The Housing Boom and Bust
May 23, 2010
- ISBN13: 9780465018802
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
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.
It is not possible for me to write a review of this book as I have not received it. I have emailed you about this, and you have not responded. I am not very impressed with your service in this regard.
Patrick Kearnaghan
Rating: 1 / 5
Thomas Sowell apparently feels no obligation to present objective economic analysis; he devotes most of the text to spinning scapegoat-rhetoric. For example, blame is attributed to the FDIC for increasing the insured level of deposits from $25,000 to $100,000 (post-review editing note: the reference shown here regarding the FDIC is inaccurate and is retracted, I apologize — I confused the issue with another article I read at the time). Sowell also blames ACORN for causing lenders to relax lending practice (notwithstanding ACORN has no authority over lenders and most poor people do not live in the five markets Sowell sites as the major trigger of the bust). Even Representative Nancy Pelosi is included in the blame game. How did she get into the picture? At least he makes no attempt to create an answer to that.
Sowell seems to randomly pick events from history that, somehow, he thinks are connected to his conservative view (government is always the problem and free-market is always the solution). For example, he argues against the believe that government spending during World War II helped end the great depression because the unemployment rate was higher in 1941 than it was prior to the start of WW II in 1939 (never mind that significant spending did not commence until 1941 after the U.S. entered the war). His recall of history identifies problems caused by loans made with little or no down payment. But he ignores the history of a whole generation of returning war veterans using the G.I. Bill to purchase homes with no down payment; we enjoyed a post-war boom and a strong middle-class was built. His “oversight” is a shame. Perhaps by contrasting (1) recent loans with no down payments made to speculators in California and with virtually no regulatory controls to (2) the earlier loans made to veterans in Iowa also with no down payment but with controls on loan size, lack of assignment rights, and eligibility limited to home loans used as a primary residence, we might have a more enlightened understanding of the relevance of a down payment, per se.
Readers who find Sowell’s economic arguments a must-read may also benefit from the fine works of Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and Sean Hannity.
Rating: 1 / 5
i just wasted 9.99. this is written by a right winge using a misleading title to preach his right wing views. i would like my money back.
Rating: 1 / 5
130 pages of actual text, set in a font generally seen only in the ‘Dick & Jane’ books. A sorry attempt to cash in on the hot political issue of the day. For something that wasn’t just thrown together, try Richard Posner’s A Failure of Capitalism: The Crisis of ’08 and the Descent into Depression.
Rating: 1 / 5
NO NO NO NO… This book is written by a well respected conservative “hack”. No credible analysis of the mortgage meltdown points to the CRA. A speech here and there by politicians about the value of home ownership and a system that makes red-lining, etc. illegal has ZERO to do with the Wall Street promoted and beyond comprehension lucrative nature of the securitization process. Heck, at the peak of the bubble Wall Street firms were literally begging the mortgage brokers to find more people to take loans! Government had nothing to do with it except for turning a blind eye to irresponsible private corporate driven for profit activity that put the entire economy at risk. Watch “House of Cards” on CNBC for a primer and use this book for toilet paper.
At the heart of this meltdown was greed and human imperfection, pure and simple. My issue with this book is that many government programs that do help those in need are GOOD things, a democracy cannot exist without a safety net. Turn off Rush and read a little history and psychology. But the right, living in the bubble of a liberal created safety net, wants to remove the very thing that keeps the poor & working class from revolution and anarchy. I’m drifting but what needs to happen is for us as a nation to use technology, computers, spreadsheets, etc. to make government work better and more efficient, not to denigrate it. The bogyman of USSR or Nazi conceptions of government or socialism is ridiculous fear mongering, especially from the right who lies all the time such as the basis of this book.
If conservatives have to lie and fabricate the true cause of the financial meltdown in order to rally the troops then maybe they reveal more about themselves then the government. Look at these confused tea baggers… mad at government and Obama, who want to help you all have lower priced Health insurance like EVERY other country in the world (no Hitlers in Canada or Australia because of their Gov health plans…), when it was the un-policed behavior of private industry that caused this financial mess.
