How to Fix the Housing Crisis

“In short, government policies to support the housing market not only have failed to fix the problem, but are prolonging the deleveraging process and creating the conditions for Japanese-style malaise. Avoiding this dismal ‘new normal’ will be difficult, but there are alternative policies with far better prospects of returning the US and the global economy to prosperity. Corporations have learned how to take bad news in stride, write down losses, and move on, but our governments have not. For one out of four US mortgages, the debt exceeds the home’s value. Evictions merely create more homeless people and more vacant homes. What is needed is a quick write-down of the value of the mortgages.”