Peter Wallison points out jettisoning the Electoral College would mean electing presidents without majorities and thus without mandates

Here.

Peter Wallison Says The Housing Bubble Is Back

Here in The New York Times, where he blames sub-prime down payments, not interest rates:

Between 1997 and 2002, the average compound rate of growth in housing prices was 6 percent, exceeding the average compound growth rate in rentals of 3.34 percent. This, incidentally, contradicts the widely held idea that the last housing bubble was caused by the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy. Between 1997 and 2000, the Fed raised interest rates, and they stayed relatively high until almost 2002 with no apparent effect on the bubble, which continued to maintain an average compound growth rate of 6 percent until 2007, when it collapsed. ... Between 2011 and the third quarter of 2013, housing prices grew by 5.83 percent, again exceeding the increase in rental costs, which was 2 percent.

Many commentators will attribute this phenomenon to the Fed’s low interest rates. Maybe so; maybe not. Recall that the Fed’s monetary policy was blamed for the earlier bubble’s growth between 1997 and 2002, even though the Fed raised interest rates during most of that period.

Both this bubble and the last one were caused by the government’s housing policies, which made it possible for many people to purchase homes with very little or no money down. ...

When down payments were 10 to 20 percent before 1992, the homeownership rate was a steady 64 percent — slightly below where it is today — and the housing market was not frothy. People simply bought less expensive homes.

FDIC's New Liquidation Authority Under Dodd-Frank Latest Example Of Obama Fascism

It's not fascism when we do it.

Peter Wallison for Bloomberg.com doesn't come right out and say it, of course, but the FDIC's new liquidation authority under Dodd-Frank is the very embodiment of Obama's fascist vision for America and a crucial instrument for its implementation:

Under the plan, the agency would create a bridge institution to assume the assets and liabilities of a failed firm and could force some creditors to take equity in place of their debt holdings. ...

The powers granted by the liquidation authority to the secretary of the Treasury are unprecedented. With the concurrence of the Federal Reserve and the FDIC, the secretary can seize any financial firm -- not just the largest ones -- if he believes its failure would cause instability in the U.S. financial system.

If the firm’s directors object to the seizure, the secretary can apply to a U.S. district court for an order authorizing him to appoint the FDIC as receiver. The court has one day -- yes, one day -- to decide whether the secretary’s judgment was correct. If the court takes no action within this window, the firm is turned over to the FDIC. It’s a felony to disclose that the secretary has applied for the court order. The constitutional issues here are obvious and breathtaking. ...

Essentially, there’s no appeal. The secretary’s seizure isn’t subject to a stay or injunction, and once the firm has been delivered into the arms of the FDIC, it’s as good as dead.

Read the entire column, here.

The Dodd Bill Makes Moral Hazard Government Policy

An Opinion from The Washington Examiner

Run against Wall Street

By: Michael Barone

Senior Political Analyst

04/01/10

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, after spending some time negotiating with committee Republicans Bob Corker and Richard Shelby, has decided to advance major financial regulation legislation without bipartisan support. Democratic spin doctors will try to portray the fight over this legislation as a battle between Republicans favoring lax regulation of Wall Street and Democrats favoring tough regulation.

But is the Dodd bill really tough legislation, particularly in its treatment of the major financial entities? My American Enterprise Institute colleague Peter Wallison argues that it is not, because it gives Too Big To Fail status to the big entities—Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. This is done by setting up a resolution process for a failing firm which protects creditors more than ordinary bankruptcy proceedings would. Wallison writes:

“From the perspective of its effect on the economy, it does not matter what happens to the company, or to its shareholders and management. The only thing that matters in a government resolution of a failing company is what happens to the creditors--because it's the creditors that will provide the funds preferentially and at favorable rates to large companies rather than small ones.

"In this respect, the Dodd bill does it again--it signals to creditors that they will get a better deal if they lend to the big regulated firms rather than their smaller competitors, and it does this by making it possible for creditors to be fully paid when a too-big-to-fail financial firm is liquidated, even though this would not happen in bankruptcy. There are a number of ways that this can be done, including through a simple merger with a healthy firm. As a prescription for moral hazard, this can hardly be surpassed. The creditors will line up to provide cheap money to the too-big-to-fail firms the Fed will be regulating.”

Wallison is not alone in taking this view. Clive Crook, writing in National Journal seems to agree:

“You do not deal with ‘too big to fail’ by keeping a list of systemically significant institutions: By itself, that makes things worse. You do not deal with it by promising to let most failing financial firms, including those on your list, go bankrupt: Nobody will believe that promise. You deal with it by combining early FDIC-like resolution for all financial firms, banks and nonbanks alike, with stricter and smarter requirements on their capital, liquidity, and leverage.”

Libertarian economist Arnold Kling suggests an even tougher approach, though he doesn’t say how to put it into effect: break up the big banks.

I think as a matter of both policy and politics, Republicans ought to oppose the Dodd bill’s provisions that effectively grant Too Big To Fail status to a handful of financial institutions (and perhaps to other companies, Wallison has argued). They should oppose giving preferred status to the very largest firms as compared to smaller competitors. They should be prepared to argue that the Democratic bill gives vast advantages to firms whose employees have gotten huge compensation (and who, as it happens, tend to give more money to Democrats than Republicans). The cry should be, no favor to the big Wall Street fat cats. Mainstream media is unlikely to transmit this message but, as we have seen in the health care debate, messages can get through without them.