David Coates

July 10, 2012

The Unfinished Business of the Obama Administration: The Foreclosure Crisis

  Administrations are invariably criticized for things they do right, for things they do wrong, and for things they fail to do at all. They are invariably criticized for doing too much and criticized for doing too little. Conservative critics of the current Administration tend to do the former. Liberal, by contrast, would do well […] read more »
June 12, 2012

The Unfinished Business of the Obama Administration: Bank Reform

  As the big five American banks await the downgrading of their credit ratings by Moody’s Investors Service – a downgrading that is apparently due any day now[1] – it  is worth asking: after more than three years of the Obama Administration, where exactly are we on the substance of bank reform? Has it happened? […] read more »
January 29, 2012

Republican Truth and Real Truth: GSEs and the Housing Bubble

  In any wars of words in an election season, truth is often an early casualty. The war of words between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich is no exception. read more »
December 12, 2011

Calling Progressive Economists into the Public Square

  “At many stages in the advance of humanity, this conflict between men who possess more than they have earned and the men who have earned more than they possess is the central condition of progress” (Theodore Roosevelt, 1910)[1] Economists are the new public intellectuals of the age. read more »
November 18, 2011

Banker power trumping Democratic Power: the crisis on two continents

  We live in troubled and ironic times. The times are certainly troubled. The IMF’s Managing Director has recently spoken with some justification of a looming “lost decade” for the global economy read more »
September 14, 2011

Doing Two Things at Once: Jobs and Housing as Routes Out of Recession?

  Maybe it’s because of what I see every morning from my kitchen window– the view over coffee of my former neighbor’s foreclosed and rapidly deteriorating home – that the Obama Administration’s housing policy so depresses me. Or maybe what depresses me is the housing policy itself. read more »
May 26, 2011

Punishment or Pushback: Financial Regulation in the Midst of Recession

  Nearly one American in two is currently “financially fragile” – unable, that is, to come up with $2000 dollars in 30 days to deal with an unexpected emergency.[1] That fragility presumably does not stretch out to the fortunate few employed by Goldman Sachs, collectively the recipients of the reportedly $15.4 billion set aside by […] read more »
February 13, 2011

Obama and Housing – Is Anybody Home?

You may not know it, if you watch only Washington beltway politics, but we are currently in the midst of a housing crisis of monumental proportions. read more »
December 19, 2010

America’s Bleak Mid-Winter

In Christian churches across the length and breadth of this land, millions of Americans will take comfort and inspiration this week from the story of the Nativity. They will glory in the well-known tale of a poor couple, read more »
August 1, 2010

The Foreclosure Crisis That Will Not Go Away

When the financial crisis broke in September 2008, it was widely understood – both in policy-making circles and in popular conversation – that problems in the U.S. housing market were central to the unfolding events. But thereafter, the events themselves took center stage: and the problems of the housing sector, though not forgotten, slipped down […] read more »