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A Year Into the Mortgage Meltdown, New Report Analyzes Housing Market Crisis and Federal Response |
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From Demos: With millions of American families facing foreclosure and the U.S. Senate moving toward approval of a compromise bill, the public policy center Demos takes stock of the housing market crisis and the federal response to date. "The damage has been as bad as anyone imagined so far," writes Demos senior fellow James Lardner. The market, Lardner finds, could continue further on a downward spiral and pull much more of the economy down with it. The Demos report praises the thrust of legislation approved by the House and moving toward passage in the Senate, which this Tuesday held a key procedural vote to limit debate on the bill. Moodys.com chief economist Mark Zandi, Demos president Miles Rapoport, and Federal Home Loan Bank of New York President Alfred DelliBovi, who was Deputy Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under George H.W. Bush, also provided comments on the report as panelists at the National Press Club event. While there are some who claim that this would be an unfair bailout of irresponsible lenders and borrowers, the Demos report outlines how key federal officials and agencies took steps that actually helped unscrupulous lenders at the expense of responsible lenders and borrowers. "Assisting homeowners and the mortgage market in the short run is only the first thing that needs to be done," said Miles Rapoport, President of Demos. "For the long term, we need a set of rules for the mortgage and financial industry that give people confidence that this will never happen again."
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