Conversations with History - Barry Eichengreen

boing3887 Says:

Aug 31, 2011 - @tigerhopwhen you can't make good arguments or find good evidence, start calling names. i never said that govt. subsidies weren't problematic - what i'm saying is that they're not the main factor by a long shot. to say that govt. subsidies caused the worldwide housing bubble looks pretty funny to those of us who aren't austrians.

boing3887 Says:

Aug 31, 2011 - @tigerhopthat's kinda wrong...conservative think tanks like Heritage Foundation and AEI also pushed very hard to increase credit to lower-income families in order to encourage home ownership among them. Clinton never said that home ownership was a right...

boing3887 Says:

Aug 31, 2011 - @tigerhopthe housing bubble in the 90's didn't have that big of an effect on the economy like now. your point about US policy still fails to account for global housing bubble. If the catalyst is solely govt. and not stupid investors, then that implies that all countries with housing bubbles had similar policies on housing and credit. That is patently untrue. Policy on these fronts was very diverse across the world and yet they all had housing bubbles

boing3887 Says:

Aug 31, 2011 - @tigerhopIt's not that "none" of it had to do with govt. policy, but that govt. policy would not be at the top of the list. I never say that govt. is not to blame - you can look through my posts and you'll never see me say that. my emphasis is that there are global imbalances. if anything, the one with a blind spot is you - you can't seem to admit that investors can't be stupid

boing3887 Says:

Aug 31, 2011 - @tigerhopinflation here is very weak. The chinese use the same measures for inflation that we do, and theirs is rising (but still not all that high) while ours is about 2%. But a little bit of inflation is what you get when the economy recovers. Right now the US is facing deflation because we can't recover - China passed a huge stimulus and recovered and so now is facing inflation. thus, they're raising interest rates, as they should

boing3887 Says:

Aug 31, 2011 - @tigerhopThere isn't some ideology among Democrats that home ownership is a right. more accurately, there is a view shared by both parties that the key to financial prosperity is through homeownership - you'll find both Republican and Democrat politicians praising the value of homeownership. Well, homeownership is not all it's made out to be.

boing3887 Says:

Aug 31, 2011 - @tigerhopThe banks that came up with these non-traditional mortgages were not under the supervisioin of the CRA or Fannie/Freddie - you can look that up. And if you're going to say that non-traditional mortgages were "allowed" by govt., then you're saying that the govt. let private firms come up with these "inovations" - so you're saying that this is a failure of regulation. If that's what you mean, then I agree

boing3887 Says:

Aug 31, 2011 - @tigerhop.If you want me to see your comments, make sure there's a "@boing3887" right at the beginning of the comment, or else i probably won't see your comment.

illinois008 Says:

Apr 7, 2012 - Economic historian Barry Eichengreen is a noble man.

boing3887 Says:

Aug 29, 2011 - @tigerhopYour turn. I gave you my account - which is more or less the picture given by Martin Wolf at the Financial Times and Nouriel Roubini. Is the story about low interest rates and the Fed the explanation for the worldwide housing bubble? The dollar is actually overvalued relative to where it should be - Chinese and other countries' purchases of T-bills are keeping the dollar high to make exporting easier for China and those other countries...

boing3887 Says:

Aug 29, 2011 - @tigerhopSo last call - just give me the exact mechanism through which you think the global housing bubble happened, and some actual data would be nice as well.

tigerhop Says:

Aug 29, 2011 - First of all, I agree with your account on how our debtors have kept our dollar from sinking by buying our debt, so we could continue to flush their markets with our currency and up their exports. Unfortunately, it's only exported our inflation over to China. China is being forced to eventually have to pin their currency to the dollar instead of consistently devaluing it in order to increase exports. Wehn this happens, it will catastrophic for western countries.

tigerhop Says:

Aug 29, 2011 - Respond to this video... Tell me, are you saying that NONE of the financial crisis had to do with the government's housing policy and the subsequent suicidal loans it pushed on banks? Are you saying it all had to do with the easy credit created in the rich countries by poorer countries buying our debt? If so, you are simplifying the issue.

