April 22, 2010
Okay, I don’t know Paulson’s exact role in the Goldman deal. If he helped to deliberately mislead investors about his own role, pretending to be long on a deal that he was actually betting against, then the SEC should hang him. But there was nothing at all wrong or anti-social about betting against the housing market near the peak of the bubble, as Tina Brown implied on this Morning Edition segment.
By that point, house prices had grown hugely out of line with the fundamentals of the housing market. This priced them out of the reach of millions of middle income people. The temporary run-up in prices also led tens of millions of homeowners to spend based on bubble wealth that would disappear when prices returned to more normal levels.
Betting against the bubble was not “ghoulish,” as Tina Brown asserts, it was a public service. It was helping to return house prices to more normal levels. Of course this was not Paulson’s motive, but it was a side effect of his bet.
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