Author : Howard Husock
Publisher : Ivan R. Dee Publisher
Page : 152 pages
File Size : 43,28 MB
Release : 2003
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN :
This book explains how public housing projects are not the only housing policy mistakes. Lesser known efforts are just as pernicious, working in concert to undermine sound neighborhoods and perpetuate a dependent underclass.
Author : Bruce S. Jansson
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 520 pages
File Size : 48,17 MB
Release : 2002-09-04
Category : History
ISBN : 9780231505260
Choices about budget priorities are arguably the most important made by the federal government, profoundly affecting the well-being of citizens. Bruce Jansson documents how presidents from FDR to Clinton have made ill-advised choices that wasted trillions of dollars. Going beyond charges of corruption or bureaucratic waste, the book is an eye-opening exposé revealing innumerable useless projects (military as well as civilian), unnecessary tax concessions, and the use of interest payments to cover deficit spending, among other costly mistakes. Using Office of Management and Budget projections through 2004, Jansson shows how the madness continues—and how an informed electorate can put an end to it.
Author : Adam J. Levitin
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 401 pages
File Size : 30,61 MB
Release : 2020-06-09
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 0674979656
The definitive account of the housing bubble that caused the Great Recession—and earned Wall Street fantastic profits. The American housing bubble of the 2000s caused the worst global financial crisis since the Great Depression. In this definitive account, Adam Levitin and Susan Wachter pinpoint its source: the shift in mortgage financing from securitization by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to “private-label securitization” by Wall Street banks. This change set off a race to the bottom in mortgage underwriting standards, as banks competed in laxity to gain market share. The Great American Housing Bubble tells the story of the transformation of mortgage lending from a dysfunctional, local affair, featuring short-term, interest-only “bullet” loans, to a robust, national market based around the thirty-year fixed-rate mortgage, a uniquely American innovation that served as the foundation for the middle class. Levitin and Wachter show how Fannie and Freddie’s market power kept risk in check until 2003, when mortgage financing shifted sharply to private-label securitization, as lenders looked for a way to sustain lending volume following an unprecedented refinancing wave. Private-label securitization brought a return of bullet loans, which had lower initial payments—enabling borrowers to borrow more—but much greater back-loaded risks. These loans produced a vast oversupply of underpriced mortgage finance that drove up home prices unsustainably. When the bubble burst, it set off a destructive downward spiral of home prices and foreclosures. Levitin and Wachter propose a rebuild of the housing finance system that ensures the widespread availability of the thirty-year fixed-rate mortgage, while preventing underwriting competition and shifting risk away from the public to private investors.
Author : Howard A. Husock
Publisher : Encounter Books
Page : 152 pages
File Size : 39,7 MB
Release : 2021-09-21
Category : History
ISBN : 1641772034
This book combines a critique of more than a century of housing reform policies, including public and other subsidized housing as well as exclusionary zoning, with the idea that simple low-cost housing—a poor side of town—helps those of modest means build financial assets and join in the local democratic process. It is more of a historical narrative than a straight policy book, however—telling stories of Jacob Riis, zoning reformer Lawrence Veiller, anti-reformer Jane Jacobs, housing developer William Levitt, and African American small homes advocate Rev. Johnny Ray Youngblood, as well as first-person accounts of onetime residents of neighborhoods such as Detroit’s Black Bottom who lost their homes and businesses to housing reform and urban renewal. This is a book with important policy implications—built on powerful, personal stories.
Author : Barry B. LePatner
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 240 pages
File Size : 23,54 MB
Release : 2008-09-15
Category : Law
ISBN : 0226472701
Across the nation, construction projects large and small—from hospitals to schools to simple home improvements—are spiraling out of control. Delays and cost overruns have come to seem “normal,” even as they drain our wallets and send our blood pressure skyrocketing. In Broken Buildings, Busted Budgets, prominent construction attorney Barry B. LePatner builds a powerful case for change in America’s sole remaining “mom and pop” industry—an industry that consumes $1.23 trillion and wastes at least $120 billion each year. With three decades of experience representing clients that include eminent architects and engineers, as well as corporations, institutions, and developers, LePatner has firsthand knowledge of the bad management, ineffective supervision, and insufficient investment in technology that plagues the risk-averse construction industry. In an engaging and direct style, he here pinpoints the issues that underlie the industry’s woes while providing practical tips for anyone in the business of building, including advice on the precise language owners should use during contract negotiations. Armed with Broken Buildings, Busted Budgets, everyone involved in the purchase or renovation of a building or any structure—from homeowners seeking to remodel to civic developers embarking on large-scale projects—has the information they need to change this antiquated industry, one project at a time. “LePatner describes what is wrong with the current system and suggests ways that architects can help—by retaking their rightful place as master builders.”—Fred A. Bernstein, Architect Magazine “Every now and then, a major construction project is completed on time and on budget. Everyone is amazed. . . . Barry LePatner thinks this exception should become the rule. . . . A swift kick to the construction industry.”—James R. Hagerty, Wall Street Journal
Author : Howard A. Husock
Publisher : Encounter Books
Page : 180 pages
File Size : 18,7 MB
Release : 2019-09-10
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 1641770597
Billions of American tax dollars go into a vast array of programs targeting various social issues: the opioid epidemic, criminal violence, chronic unemployment, and so on. Yet the problems persist and even grow. Howard Husock argues that we have lost sight of a more powerful strategy—a preventive strategy, based on positive social norms. In the past, individuals and institutions of civil society actively promoted what may be called “bourgeois norms,” to nurture healthy habits so that social problems wouldn’t emerge in the first place. It was a formative effort. Today, a massive social service state instead takes a reformative approach to problems that have already become vexing. It offers counseling along with material support, but struggling communities have been more harmed than helped by government’s embrace. And social service agencies have a vested interest in the continuance of problems. Government can provide a financial safety net for citizens, but it cannot effectively create or promote healthy norms. Nor should it try. That formative work is best done by civil society. This book focuses on six key figures in the history of social welfare to illuminate how a norm-promoting culture was built, then lost, and how it can be revived. We read about Charles Loring Brace, founder of the Children’s Aid Society; Jane Addams, founder of Hull House; Mary Richmond, a social work pioneer; Grace Abbott of the federal Children’s Bureau; Wilbur Cohen of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare; and Geoffrey Canada, founder of the Harlem Children’s Zone—a model for bringing real benefit to a poor community through positive social norms. We need more like it.