Ignorance, even among the “literate” on the right, proves that they, even more so then liberals, use their emotions to base their political views upon because it sure ain’t reality or facts. but I must say, they get a 10 for creativity; I’m amazed at how within a day or so of any controversy the right, across all medias and elected officials, are able to concoct a ridiculous rationalization and sell it to their non critical thinking base.
Tax cuts to the rich, still in effect, obviously didn’t create jobs or manufacturing or anything in the USA but it did give us the largest national debt in human history! Here’s another lie, Obama is spending more!!!! Actually the Federal budget is almost the same as under Bush with one major exception, the stimulus, which is a ONE time expense. But Hannity and other deceivers speak as if this years budget, including the stimulus, is now going to be in every Obama annual budget.
But they sell these lies to the base, the working poor. Right wing media is ratings, profit and ego driven, not truth. It’s political pornography. Yet the base believes it, silly stuff like Obama will release terrorists. Get real, no President would ever do that and yet all my Conservative friends & family members worried for months, thanks to Hannity, that terrorists would be released! Somehow the fact that Gates is still our Sec of Defense eludes the part of their brain that is supposed to separate reality from primal fear and paranoia of the sort that is being sold to them for profit driven media stars like Rush and Hannity.
Reality check, government is boring, try watch cspan. But in order to gain fame and fortune these right wing media stars have literally created this hyper partisan world of liberals vs. conservatives, radical this, radical that, socialism, take our country back! Do you know what socialism really is? It’s dialing 911 and a fire truck comes to put out a fire before it burns down your house! But we don’t have to pay a separate for profit middleman taking a slice of every transaction so that some useless parasite can get a million dollar bonus because he bought the cheaper tires on the trucks. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a true capitalist but I also recognize that some aspects of society are much better served by government. Here’s the truth telling crystal ball, if everything we don’t need, like fancy cars and big TV’s, gets cheaper through private industry then it’s working. But when everything we need, like gas, education, health care, etc., is artificially inflated year after year then private industry is gouging us on the necessities of life and therefore need to be regulated as they’ve proven they can’t be trusted.
This anti Government stuff is all garbage that plays to the lowest of human behavior, like Jerry Springer, but is now creating real problems because the country is becoming ungovernable as private corporations, who are a-political, own our elected officials in congress while we fight over the fantasy of radical liberalism of Conservative whack jobs. But meanwhile Rush and Hannity make upwards of 100 million a year each pretending to be common men!
Amazing feat in terms of propaganda and although this “rant” may seem unrelated to the mortgage mess it is very much related on a macro level from public policy to how we treat our fellow man. How can we govern this country if half the nation is so mislead by faux economists like Mr. Sowell who dismisses good public policy and lies about the facts? Or the lies we see everyday by ratings & ego driven con men like Hannity, Rush & Glenn Beck?
I see in real time how so many dictators in the past were able to mislead their people, just look at the right wing who vote against their own interests here and now so that entertainers can laugh all the way to the bank with their socialism rants! You can keep working paycheck to paycheck in fear of socialism but Rush, Hannity, O’Reilly, etc. are amassing wealth beyond your imagination that will send all their kids, friends and family members to the best collages in the world while telling you to be a rugged individual and make it on your own! The fact that these guys exist and how they conduct their lives and families is proof that what they are selling you is a big fat lie! Hannity chartered a big jet to take all his friends and family to Disney world! But if you give your kid any money you are ruining him and not allowing him to self actualize!!! This is all garbage so that we as a society reject liberalism even though they practice it in their lives and families.
I guess it’s better then being propagandized by true believers, which none of these men are. But then again, if the results are the same we should start ignoring these evil men and start behaving as one nation who actually cares about each other. I think Jesus said it first, something about loving your neighbor…
Rating: 1 / 5
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