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Re: Obama, Meet Santayana
My Ricochet handle comes from a great book about this very practice that Judith describes. Not only are we doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past, but also we cannot "easily" bailout out Fannie and Freddie again. The sad truth is that as long as these institutions can bend to political pressure, the market for housing can never be truly reflective of market realities. Sure the price of housing has come down in many areas worst hit by the recession, but what we really needed was a honest to goodness bottoming out while individuals could go through the bankruptcy process if that is/was the best course for them. Want to know a major reason why growth is so sluggish? No one knows what to do with their underwater homes. The Dude is correct, housing is a path to recovery. However, we don't want it to resemble the 2000s boom recovery that was ultimately leveraged debt financed.