Dean Baker

Dean Baker
Dean Bakeris an American macroeconomist and co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, with Mark Weisbrot. He has been a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute and an assistant professor of economics at Bucknell University. He has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan...
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I wouldn't necessarily predict this would be a trigger, but I wouldn't rule it out either. It wouldn't surprise me if you see money leaving the secondary mortgage market, leading housing prices to fall.
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With the housing bubble now having generated comparable levels of unsustainable wealth, the economy faces even greater dangers today than it did when the stock market crashed.
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Until the psychology starts to shift or interest rates jump up, the market will probably stay strong, ... So far we haven't seen that. We've had a lot of stories on housing bubbles lately. Maybe that will affect the psychology.
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Normally when you talk about housing bubbles bursting, you're talking about a specific local market. But we've never had a nationwide run-up in home prices like this. I don't think it's realistic to think the decline won't also be national. I think a 15 percent nationwide decline is very plausible. In many bubble areas, could be looking at 20-25, maybe 30 percent declines.
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People are really stretched. They are banking on everything turning out right for them. That they won't lose their jobs, that they won't run into unexpected expenses. They're betting that the housing market will continue to appreciate.
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He consciously promoted the housing bubble as a way of boosting the economy.
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There is a large psychological element behind current housing prices,
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Clearly, housing is going to be a drag on the economy; the question is how much does housing slow and how quickly.
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These monthly numbers are very erratic. It can be that this is a sign (of the bubble bursting), but I would never make too much of one month's number. Especially since the other timely data we get, the mortgage applications for home purchases, have still been pretty high.
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is kind of (the oil companies') good luck. They didn't do anything to earn it. And we're sitting here with a $150 billion bill from Katrina.
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First of all, it's very expensive to administer private accounts, especially if you let people manage these accounts themselves, ... Bush is vague on how he would set it up and make it work.
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Saving Social Security with Stock: The Promises Don't Add Up.
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People are willing to pay them because there is an expectation that prices will continue to rise. Once people don't have that expectation, things will change.
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On this policy, the district is already in compliance with the requirements and has been for a couple of years, ... This policy just formalizes it.