Free Republic

The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring. Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in...

Four key factors in the 1970s were very different from present conditions, and that argues against 1970s-style stagflation as a model for 2010-2020. Sometimes history rhymes--but only for the first line. On the surface, there are reasons to anticipate a 1970s-style stagflation in the decade ahead: a stagnating economy beset by rising inflation. Four fundamental factors that profoundly influenced the economy in the 1970-1980 period are not present today. As a result, we must be careful not to expect history to rhyme stanza after stanza. 1. Demographics: the Baby Boom came of age and started households en masse. Baby Boomers...