Well,it took long enough.
Henry Paulson Jr. — that would be the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury — admitted that the housing/credit/confidence crush (HCCC for short) is a hell of a lot worse that he ever imagined (clearly the Secretary does not exactly have a fertile imagination!) and, . . . now this is the best part . . . ready? . . . he thinks it will get a lot worse before it gets better!
How much worse?
Let’s see. Paulson (or is that Jr.? No, that’s the mob uncle from the Sopranos) says this year alone he thinks we will see something like one million foreclosure proceedings.
ONE MILLION!!!
That means hundreds of thousands who may just end up living in their BMW’s. But you know what they say . . . smoke ‘em if you have ‘em!
“The longer housing prices remain stagnant or fall,” says Paulson, “the greater the penalty to our future economic growth.”
Well, yeah! You don’t have to be Secretary of the Treasury to figure that one out.
Speaking at Georgetown University (he saved travel expenses on this venue), Mr. Secretary said the current housing/credit/confidence crush (HCCC) is “the most significant current risk to the economy.” Gee, I would have thought the biggest risk was rising cable TV rates, but what the heck do I know. He’s the Secretary of the Treasury for God’s sake.
Now, with these strong words, you might expect the recommendation of strong action.
Don’t get your spinal fluid gushing on this one — Paulson says hidden brokerage fees should stay, well, hidden; and, he is all for those nasty prepayment penalties!
So, don’t expect much action from the good Secretary. In fact, don’t expect much action from anyone in Washington aimed at taming banks and mortgage lenders. Ain’t gonna happen.
This isn’t a “meltdown,” this is a lock down, and we are all prisoners of a home mortgage industry run amok.
Article Author:
Charles FeldmanCharles has written 149 articles for us.
Visit Charles's Website: http://www.thefeldmanblog.com
Charles is currently reporting for KNX Radio in Los Angeles, is the co-author of the book No Time To Think, and can be found commenting about the news on his blog, The Feldman Blog.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Is anyone else getting the feeling of the calm before the storm? Panic in the near future?
Big surprise the housing market is important to our economy. Maybe if the Fed hadn’t tried so hard to slow the market we would have had a softer landing.
Yes, very important to our economy, and i hope it will be a “lock-down” not a melt-down on what you saying.In most of all cases it is a corrupt man in a business or something,so it has to be done something to clean this work line
I just can’t believe that it has taken this long for something to be done. What do they do up there in Washington anyway? I just hope we can turn this around before it is too late! Or is it to late?