Tag: Housing

How to Turn CRA into a Positive Force for Economic Equality

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By Karen Shaw Petrou

On January 10, the Wall Street Journal confirmed that Trump Administration regulators plan to advance the reforms to the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) first outlined in a 2017 Treasury Department report.  The CRA dates backs to an era when progressive Democrats controlled federal financial regulation and is now a hallowed artifact of policy that progressives believe advances economic equality.  Community advocates and many Democrats will thus cry foul as this Trump Administration initiative begins.  Are they right?  Does the CRA really advance economic equality?  Continue reading “How to Turn CRA into a Positive Force for Economic Equality” →

How Equality Hangs in the Balance Sheet

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By Karen Shaw Petrou

As Thomas Piketty’s book and much other research show, economic equality is a cumulative-return construct – that is, absent engines of growth, the rich get richer and middle-income households fall ever farther behind.  Thus, when bank balance-sheet capacity shrinks and lending to core economic engines such as housing and small business falters, income distribution widens and wealth inequality grows inexorably worse.  Continue reading “How Equality Hangs in the Balance Sheet” →

Home Ownership, Wealth Accumulation, and the FHA

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By Karen Shaw Petrou and Basil N. Petrou

Last Thursday, the Senate Banking Committee considered the confirmation of Brian Montgomery to be the Trump Administration’s Federal Housing Administration (FHA) Commissioner, allowing him to step back in to the shoes he filled in the George W. Bush Administration.  But, times are different now – as we’ve noted before, the U.S. is far less economically equal than it was even in 2007 and the residential-mortgage market largely serves only the most creditworthy, wealthiest households.
Continue reading “Home Ownership, Wealth Accumulation, and the FHA” →