On March 29, 2007, three weeks after the subprime dam collapsed, a University of Chicago economist named Austan Goolsbee published an op-ed in The New York Times, in which he pooh-poohed the idea that people were fooled into buying homes that they couldn't afford.
Goolsbee wrote:
Almost every new form of mortgage lending - from adjustable-rate mortgages to home equity lines of credit to no-money-down mortgages - has tended to expand the pool of people who qualify but has also been greeted by a large number of people saying that it harms consumers and will fool people into thinking they can afford homes that they cannot.
Congress is contemplating a serious tightening of regulations to make the new forms of lending more difficult. New research from some of the leading housing economists in the country, however, examines the long history of mortgage market innovations and suggests that regulators should be mindful of the potential downside in tightening too much.
Goolsbee noted that many types of new mortgages were invented between 1970 and 2000. "These innovations mainly served to give people power to make their own decisions about housing, and they ended up being quite sensible with their newfound access to capital," Goolsbee wrote.
He added that the market should trust borrowers who believe that their incomes will rise in the future. Let them buy too much house now and let their incomes grow into it: An efficient market, Goolsbee wrote, is one characterized by "people's decisions unrestricted by the amount of money they have right now."
Read that again. He says lending decisions shouldn't be based on the incomes and down payments people have now; decisions should be based on how much borrowers think they'll earn someday.
Goolsbee concluded that when you look at the market that way, "the mortgage market has become more perfect, not more irresponsible. People tend to make good decisions about their own economic prospects."
I think he was terribly wrong.
When I look at people who have low credit scores, I see people who don't make good decisions about their economic prospects. I see people who don't pay bills on time, don't keep jobs for long, and who regard the state lottery as a retirement plan. Apparently, when Goolsbee looks at subprime customers, he sees sensible people who can accurately assess their future economic prospects.
Why does it matter what a University of Chicago economist said almost two years ago? It matters because Goolsbee was the Obama campaign's chief economic adviser. He will be the staff director and chief economist on President Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, and will be one of three members of the president's Council of Economic Advisers.
You can take the economist out of the University of Chicago, but can you take the University of Chicago out of the economist? We must hope so, because the Chicago School's anti-regulation fervor has been discredited by the mortgage meltdown.
This March, a year after that Times op-ed appeared, Goolsbee wrote a short essay for The Washington Post, explaining what an Obama administration would do to turn the economy around. The first priority, he wrote, would be to "enact a comprehensive plan to help bring an end to the foreclosure crisis that threatens millions of families."
Goolsbee advocated an FHA refinancing program for delinquent borrowers. Such a plan has has since been started, called Hope for Homeowners. (In its first six weeks of operation, the FHA took a grand total of 180 Hope for Homeowners applications nationwide.)
[转帖]GOOLSBEE
[转帖]GOOLSBEE
http://www.bankrate.com/brm/story_conte ... odtype=mtg
芝大请这样的教授和Berkley 请 John Yoo 教宪法不可同日而语. 你没看到这句吗?芝加哥大学请这么烂的教授，Berkley 请 John Yoo 教宪法，斯坦福请 Condi Rice 回去做教导主任。
You can take the economist out of the University of Chicago, but can you take the University of Chicago out of the economist? We must hope so, because the Chicago School's anti-regulation fervor has been discredited by the mortgage meltdown.