How Not to "Fix" the Housing Market

The Obama administration’s $75 billion program to protect homeowners from foreclosure has been widely pronounced a disappointment, and some economists and real estate experts now contend it has done more harm than good.

Since President Obama announced the program in February, it has lowered mortgage payments on a trial basis for hundreds of thousands of people but has largely failed to provide permanent relief. Critics increasingly argue that the program, Making Home Affordable, has raised false hopes among people who simply cannot afford their homes.

As a result, desperate homeowners have sent payments to banks in often-futile efforts to keep their homes, which some see as wasting dollars they could have saved in preparation for moving to cheaper rental residences. Some borrowers have seen their credit tarnished while falsely assuming that loan modifications involved no negative reports to credit agencies.

Some experts argue the program has impeded economic recovery by delaying a wrenching yet cleansing process through which borrowers give up unaffordable homes and banks fully reckon with their disastrous bets on real estate, enabling money to flow more freely through the financial system.

All these criticisms are dead on.  Keeping people in homes they cannot afford makes no sense, so policies that attempt to prevent foreclosure are guaranteed to generate perverse side effects.  The horrifying fact is that policy is still subsidizing high-risk mortgages.

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Terrorist attack in Denmark: Muhammed Cartoon-related

Just Breaking...

From Eric Dondero:

The man whose name you see at the bottom of this cartoon-graph was attacked last night by a knife-wielding Somali man, at his apartment in Copenhagen. (UPDATE: Reports now say 3 Somali men were involved). This comes one day after a gun-wielding Kosovo Muslim man stormed into a shopping centre in Finland, dressed in black and gunned down 4 Finnish citizens, and killed one more in a nearby apartment complex.

From Fox News:

COPENHAGEN — Police shot a Somali man wielding an ax and a knife after he broke into the home of an artist whose cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb-shaped turban outraged the Muslim world, the head of Denmark's intelligence agency said Saturday.

Jakob Scharf said in a statement that a 28-year-old man with ties to Al Qaeda entered Kurt Westergaard's home in Aarhus Friday night. But Westergaard pressed an alarm and police arrived minutes later.

The attack on the artist, whose rendering was among 12 that led to the torching of Danish diplomatic offices in predominantly Muslim countries in 2006, was "terror related," Scharf said. He said the man would be charged with attempted murder.

Libertarian-conservative Michelle Malkin blogs this morning, "Muhammed Cartoon Redux":

How about kicking off the New Year with a stark reminder that jihadists don’t just hate us because of Iraq and Afghanistan? The Religion of Perpetual Outrage hates all infidels.

The attack is eerily similar to the knifing of Dutch free speech advocate, and film artist Theo van Gogh in 2005 on the streets of Amsterdam. Van Gogh was murdered by an immigrant Muslim extremist upset with his film depiction critical of Islam. (photo below)

Sudden increase in Muslim attacks around the World

Since the Christmas Day Muslim bomber attempted to blow up an American airline over the skies of Detroit, there's been a noted uptick in Islamic acts of violence around the world.

On New Years Day, a suicide bomber drove a truck onto a volleyball field in Pakistan, killing 93, mostly children. In Afghanistan, 8 CIA operatives were killed on a base in Afghanistan by a suicide bomber who they believed to be friendly.

Meanwhile Jihad Watch reports on Militant Muslim attacks in Thailand on New Year's Day:

For a jihadist, nothing says "Happy New Year" like a few drive-by shootings! "Six killed in new attacks in Thai south: police," from AFP, December 31 (thanks to Maxwell):

PATTANI, Thailand -- Suspected Islamist militants killed two soldiers and four civilians in drive-by shootings in the latest violence to rock Thailand's insurgency-hit south, police said Thursday.

More than 4,000 people have been killed and thousands more wounded

Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy, asks in an editorial "Jihad 101," is this all coordinated? From Muslims Against Sharia:

The question must be asked: Are we seeing a dramatic increase in violent jihadism in America - National Public Radio reported on Saturday that there had been fourteen attempts in 2009 (compared to two or three in recent years) and that they had been increasingly "operational" in character, not just "aspirational" - because violence is now seen to be practicable here?

Specifically, could it be that jihadists have been emboldened by what they see as weakness and/or fecklessness on the part of the U.S. administration?

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