Mark WeisbrotThe Guardian Unlimited, 11 de febrero, 2011En Inglés

Dean Baker
TPMCafé, February 11, 2011

A press release from Rep. Maxine Waters’ office late yesterday states that the House Financial Services Committee adopted, “without opposition by a voice vote” an amendment offered by Waters and Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) “to conduct oversight over the

This is the fourth installment of a new weekly feature at the CEPR blog. Every Friday, we'll post a list of labor market related policy research reports from progressive research centers around the country. This week, reports from Center for American Progress, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Economic Policy Institute, Institute for Women's Policy Research, National Employment Law Project, and Political Economy Research Institute.

CEPR Co-Director Mark Weisbrot has an op-ed in The Guardian (UK) today, that appears both online and in the print edition. Please note the figures listed here on political violence, as there has been a lot of misreporting on this in the press. He writes,

Mark Weisbrot
The Guardian Unlimited, February 11, 2011
En Español

Arithmetic is a skill that is in short supply among economists in policymaking positions. The Obama administration is about to come out with its plans for replacing Fannie and Freddie. The word in the media is that the administration will propose a range of options, with one option maintaining a Fannie/Freddie type structure and one option going to a completely private system for the main sector of the housing market. (Presumably the Federal Housing Authority would remain in place even in the private system to provide credit to moderate income households.)

The third option, that apparently many Washington policy wonks are smiling upon, is a hybrid system with private institutions buying mortgages with a government guarantee standing behind them. (Depending on the construction, the government may either guarantee the institution or the mortgage backed security -- more likely it will be the latter.) According to a new paper by Moody's, this sort of hybrid system will reduce the cost of a 30-year mortgage by 90 basis points (9/10ths of a percentage point) compared to a purely privatized system. The Moody's analysis also calculates that it will raise house prices by 8 percent compared to a privatized system.