Thursday, October 07, 2010

Government Stimulus in Action

This harebrained plan solves nothing:
Unemployed homeowners in Massachusetts will be able to take out interest-free loans of up to $50,000 to help them make mortgage payments, under a $1 billion federal program unveiled today in Roxbury by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development...The effort, called the Emergency Homeowner Loan Program, is meant to supplement a $7.6 billion program launched by the US Treasury Department... To qualify for loans of up to two years, borrowers must have suffered a significant drop in income and be at least three months behind on mortgage payments. They also must demonstrate "a reasonable likelihood of being able to resume" payments within two years. Applications will be accepted until the end of the year.

Economic policy should be about creating structures for sustainable economic patterns of trade. This is all about trying to do something, hoping the good intentions will be sufficient to gain public support.

2 comments:

Mark K said...

Eep. Another housing bubble?

Caveat B said...

Economic sustainability and unintended consequences don't matter politically. Getting 51% of the vote? That's pretty much everything.