The Housing Boom and Bust 
Характеристики: - ISBN13: 9780465018802
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Описание на продукта: This is a plain-English explanation of how we got into the current economic disaster that developed out of the economics and politics of the housing boom and bust. The “creative” financing of home mortgages and the even more “creative” marketing of financial securities based on American mortgages to countries around the world, are part of the story of how a financial house of cards was built up—and then suddenly collapsed. The politics behind all this is another story full of strange twists. No punches are pulled when discussing politicians of either party, the financial dangers they created, or the distractions they created later to escape their own responsibility for what happened when the financial house of cards in the financial markets collapsed. What to do, now that we are in the midst of an economic disaster, is yet another story—one whose ending we do not yet know, but one whose outlines and implications are explored to reveal some surprising and sobering lessons.
Оценки на клиенти: - A Partial Look at the Boom and Bust of Housing.. I titled this review a Partial Look because the author only addresses part of the problem.
I believe that Mr. Sowell is correct in his assertion that some of the mortgages were way too risky with borrowers that couldn t make payments. Did government create some of that by pressuring lending institutions to make those loans? Probably so.
One of the points made in this book was that smart growth or land restrictions drive up real estate prices in certain locales. In that respect, local government was partially responsible for driving up prices.
What I find missing in the book is any mention of the Glass-Steagall Act or the Financial Service Modernization Act. That s strange since those acts are intricately involved in the financial crisis! A lot of those risky mortgages were traded by companies that benefited from passage of FSMA. One might point out that Republicans like Phil Gramm were instrumental in deregulating and the repeal of Glass-Steagall which seemed to work a lot better than the alternative for a number of decades.
The theory that free markets will regulate themselves didn t work so well with Wall Street and derivatives.(Unless of course you got a bailout).
There is much more to the crisis and this book doesn t cover all of the angles.
- Well written and easy to understand. This is a book that anyone with a high school education can understand. What we can do about it is another matter, other than elect people to represent the views of the taxpayer.
- Very well-written, well-argued, great explanations. I m an economics professor and used this book in a course for non-econ majors about the economic crisis. Most of these students were 18 yrs old and never had any econ course before. Judging from the excellent class discussions we had about each chapter and their performance on the exams, it is clear that the book really engaged these students and they really learned a LOT from it.
I mention this because I suspect many folks considering this book are NOT economics majors and want a book that explains things very clearly. If that describes you, Sowell will surpass your expectations. This book is very well-written, his arguments are persuasive and intelligent but you don t have to have any background to appreciate them.
While Sowell s book is very readable for non-economics majors, I would also say that econ and finance majors will not feel that Sowell is condescending to them, I have used this book in an upper level course for econ and finance majors, and the students gave the book high marks.
The title accurately describes the scope of the book - it contains little to no discussion of credit default swaps and collateralized default obligations, does not talk too much about the credit crunch, the shadow banking sector and other aspects of the economic crisis. He focuses on the housing bubble, which of course is not entire crisis but is at the very heart of the crisis.
And just in case you didn t pick this up from the other reviews here, Sowell writes from a very conservative perspective. I m pretty centrist, but I like reading and being challenged by the great thinkers from different perspectives.
My only caution to the young reader of Sowell is to not jump to the conclusion that Sowell s perspective is the correct perspective, but rather treat it as a very valuable perspective that we can all learn from, but also seek out other insightful perspectives, such as Krugman s Return of Depression Economics, Posner s A Failure of Capitalism, and the new book by Joseph Stiglitz called Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy.
- Concise review of the major players involved. Dr. Sowell s book containes a concise detailing of the institutions and policy involved in crafting the housing bubble. He takes his sources mostly from newspaper anecdotes and uses them to examine the government policy at work in distorting the mortgage market by promoting homeownership fervently. He further explains the consequences of land-use restrictions in causing the elevated real estate values often found in cities on the west coast even before the onset of the bubble or bust. Far from the usual explanations, the book shows how reckless lending practices were encouraged by government policy through the government-sponsorded entities buying excessive amounts of mortgage debt and removing the risk of default from the lender. An overwhelming part of the blame for this crisis should lie with congress and the GSEs, but won t because congress would never subject itself to the scrutiny of a congressional hearing.
- The Housing Boom and Bust. Thomas Sowell makes complex economic situations clearer than anyone else.
Only he has pointed out the relationships in the housing boom that they are local, not national, and appear only in the areas where land-use restrictions caused real estate prices to soar.
Brilliant! I loved reading this book.
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The Housing Boom and Bust (ID: 0465018807)
