Today was a big one for housing finance. Treasury kicked things off with its much awaited report to Congress on “Reforming America’s Housing Finance Market.” And then the Brookings Institution hosted a full day conference on “Reforming the U.S. Mortgage Market.“ Both Treasury’s report and the conference showed that there’s still important debate about the [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Freddie Mac’
Treasury Offers Some Good Ideas on Mortgage Finance
Posted in Finance, tagged Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, GSE, Housing on February 11, 2011 | 2 Comments »
CBO Weighs in on Fannie and Freddie
Posted in Budget, Finance, Regulation, tagged CBO, Fannie Mae, Finance, Freddie Mac, GSE, Housing, Regulation on December 23, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Yesterday, the Congressional Budget Office released its long-awaited report on the future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Role in the Secondary Mortgage Market (written by Deborah Lucas and David Torregrosa, with input from a cast of dozens — including, full disclosure, me as an outside reviewer) provides an [...]
What To Do With Fannie and Freddie?
Posted in Finance, Regulation, tagged Fannie Mae, Finance, Freddie Mac, GSE, Housing on July 19, 2010 | 5 Comments »
The Economist asked several experts to recommend options for resolving Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two failed mortgage giants. In addition to comments, the magazine’s web site allows users to recommend responses they like. It’s hardly scientific, but since the rankings (as of 9:15pm eastern time) work to my favor, let me rank them [...]
Vuvuzelas, Afghanistan, and Fannie and Freddie
Posted in Finance, International, Life, tagged Afghanistan, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, GSE, Humor, Sports on June 17, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Updates on some previous posts: Some broadcasters are filtering the dreaded vuvuzela. More home filtering advice for the vuvuzela (ht: Alex and Jeff) Yankee fan gets booted for blowing his vuvu (money quote: “I have been tossed from [Yankee Stadium] hundreds of times. Many times I even deserved it. … But this was ridiculous.” Afghanistan’s [...]
Fannie & Freddie Reform Gets a Boost from the Washington Post
Posted in Budget, Finance, Regulation, tagged Fannie Mae, Finance, Freddie Mac, GSE, Regulation on June 5, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Sunday’s Washington Post has an encouraging editorial about the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac reform proposal that Phill Swagel and I recently put forward. An excerpt: [Their plan would] abolish the most toxic features of the old “government-sponsored enterprise” model. In particular, the plan would get Fannie and Freddie out of the business of directly [...]
How Blurry is the Line between Monetary and Fiscal Policy?
Posted in Budget, Macroeconomics, tagged AIG, Bank of, Budget, Citigroup, Fannie Mae, Federal Reserve, Freddie Mac on June 2, 2010 | 7 Comments »
Economists have traditionally drawn a sharp distinction between monetary and fiscal policy. Monetary policy should try to promote growth and limit inflation by setting short-term interest rates, managing the money supply, and providing liquidity during times of financial stress. Fiscal policy should also encourage growth and, more broadly, promote the general welfare through careful choices [...]
What Should We Do with Fannie and Freddie?
Posted in Budget, Finance, Regulation, tagged Fannie Mae, Finance, Freddie Mac, GSE, Regulation on May 23, 2010 | 8 Comments »
The past few years have demonstrated that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two mortgage giants, were built on a flawed business model. One that paired private profit in good times with taxpayer burdens in bad times; created systemic risks to the world financial system; concealed the degree of federal involvement in mortgage markets; and [...]
How Governments Hide Their Liabilities
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Accounting, Budget, Debt, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Greece on February 14, 2010 | 10 Comments »
In my testimony to the Senate Budget Committee the other day, I recommended that Congress set specific fiscal targets for bringing our out-of-control deficits and debt under control. My particular suggestion? Get the publicly-held debt down to 60% of GDP in 2020. By budgeting standards, that makes for a great bumper sticker: “60 in 20“. [...]
Looking Back at Fiscal 2009
Posted in Budget, tagged Budget, CBO, Deficit, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, GSE, TARP, Taxes on October 9, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
A few days ago, CBO released its latest snapshot on the federal budget, documenting the remarkable challenges of fiscal 2009, which ended on September 30. The key phrase in the report is “in over 50 years” as in: At $1.4 trillion, the budget deficit was 9.9% of gross domestic product, the largest, relative to the economy, [...]
Lessons from the Fall of Lehman
Posted in Economy, Finance, Macroeconomics, tagged Banks, Citigroup, Economics, Fannie Mae, Finance, Freddie Mac, Lehman on September 16, 2009 | 4 Comments »
As you have undoubtedly noticed, this week marks the one-year anniversary of the fall of Lehman Brothers–the moment at which the financial crisis became a severe economic crisis. I did an interview on Fox Business on Tuesday to discuss some of the lessons learned. (My wife’s comment on the interview: “You need to straighten your collar [...]
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