Housing Crisis Forum

Event Location: Seminole Library at St. Petersburg College
Seminole, 9200-113th St. N, Room C

Event Description:
Forum on the housing crisis, offering possible solutions to those in need. Panelists include Mayor Pat Gerard of Largo, Victor Adamo of the Board of Realtors and Kip Corriveau of the Salvation Army among other experts in the field.
Co-sponsored by Organizing for America (Largo area) and the Largo/Mid-Pinellas Democratic Club.

Thomas Sowell on the housing collapse

The Housing Boom and Bust

by Thomas Sowell

Publisher Comments:

This is a plain-English explanation of how we got into the current economic disaster that developed out of the economics and politics of the housing boom and bust. The creative financing of home mortgages and the even more creative marketing of financial securities based on American mortgages to countries around the world, are part of the story of how a financial house of cards was built up--and then suddenly collapsed.

The politics behind all this is another story full of strange twists. No punches are pulled when discussing politicians of either party, the financial dangers they created, or the distractions they created later to escape their own responsibility for what happened when the financial house of cards in the financial markets collapsed.

What to do, now that we are in the midst of an economic disaster, is yet another story--one whose ending we do not yet know, but one whose outlines and implications are explored to reveal some surprising and sobering lessons.

Human Events

It's a story of venal and short-sighted politicians (on both sides of the aisle), rapacious financial tycoons, and victimized American citizens. Sowell, who has taught economics at Cornell and UCLA, and whose book Basic Economics has been translated into six languages, traces a series of very questionable decisions made by many people in many places, over a period of years. Each of these decisions helped build up the pressures that finally led to a sudden collapse of the housing market -- and of financial institutions that began to fall like dominoes as a result of investing in securities based on housing prices. Sowell explains how "creative" financing of home mortgages, and the even more "creative" marketing of financial securities based on American mortgages to countries around the world, built up a financial house of cards that was inevitably destined to fall.

Sowell also deftly navigates the bewildering twists and turns of the politics behind this disaster, pulling no punches about how politicians of both parties pursued their narrow self-interests, oblivious to the financial dangers they were creating. Sowell then shines much-needed light on how these same politicians later threw up smokescreens and distractions in order to escape their own responsibility for what happened when the whole shaky financial edifice they had built finally came tumbling down.

Synopsis:

The financial tsunami has been followed by a political flood of rhetoric, accompanied by finger-pointing in all directions. Who was really responsible? What set this off?

Order a copy.

More books by Sowell.

LET VOTERS DECIDE ON PUBLIC FUNDING FOR FLORIDA MARLINS STADIUM REPRESENTATIVE STEINBERG OFFERS PLAN FOR MIAMI-DADE VOTERS

TALLAHASSEE, FL --- State Representative Richard L. Steinberg (D-Miami Beach) is offering a legislative proposal to give Miami-Dade County voters the right to approve whether public funds are spent on a Florida Marlins stadium.



“The voters in Miami-Dade County should be given the right to decide whether to commit over a billion dollars of public money for a baseball stadium,” said Representative Steinberg. “If the local elected officials will not allow the people to vote, the Florida Legislature should require them to hold a referendum.”



Representative Steinberg filed an amendment to House Bill 253, a measure concerning public funding of professional sports team.



The bill, as originally filed, limits a voter referendum only to obligations “created before July 1, 2009.” The amendment offered by Representative Steinberg would give voters the right to vote on any obligation created after today, including the proposed stadium for the Florida Marlins.



Representative Steinberg serves on the House Transportation & Economic Development Appropriations Committee, and three other House committees.

Can we afford not to have curbside recycling in St. Pete?

Evergreen Solar Finds Profit In The Sun

MARLBORO, Mass. - Four million manufacturing jobs have vanished from the American economy since 2000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, or almost 25 percent of the entire manufacturing workforce. Layoffs at major companies are nearly daily news

But it’s important to remember that it is still too early to sound the sector’s death knell. While some industries are indeed still laying off hundreds if not thousands of workers, others are ramping up to take them in.

Read the story »

Green-Collar Job Training after Katrina

NEW ORLEANS - The shape of a national clean energy, good jobs training program for young people is gaining real definition here, where 800 young people are beginning full-time service as part of the Conservation Corps of Greater New Orleans, earning real money, educational stipends and preparing for careers in the new green economy while helping rebuild their hurricane and flood-damaged city from the ground up.
Read the story »

Stabenow Outlines Clean Energy Path to 1 Million New Jobs

WASHINGTON – As the nation’s concern over job losses and a faltering economy reached new depths this week, the Apollo Alliance and a group of prominent public interest organizations joined today in applauding Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow’s introduction of a landmark clean energy economic recovery bill to rebuild the American manufacturing sector.

Read the story »

Boston Green Justice Coalition Joins Apollo Alliance

BOSTON, Dec. 7 - The Boston Green Justice Coalition this weekend became the newest member of the Apollo Alliance, a national network of clean energy, good jobs organizations working to build a cleaner, more efficient, and more prosperous economy.
Read the story »

Data Points: Economic Outcomes of The Apollo Economic Recovery Act

The Apollo Economic Recovery Act is a comprehensive quick start economic stimulus strategy to accelerate development of wind, solar, biofuels, and other clean sources of energy, create or retain nearly 2 million new jobs, and restore America’s economic strength. Enacting this proposal would produce significant economic results for the nation.

Read the story »

Clean Energy, Green Jobs

Evergreen Solar Finds Profit In The Sun

MARLBORO, Mass. - Four million manufacturing jobs have vanished from the American economy since 2000,...

Green-Collar Job Training after Katrina

NEW ORLEANS - The shape of a national clean energy, good jobs training program for young people is gaining...

Kudos To Ohio Apollo Alliance

We received a nice gift yesterday afternoon. John Nichols of The Nation posted his list of Most Valuable...

Investment

Fast Track For National Rail Transit

MINNEAPOLIS - Technically speaking “light rail transit” encompasses an urban rail line capable...

Data Points: Investments In Clean Energy Soar

Governments, banks, and private investors around the world are furiously pumping capital into renewable...

Newark’s Green Future Summit

In the two years since Mayor Cory A. Booker took office, various measures of the city’s well-being...

Apollo Feedback

Apollo Feedback: Detroit Bailout Raises Support, Ire Last week we let you know that in partnership with our members the Apollo Alliance supported government...

John McCain running mate Sarah Palin misled Republican supporters

John McCain running mate Sarah Palin misled Republican supporters

A British paper reports:

The Governor of Alaska gave a misleading version of events over a controversial bridge project in her home state when she made her maiden speech as the presumptive nominee.

Mrs Palin told a cheering audience in Ohio that she had turned down an offer from the US Congress to build the so-called "Bridge to Nowhere", which would have connected Gravina Island with Ketchikan International, an airport in Alaska's southeast serving just 200,000 passengers a year. Mr McCain routinely cites the £100 million project as a symbol of wasteful central government spending.

As she introduced herself to Republicans and the American public on Friday, the virtually unknown Mrs Palin said: "I championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. In fact, I told Congress ... 'thanks, but no thanks' on that bridge to nowhere. If our state wanted a bridge, I said we'd build it ourselves."

However it emerged that in a 2006 interview with the Anchorage Daily News during her gubernatorial campaign, Mrs Palin had a different view of the bridge.

Asked "would you continue state funding for the proposed Knik Arm and Gravina Island bridges?" she replied: "Yes. I would like to see Alaska's infrastructure projects built sooner rather than later. The window is now - while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselection2008/johnmccain/2656914/John-McCain-running-mate-Sarah-Palin-misled-Republican-supporters.html

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