All Posts Tagged With: "regulation"
America’s Big Banks, America’s Financial Vietnam
Three years ago the most-powerful instutitions in America were the nation’s largest banks and brokerages, Wall Street for short. While millions of people were losing their homes, their jobs and their savings, the nation’s elite extracted a $700 billion line-of-credit from Uncle Sam. Now Wall Street is our financial Vietnam. It’s broken. The old cures [...]
3Oct2011 | Peter G. Miller | 0 comments | Continued
Should Government Set Mortgage Rates?
With all the talk of getting a new mortgage there’s one question which no one seems ready to touch: Why doesn’t the government ought to set mortgage rates? At first this may seem like an audacious idea, a violation somehow of the free market absolutism preferred by so many businesses and industries — at least [...]
26Sep2011 | Peter G. Miller | 0 comments | Continued
When Is $50 Million Not Enough?
Is America good enough for George Buckley? How much more can we do for a guy worth more than $50 million? Buckley is the Chairman, President and CEO of 3M. And as Buckley told the Financial Times, “there is a sense among companies that this is a difficult place to do business. It is about [...]
7Mar2011 | Peter G. Miller | 0 comments | Continued
How Can We Slash Mortgage Insurance Costs?
Private mortgage insurance companies are the private-sector equivalent of the VA and FHA. Such insurance allows individuals to borrow with little down — but only if they pay a premium for such coverage. How It Works Some important points about private mortgage insurance (MI) include: MI companies are state regulated, not federally regulated. State regulation [...]
26Apr2010 | Peter G. Miller | 0 comments | Continued
Controversy Brews Over Latest Obama Mortgage Write-Off Plan
The newest effort by the federal government to shore up the flagging housing market is going to set off a fierce debate. The just-announced FHA Refinance Option is likely to keep a lot of homeowners out of foreclosure. This is important because until the “shadow” inventory of distressed and foreclosed homes is reduced in a [...]
29Mar2010 | Peter G. Miller | 0 comments | Continued
Who Should We Blame For The Mortgage Meltdown?
According to Alan Blinder, a former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve and now a professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton, there are six factors which caused the current foreclosure mess — a list which curiously excludes, ahem, the Federal Reserve. Let me explain. Writing in the New York Times, Mr. Blinder says [...]
2Feb2009 | Peter G. Miller | 1 comment | Continued
Toxic Loans Threaten Home Values
Stashed away amid the tons of paperwork generated each day in Washington — reading which no one argues is a threat to Shakespeare — is HUD’s 2007 Budget Summary, a document which ought to make a lot of people take notice. “Congress recognizes that today’s high cost loans negatively impact consumers, communities, and the economy. [...]
18Sep2008 | Peter G. Miller | 0 comments | Continued
Are There No Limits To Financial Fiddling?
At the start of every year, and with the regularity of celebrations in Times Square, new conforming loan limits go into effect. Typically such loan limits are announced in November or December, go up each January and in general that’s good for buyers and sellers. This year the conforming loan limit for a single-family home [...]
20Aug2008 | Peter G. Miller | 0 comments | Continued
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