Yearly Archives: 2012

Paul Krugman Makes Housing Call He Will Likely Come to Regret

I’m behind on commenting on various opinion pieces, thanks to a mild case of food poisoning (ugh), but I wanted to take note of Paul Krugman’s current New York Times op ed, “Is Our Economy Healing?”

As an aside, Krugman has written a lot of good pieces lately that we’ve linked to on income inequality the disastrous austerian policies in Europe, and Republican derangement and duplicity. But he tends to cut the administration far more slack than it deserves.

His current piece voices cautious optimism on the prospects for the economy based on some strengthening in various economic indicators. But astonishingly, the core of his argument rests on the outlook for the housing market:

Thanks NC Readers! Tom Miller Says No Mortgage Deal Imminent

Readers no doubt saw both on this site and elsewhere that the Obama Administration was cranking the heat up on the mortgage settlements talks, and was apparently planning to go ahead with the Federal regulators inking a pact, on the assumption they’d get enough state attorneys general to provide at least a modest fig leaf. The assumption also seemed to be that the Administration could enlist Congressmen to pressure some of the current and rumored dissident Democrat AGs to fold and join the Obama camp.

That effort appears to have gotten such a large repudiation today, when the settlement terms were presented in Chicago to Democratic AGs and discussed over the phone with the Republican AGs that Tom Miller who is leading the attorney general negotiations has done a major climbdown:

Links 1/23/12

Obama to Use Pension Funds of Ordinary Americans to Pay for Bank Mortgage “Settlement”

Obama’s latest housing market chicanery should come as no surprise. As we discuss below, he will use the State of the Union address to announce a mortgage “settlement” by Federal regulators, and at least some state attorneys general. It’s yet another gambit designed to generate a campaign talking point while making the underlying problem worse.

The president seems to labor under the misapprehension that crimes by members of the elite must be swept under the rug because prosecuting them would destablize the system. What he misses is that we are well past the point where coverups will work, and they may even blow up before the November elections. If nothing else, his settlement pact has a non-trivial Constitutional problem which the Republicans, if they are smart, will use to undermine the deal and discredit the Administration.

Greece Lines Up Portugal

By Delusional Economics, who is horrified at the state of economic commentary in Australia and is determined to cleanse the daily flow of vested interests propaganda to produce a balanced counterpoint. Cross posted from MacroBusiness.

Another weekend…. and we are still waiting for an outcome on Greece. The chief negotiators from Institute of International Finance (IIF) have left the country yet we still haven’t heard anything that sounds remotely like a deal. FT reports that the brinkmanship hasn’t ended but there doesn’t appear to be too much wiggle room left:

Links 1/22/12

New York Times Tells Us Only Chinese Near Slave Labor Could Handle Steve Jobs’ Demands

A New York Times story, “How U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work,” uses an Obama dinner with Silicon Valley titans to frame its tale of why the US middle class should roll over and die. I am of course exaggerating for effect. But not by as much as you might think. The story by Charles Duhigg and Keith Bradsher does a very good job of explaining why Asia, and China in particular, has come to dominate consumer electronics manufacture, using the iPhone as focus.

The problem with using the microcosm to illustrate the macrocosm is you need to choose the right microcosm.

Guest Post: Did the Feds Just Kill the Cloud Storage Model?

Megaupload Type Shutdowns and Patriot Act Are Killing Cloud Storage

Links 1/21/12

Links 1/20/12

Call Your Attorney General Today to Oppose Big Obama Push to Get Mortgage Settlement Deal Done

We put up a few more stories on the mortgage mess tonight for a reason. It isn’t that we had a sudden explosion of new information on mortgage abuses. It is instead to remind readers that we could turn this blog entirely over to covering mortgage chicanery and not even scratch the surface.

And the latest bit of corrupt behavior is that the Obama administration has a full court press on to push the heinous “multi-state” settlement deal over the line.

Bending the Rule of Law to Help the Banks: Effort to Draft a National Foreclosure Statute Underway

There is a slow moving but nevertheless troubling effort underway to change foreclosure laws across the US. The Uniform Law Commission, the same body that created the Uniform Commercial Code, a model set of laws that sought to harmonize commercial laws in all 50 states, has had two full day public but not well publicized meeting of a “study group” on mortgage foreclosure. Note that it took over a decade to draft the first version of the UCC and a protracted period for it to be implemented by states (most states have adopted the updated version of the UCC, although certain articles of the new version have not been implemented in any states).

Given its august history, one would think the ULC would be above political influences. That would appear to be a naive assumption these days.