tigerhop Says:

Aug 29, 2011 - It is a much messier narrative than you make it out to be: it was BOTH global economic forces and failures in U.S. policy and supervision. The CATALYST was the government's housing policy. As soon as people started defaulting on their mortgages, it set off a chain of events that rippled throughout the globe. It all started with the housing bubble created by the Fed and the US government in the 1990's through lowered interest rates, liquidity, and non-traditional mortgage products.

tigerhop Says:

Aug 29, 2011 - Respond to this video...  These non-traditional mortgage products were allowed by government as the Clinton administration bought votes by creating a LIE that every American has a RIGHT to a home. Failures in credit-rating and securitization transformed bad mortgages into toxic financial assets, which were sold around the world. The mountain of gov. programs supporting the housing market produced distorted investment incentives, and the gov's implicit support of Fannie&Freddie was EVIL.

tigerhop Says:

Aug 29, 2011 - You have a simplistic mindset to blame it on just one thing. It's easy to point fingers, but your refusal to blame government subsidies to the housing market is erroneous and narrow-minded.

boing3887 Says:

Aug 31, 2011 - @tigerhopwhen you can't make good arguments or find good evidence, start calling names. i never said that govt. subsidies weren't problematic - what i'm saying is that they're not the main factor by a long shot. to say that govt. subsidies caused the worldwide housing bubble looks pretty funny to those of us who aren't austrians.

boing3887 Says:

Aug 31, 2011 - @tigerhopthat's kinda wrong...conservative think tanks like Heritage Foundation and AEI also pushed very hard to increase credit to lower-income families in order to encourage home ownership among them. Clinton never said that home ownership was a right...

boing3887 Says:

Aug 31, 2011 - @tigerhopthe housing bubble in the 90's didn't have that big of an effect on the economy like now. your point about US policy still fails to account for global housing bubble. If the catalyst is solely govt. and not stupid investors, then that implies that all countries with housing bubbles had similar policies on housing and credit. That is patently untrue. Policy on these fronts was very diverse across the world and yet they all had housing bubbles

boing3887 Says:

Aug 31, 2011 - @tigerhopIt's not that "none" of it had to do with govt. policy, but that govt. policy would not be at the top of the list. I never say that govt. is not to blame - you can look through my posts and you'll never see me say that. my emphasis is that there are global imbalances. if anything, the one with a blind spot is you - you can't seem to admit that investors can't be stupid

boing3887 Says:

Aug 31, 2011 - @tigerhopinflation here is very weak. The chinese use the same measures for inflation that we do, and theirs is rising (but still not all that high) while ours is about 2%. But a little bit of inflation is what you get when the economy recovers. Right now the US is facing deflation because we can't recover - China passed a huge stimulus and recovered and so now is facing inflation. thus, they're raising interest rates, as they should

boing3887 Says:

Aug 31, 2011 - @tigerhopThere isn't some ideology among Democrats that home ownership is a right. more accurately, there is a view shared by both parties that the key to financial prosperity is through homeownership - you'll find both Republican and Democrat politicians praising the value of homeownership. Well, homeownership is not all it's made out to be.

boing3887 Says:

Aug 31, 2011 - @tigerhopThe banks that came up with these non-traditional mortgages were not under the supervisioin of the CRA or Fannie/Freddie - you can look that up. And if you're going to say that non-traditional mortgages were "allowed" by govt., then you're saying that the govt. let private firms come up with these "inovations" - so you're saying that this is a failure of regulation. If that's what you mean, then I agree

boing3887 Says:

Aug 31, 2011 - @tigerhop.If you want me to see your comments, make sure there's a "@boing3887" right at the beginning of the comment, or else i probably won't see your comment.

illinois008 Says:

Apr 7, 2012 - Economic historian Barry Eichengreen is a noble man.