Legal Commentary

WaPo "Facts" About The Economy

By Big Tent Democrat

Dean Baker fisks this WaPo "news" article:

The Washington Post appears to have outdone itself in a discussion of the politics surrounding the foreclosure crisis. For beginners, it told readers that:

[. . . T]he White House, which is looking past the midterm elections, has been restrained. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan wrote over the weekend that 'a national, blanket moratorium on all foreclosure sales would do far more harm than good, hurting homeowners and home buyers alike.'"

Okay, it's fun with logic time. Secretary Donovan wants more foreclosures, presumably to further depress prices. [. . .] If Donovan thinks it is good to speed up the foreclosure process then why is the administration pushing HAMP? [. . .] That may make sense to the Washington Post, but probably not to anyone else. [. . .] The article then gives us a quote from a Democratic consultant without a name: "But shutting down foreclosures has the potential of shutting down the whole housing market, which isn't helpful to anybody."

Let's see, we have how many hundreds of thousands of homes that non-foreclosed sellers are putting on the market each month, plus a backlog of several hundred thousand foreclosed homes already in the banks' possession. How exactly does a moratorium on foreclosures shut down the whole housing market?

Of course it doesn't. But the cloud on titles to homes does. The Obama Administration wants to sweep reality under the rug. Baker does not mention one WaPo "fact" that astounded me:

Ninety percent of Americans are employed and more than 9o percent of homeowners pay their mortgages, Hart noted, but "the real issue is the space it takes in peoples' fear and uncertainty.

(Emphasis supplied.) In what world are 90% of Americans employed? Strictly speaking, the percentage of Americans employed is 58%. 64.7% of working age Americans are employed. And U6 is at 16%. Where does the 90% employed "fact" come from? From the narrower reading of unemployment that stands at around 10%. That measure excludes:

About 2.5 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force in September, up from 2.2 million a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.) These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.

Can we get some better "elites" please?

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on October 19, 2010 (boomark / email).