Free Republic

German finance minister warns against 'growth bubble' Tue Dec 30, 11:01 am ET BERLIN (AFP) – Germany's finance minister told AFP in an interview that cutting interest rates too low in an effort to counter the global recession could create what he called a dangerous "growth bubble." Speaking earlier this month, and fresh from his recent broadside against the British government's response to the economic crisis, Peer Steinbrueck said there was a danger of repeating the dangers of the past. "On the one hand we need to boost the economy, on the other hand we must make sure that a...

Making every American adult a homeowner was always imprudent and impractical; now that's obvious. Four years ago, President Bush declared: "The more people who own their home, the better off America is." And as his administration proposed federal guarantees for mortgages without requiring down payments, then-Federal Housing Commissioner John Weicher told me in 2004: "We will have some defaults, but nearly all those families will remain homeowners." The challenge is to tighten consumer-protection rules to discourage abuse and fraud, but not so much that only the better-off half of Americans can buy homes. One option is to require lenders to...