Monday, September 22, 2008

Dirty Secret Of The Bailout: Thirty-Two Words That None Dare Utter

jason@huffingtonpost.com
A critical - and radical - component of the bailout package proposed by the Bush administration has thus far failed to garner the serious attention of anyone in the press. Section 8 (which ironically reminds one of the popular name of the portion of the 1937 Housing Act that paved the way for subsidized affordable housing ) of this legislation is just a single sentence of thirty-two words, but it represents a significant consolidation of power and an abdication of oversight authority that's so flat-out astounding that it ought to set one's hair on fire. It reads, in its entirety:
Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.
In short, the so-called "mother of all bailouts," which will transfer $700 billion taxpayer dollars to purchase the distressed assets of several failed financial institutions, will be conducted in a manner unchallengeable by courts and ungovernable by the People's duly sworn representatives. All decision-making power will be consolidated into the Executive Branch - who, we remind you, will have the incentive to act upon this privilege as quickly as possible, before they leave office. The measure will run up the budget deficit by a significant amount, with no guarantee of recouping the outlay, and no fundamental means of holding those who fail to do so accountable.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

The Greater Nashville Association of Realtors released the August 2008 homes sales figures today. Single Family home sales were down 32.3% with median single family home prices dropping 6.4%.

As I indicated last month the inventory of homes has stabilized, and in fact dropped from 15,844 in July to 15,636 which is the lowest it has been since March. We will need to see a continuation of the declining inventory coupled with increase in sales to bring the market back in to balance. The decline in inventory is a good start.

http://www.gnar.org/mlsrelease.htm