Washington Seems Eager To Create Another Housing Crisis
Previously published on June 5, 2023 in
By Milton Ezrati, Chief Economist at Vested
Washington seems to be setting up the nation to relive the housing and financial crisis of 2008-2009. That last crisis, of course, had lots of moving parts and reflected many bad decisions, but behind it all was Washington’s long insistence prior to the collapse that banks and other lenders extend more and more mortgage credit to lower-income people, the so-called sub-prime borrower. As the government for years laid on this pressure, the proportion of risky, sub-prime loans in the system grew making the system increasingly vulnerable. In the end, when many of these precarious borrowers failed to meet their obligations, all these lenders and those financial players who were vulnerable to them – in other words all in the financial system – collapsed. Now, 15 years on, the Biden administration is again pushing for more lending to lower-income borrowers and accordingly inviting another such disaster.
