Today’s White House announcement on housing fixes.
Not that any administration can directly fix housing. Only time can.

Quick takes from Obama’s speech: FHA loans to rescue? Plus great Bin Laden story.

Meet the new guy responsible for all consumer mortgage disclosures.

Will the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ever get off the ground?

Today’s must-read links… -New Government-Assisted Refi Program Coming (MarketWatch) -CHART: Areas With Most-Underwater Homes (NewYorkTimes) -The Eurozone Crisis Explained in Brief (RobertSinn) -Kids With Huge Jobs At Treasury (BusinessWeek) -UK Shifting from ARMs to 30yr Fixed? (FT) -Is Teaching A Profession (Weakonomics)

In his LinkedIn town hall meeting Monday, president Obama said this about mortgage brokers: And the fact of the matter is, is that if what happened on Wall Street ends up having a spillover effect to all of Main Street, it is our responsibility to make sure that we have a dynamic economy, we have [...]

Wholesale Inventories (July) Inventories month/month were +0.8%. This bit of data reflects the fact that we saw that increase in discretionary consumer spending in the Consumer Metrics data of early July. At the open, markets did not react positively to the President’s jobs speech. My own humble opinion is that most folks realize that the [...]

Today’s Originations links are dedicated to jobs, Obama’s jobs speech this Thursday 9/8, and the politicizing of jobs. -Regs & Taxes Not Killing Small Business, Owners Say (McLatchy) -Obama’s Jobs Speech To Conflict With NFL Opener (ESPN) -What Can Obama Do To Create Jobs? (WashingtonPost) -Obama: Jobs At Risk In ‘Gamesmanship’ (Bloomberg) -8 in 10 [...]

The debate about government’s role in the mortgage biz continues. President Obama has concluded that the government will have to play a major role in the mortgage market going forward. Fannie and Freddie would probably be preserved under the White House plan although with different names and under different constraints, operating more as utilities. And [...]

This Economist photo sums up the mood in Washington well, and the article sums up the debt debate well.