursday, July 16 2009.

• Added a contributor: Thomas Sowell: (Primary Author)

Peiyu W edited the quotations of The Housing Boom and Bust Monday, July 13 2009.

• Added a quotation: “government agencies not only approved the more lax standards for mortgage loan applicants, government officials were in fact the driving force behind the loosening of mortgage loan requirements”
• Added a quotation: “In the case of the housing market collapse, much has been made of the claim that there was inadequate regulatory agency oversight of the financial markets that turned home mortgages into esoteric Wall Street securities, which added to the risk”
• Added a quotation: “One of the driving forces behind the strong pressures brought to bear against financial institutions, to lend to people they were not lending to as often as to others, has been a widespread belief that lenders' existing standards and practices discriminated against non-white applicants for mortgage loans, whether intentionally or systemically”
• Added a quotation: “These lax lending standards were the foundation for a house of cards that was ready to collapse with a relatively small nudge”