Archive for October 23rd, 2008
Continue Reading October 23rd, 2008
Oh how the housing mess has brought down the both the little folks and the high and mighty.
Alan Greenspan got his comeuppance on the witness stand in front of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform today, finally admitting he had relied too much on the free market to police itself during the housing bubble.
Eighteen years as Fed chief, Greenspan will go down not as the “maestro” he was once called but as the guy who kept rates too low and encouraged all kinds of exotic mortgage and investment products.
This one detail from the Congressional hearings today, courtesy of Bloomberg News, says a lot.
“(Committee Chairman Henry) Waxman and other lawmakers repeatedly interrupted Greenspan as he answered their questions, in contrast to deference to his testimony while he was Fed chairman.”
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Continue Reading October 23rd, 2008
Meruelo Maddux Properties Inc. has topped off its 35-story residential tower located at 717 W. 9th St. in downtown Los Angeles, it has announced. When completed, it will be downtown’s tallest residential building. Read more »
Continue Reading October 23rd, 2008
In the 1960s activists marched for civil rights and to protest the Vietnam War. Now its the foreclosure crisis.
Community activist group Pico National Network is marshalling faith-based organizations and housing advocates for what it’s calling a national town hall meeting in Antioch, Calif. on Monday Oct. 27.
There they’ll meet with representatives of Wells Fargo Bank, Bank of America, the FDIC, and state and local officials to press for an end to foreclosures. On Nov. 17 the group will descend on Washington to meet with legislators and officials there.
Citing stats that say some 2.2 million people could lose their homes in the coming year as their toxic mortage rates jump, Pico’s leaders want a national policiy to renegotiate mortgage loans rather than foreclose. The program would resemble what the FDIC has been doing with IndyMac.
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Continue Reading October 23rd, 2008
The Internal Revenue Service has issued a ruling that gives Forest City Ratner Cos., developer of the $4 billion Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, the go-ahead to leverage tax-free bonds for the development, the cornerstone of which would be a new arena for the National Basketball Association’s New Jersey Nets. Read more »