Best Congress That Money Could Buy –
No help averting real estate collapse

Where was the watch dog when the burglars broke in?

The crisis in the mortgage sector has undermined the integrity of the American Dream as home owners have known it for the last 50 years – and may bring about the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression. The current state of the home-building industry poses fundamental issues for society and our Congress, not surprisingly, is no help, according to a story on HousingPredictor.com. Below are the damning facts:

• Building industry lobbyists in Washington D.C. have made campaign contributions to innumerable Congressional candidates, who once they were elected, were beholden to them.
• One mortgage agent ironically said, "We have the best Congress that money can buy."
• In the mean time, home sales continue to decline.
• Sales of existing homes depressed by ailing credit markets fell for a sixth straight month in August. The housing market has already hit its worst slow down in at least 16 years. Housing Predictor expects sales to continue to be slow for many months, and perhaps even years in some urban markets.
• Foreclosures have already reached all time record highs nationally.
• The Federal Reserve is trying to avert a worsening crisis by cutting interest rates, and Housing Predictor expects the Fed to continue on its current interest rate cutting path to assist the housing market and other U.S. financial markets in an attempt to save the overall economy from further harm.
• Many economists are concerned about the housing market’s future. Economist Milton Friedman and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke say the U.S. Great Depression was caused by "monetary contraction," which resulted from poor policy-making decisions by the American Federal Reserve System, which preceded the current Federal Reserve Board of Governors. We may now be seeing a case of History Repeating Itself.
• Federal laws have changed and improved since the Great Depression to allow the Fed to take more substantive action to help ailing economies – by increasing the money supply, for instance, and cutting interest rates.
• The financial collapse banks suffered in the early 1930s, when massive withdrawals by panicked depositors put many banks out of business, remains only a distant memory. Even those areas hit hardest by today’s mortgage crisis, like California, are far better off now than they were at the height of the depression.
• Although the solvency of the banking system in the U.S. is beyond question, some of the nation’s largest mortgage companies are battling to stay in business.
• The housing crisis will nevertheless take many years to overcome according to most economists, who are leery about predicting just how long it will take.

Get The Full Scoop

Visit the Housing Predictor web site.

The Best Congress Money Can Buy
(c) Housing Predictor

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Our Take

Our Government, specifically Congress, needs to step up to the plate. While our illustrious lawmakers looked at great length into steroid abuse in Major League Baseball, no-one bothered to look into the steroid-like phenomenon in the mortgage industry, which inflated prices in the real estate market beyond all reason. Instead of preoccupying itself with surly baseball superstars and home-run records of no consequence, congress needs to get its act together and make our Nation’s financial health a priority.