September 2008
A Victory for American Democracy
Americans all over the nation, political pundits, Wall Street workers, and, I venture to guess, even the president, were stunned Monday afternoon to hear that the bailout bill had been defeated in the U.S. House of Representatives. The bailout had…
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Some Act
Between the recent string of bank failures and shotgun weddings, Citigroup’s FDIC-brokered purchase of troubled Wachovia this morning, and talk of handing off a heaping helping of toxic mortgage debt to taxpayers in order to avert economic catastrophe, it’s clear…
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Rescue Communities Now!
In last week’s media blitz of trying to explain our financial crisis, the clearest description I saw was a Chattanooga Times Free Press cartoon, which the Chicago Tribune ran on its editorial page on Sept. 25. Titled The Rescue Plan,…
Disappearing Ink: Why No Coverage of the Demonstrations?
CNN this morning reported that grass-roots groups are organizing demonstrations across the country against what they’re calling the Bush administration’s “cash for trash” bailout plan. According to today’s Boston Globe, yesterday there were demonstrations on Boston Common, at the N.Y.…
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DOJ Keeps An Eye On Michigan
Following reports out of Michigan earlier this month as outlined on this Rooflines post that state Republicans there were planning to use a list of foreclosed homes to block people from voting in the upcoming election as part of an…
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Will Financial Crisis Lead to Hard Times for Nonprofits?
With congressional leaders reaching an agreement Thursday afternoon on the president’s proposal to pump $700 billion into the country’s financial system, it’s not yet clear how corporations and foundations will change their policies in giving grants and gifts. However, if…
A Green Job Renaissance?
Even decades after de-industrialization and outsourcing decimated the once-solid, well-paid, empowered blue collar union workforce of the Midwest, jobs are still being lost by the hundreds or thousands as industries tighten their belts or close up shop altogether—from the auto…
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Why You Should Care if the Kids Are Alright
On my way to work, I’ve gotten into the habit of tuning in to Democracy Now! on Carnegie Mellon University’s radio station WRCT. A little muckraking early in the day is usually enough to take my mind off the sheer…
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Preserving Safe, High Quality Public Housing Should Be a Federal Priority
A report I recently co-authored for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities examines the state of public housing in the United States today using significant new research on the location of remaining units. The report finds that public housing…
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Congress Can’t Give House Room to Paulson’s Section 8
Listening to Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson testify before the Senate Banking Committee, I’m marveling at his insistence to Republican Sen. Mel Martinez, former HUD secretary, that “I welcome oversight.” Martinez is leading Paulson through a kind of call-and-response…
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Shiller’s “Continuous-Workout Mortgages” Won’t Address the Crux of the Problem
Robert Shiller in an article in The New York Times proposed a more flexible home mortgage that he argues would help prevent crises like the current subprime mortgage crisis. Shiller, an economics professor at Yale and author of The Subprime…
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The Free Market Ain’t Free
On Friday, President Bush suddenly decided it was okay for Government to make contact with the Markets Invisible Hand, as long as Government does not slap The Hand’s wrist but instead stuffs It with cash. Yeah, yeah, so much for…
Portland Shrinks Carbon Footprint with Revitalization, Walkability
Portland, Oregon has become such a recognized model of progressive planning and development that people like me are actually discouraged from talking about the region in professional circles. “Everybody already knows about Portland,” the line goes. I don’t think that…
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Toxic Assets: The Diagnosis Comes Too Late for Foreclosed Homeowners
From AFP today: The 700-billion dollar Wall Street bailout plan, put together last week by the U.S. administration, would allow the U.S .Treasury to sell new debt to buy vast amounts of mortgage securities and other “toxic” assets that have…
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Affordable Housing as an “Unfunded Mandate”
Sorry to keep the focus on New Jersey, folks, but if you are a long-time Rooflines reader, you’ll know that I will, once again, preface this post with: At least we’re talking about an affordable housing mandate (even if that…
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Financial Implosion: 2nd Chance for Progressive Banking Reform?
When present and former public officials ranging from Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to Lawrence H. Summers, the former Treasury secretary under President Clinton, started calling for the creation of a new agency that would buy the almost worthless assets from…
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When Worldviews Collide
John McCain reinvented himself—again—this morning. And the latest avatar is the reincarnation of Sen. Joseph McCarthy. Speaking in Green Bay, Wisc. about the global economic collapse that’s flowed directly from the orgy of deregulation he and his ideological soulmates in…
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What Does the Financial Crisis Mean for CDCs?
Being a person who doesn’t have much invested in the stock market, I tend not to pay too close attention to photos on the business pages of weary stockbrokers on the trading floor. We’ve been through crashes before, and this…
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Community Organizers Help Turn the Tide
Peter Dreier’s most recent Rooflines post cited a story titled “Community Organizing Changed Fishery,” in which John Corrigan, the fishing writer for the Concord (N.H.) Monitor, explained that “anybody who has caught a fish at Sewalls Falls over the last…
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Discouraging the Voter
We’ve seen it before, and we’ll see it again, but, in Michigan—which is shaping up to be a crucial swing state in the presidential contest—we’re already seeing a mounting campaign to scare off potential voters. In this case, as you…
National Housing Institute
