The Booming Economy

Get ready for the biggest bailout in American history.

Any halfway astute observer would have seen this mess coming. The "boom," fueled by easy credit, was going to bust big time.

The Booming Economy

The WSWS comments about the effective nationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The WSWS

concludes its two-part series about the mortgage crisis.

It was a disaster waiting to happen, considering companies were slashing wages and salaries, outsourcing jobs whenever possible, and insourcing illegal labor to further depress the wage base:

Median home prices in the US have nearly doubled over the past ten years, from $109,000 in 1995 to $206,000 in 2005, outpacing the growth of the consumer price index by over 33 percent during this period. As median-priced homes have moved out of reach of median-income earners, homebuyers have sought to use riskier mortgage instruments to bridge the gap.

Despite the increase in prices, however, the past 15 years have seen a five percent increase in the home ownership rate. Considering that the median wage has been stagnant since 1999 and incomes of low-paid workers have been declining for decades, it would follow that this change has come about through increasing indebtedness.

Indeed, overall household indebtedness climbed drastically during the housing bubble, just as mortgage debt constituted a greater section of overall household debt. According to figures from the Federal Reserve, outstanding household debt as a percentage of disposable personal income grew from 88 percent in 1994 to 117 percent in 2004. The Washington Post reported that this statistic reached 126 percent in 2005—a 45 percent increase in the course of 11 years. According to a 2006 report in Harper’s Magazine, almost half of first-time home-buyers paid no money down on their mortgages in 2005.

"Homeowners," a misnomer if there ever was one, were and are cash poor.

Our Dictator Clearly Proved

he cares more about Wall Street than he cares about millions of homeowners.

After all, it was their fault they got into the mess they are in, and it is not the administration's fault for encouraging faulty lending practices, etc.

The Mortgage Crisis

has had major social costs, all in the reckless pursuit of more profits.

As the World Turns.

The subject matter may have been inappropriate, but that is less the point than the fact many charter school teachers have NO job security:

The incident highlights the tenuous job security for mostly nonunion teachers in charter schools, which are publicly financed but independently run. California has more than 600 charter schools, and their ranks continue to swell. According to the California Teachers Assn., staff at fewer than 10% of charter schools are represented by unions.

No wonder so many right-wingers love charter schools.
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Deregulation is such a good thing--not.
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