Author : Nick Timiraos
Publisher : Hachette UK
Page : 331 pages
File Size : 49,98 MB
Release : 2022-03-01
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0316273074
The inside story, told with “insight, perspective, and stellar reporting,” of how an unassuming civil servant created trillions of dollars from thin air, combatted a public health crisis, and saved the American economy from a second Great Depression (Alan S. Blinder, former Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve). By February 2020, the U.S. economic expansion had become the longest on record. Unemployment was plumbing half-century lows. Stock markets soared to new highs. One month later, the public health battle against a deadly virus had pushed the economy into the equivalent of a medically induced coma. America’s workplaces—offices, shops, malls, and factories—shuttered. Many of the nation’s largest employers and tens of thousands of small businesses faced ruin. Over 22 million American jobs were lost. The extreme uncertainty led to some of the largest daily drops ever in the stock market. Nick Timiraos, the Wall Street Journal’s chief economics correspondent, draws on extensive interviews to detail the tense meetings, late night phone calls, and crucial video conferences behind the largest, swiftest U.S. economic policy response since World War II. Trillion Dollar Triage goes inside the Federal Reserve, one of the country’s most important and least understood institutions, to chronicle how its plainspoken chairman, Jay Powell, unleashed an unprecedented monetary barrage to keep the economy on life support. With the bleeding stemmed, the Fed faced a new challenge: How to nurture a recovery without unleashing an inflation-fueling, bubble-blowing money bomb? Trillion Dollar Triage is the definitive, gripping history of a creative and unprecedented battle to shield the American economy from the twin threats of a public health disaster and economic crisis. Economic theory and policy will never be the same.
Author : Paul Cleary
Publisher : Biteback Publishing
Page : 173 pages
File Size : 18,23 MB
Release : 2016-09-02
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 1785901303
For most of its history, the remote and near-Arctic nation of Norway has eked out a marginal existence from fishing, forestry and shipping. That is, until Christmas Eve 1969, when oil was discovered off its southern coast. Rather than squandering the profits (as the UK did with its North Sea oil), when the revenue began flowing, Norway put in place the most robust and visionary framework for extracting maximum benefit from non-renewable resources found anywhere in the world. Less than twenty years after the country began investing in what is now called the Government Pension Fund, Norway has the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world, with assets of US$870 billion. What's more, the fund is on track to hit the US$1 trillion mark by 2020. Not only is every Norwegian now a (krone) millionaire and enjoying the highest standard of living in the world, they will be able to hand down this endowment to their children and grandchildren. Norway's savings strategy means that it has taken a non-renewable resource and turned it into a financial asset that can last long after the oil wealth has been completely exhausted. This is the story of how they did it.
Author : Ezekiel J. Emanuel
Publisher : PublicAffairs
Page : 415 pages
File Size : 22,23 MB
Release : 2020-03-03
Category : Medical
ISBN : 1541797779
Ten years after the landmark legislation, Ezekiel Emanuel leads a crowd of experts, policy-makers, doctors, and scholars as they evaluate the Affordable Care Act's history so far. In March 2010, the Affordable Care Act officially became one of the seminal laws determining American health care. From day one, the law was challenged in court, making it to the Supreme Court four separate times. It transformed the way a three-trillion-dollar sector of the economy behaved and brought insurance to millions of people. It spawned the Tea Party, further polarized American politics, and affected the electoral fortunes of both parties. Ten years after the bill's passage, a constellation of experts--insiders and academics for and against the ACA--describe the momentousness of the legislation. Encompassing Democrats and Republicans, along with legal, financial, and health policy experts, the essays here offer a fascinating and revealing insight into the political fight of a generation, its consequences for health care, politics, law, the economy-and the future.
Author : A. R. Morton
Publisher : Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Page : 446 pages
File Size : 29,15 MB
Release : 2016-11-17
Category :
ISBN : 9781537790787
In the 21st century Black American citizens, though only 13% of the population, contribute over one trillion dollars ($1,000,000,000,000) in the U.S. retail economy every year. In an era of history where young Americans are looking for solutions, educating them on the importance of socioeconomic empowerment is paramount. To combat the problems that millions of Black Americans face every day, proper utilization of the annual expenditure will be proven to be an essential piece to those solutions. Detailing the significance and implementation of economic initiatives that will restore the black communities across the country. Solutions rooted in financial literacy, community building, health, political representation, job creation, ownership, and control. Though written with Black America as the focal point these economic and political initiatives can be applied to all American households. Black America, Inc. serve as a reference guide for all people of all income levels to show what is possible when people come together for the greater good of everyone.
