Download or read book The Future of the Federal Housing Administration s Capital Reserves written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Financial Services. Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Fragile Middle Class written by Teresa A. Sullivan and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2020-02-18 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why have so many middle-class Americans encountered so much financial trouble? In this classic analysis of hard-pressed families, the authors discover that financial stability for many middle-class Americans is all too fragile. The authors consider the changing cultural and economic factors that threaten financial security and what they imply for the future vitality of the middle class. A new preface examines the persistent and new threats that have emerged since the original publication. “[A] fascinating, alarming study. . . . [This] chilling diagnosis of middle-class affliction demonstrates that we all may be only a job loss, medical problem or credit card indulgence away from the downward spiral leading to bankruptcy.”—Publishers Weekly "A well-designed and carefully executed study."—Andrew Greeley, University of Chicago "The Fragile Middle Class, a well-written work of social science that is about as gripping as the genre gets, forces us to reevaluate notions about consumerism."—American Prospect

Download or read book Old Assumptions New Realities written by Robert D. Plotnick and published by Russell Sage Foundation. This book was released on 2011-01-04 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The way Americans live and work has changed significantly since the creation of the Social Security Administration in 1935, but U.S. social welfare policy has failed to keep up with these changes. The model of the male breadwinner-led nuclear family has given way to diverse and often complex family structures, more women in the workplace, and nontraditional job arrangements. Old Assumptions, New Realities identifies the tensions between twentieth-century social policy and twenty-first-century realities for working Americans and offers promising new reforms for ensuring social and economic security. Old Assumptions, New Realities focuses on policy solutions for today's workers—particularly low-skilled workers and low-income families. Contributor Jacob Hacker makes strong and timely arguments for universal health insurance and universal 401(k) retirement accounts. Michael Stoll argues that job training and workforce development programs can mitigate the effects of declining wages caused by deindustrialization, technological changes, racial discrimination, and other forms of job displacement. Michael Sherraden maintains that wealth-building accounts for children—similar to state college savings plans—and universal and progressive savings accounts for workers can be invaluable strategies for all workers, including the poorest. Jody Heymann and Alison Earle underscore the potential for more extensive work-family policies to help the United States remain competitive in a globalized economy. Finally, Jodi Sandfort suggests that the United States can restructure the existing safety net via state-level reforms but only with a host of coordinated efforts, including better information to service providers, budget analyses, new funding sources, and oversight by intermediary service professionals. Old Assumptions, New Realities picks up where current policies leave off by examining what's not working, why, and how the safety net can be redesigned to work better. The book brings much-needed clarity to the process of creating viable policy solutions that benefit all working Americans. A West Coast Poverty Center Volume

Download or read book The Great Risk Shift written by Jacob S. Hacker and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2006-10-09 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America's leaders say the economy is strong and getting stronger. But the safety net that once protected us is fast unraveling. With retirement plans in growing jeopardy while health coverage erodes, more and more economic risk is shifting from government and business onto the fragile shoulders of the American family. In The Great Risk Shift, Jacob S. Hacker lays bare this unsettling new economic climate, showing how it has come about, what it is doing to our families, and how we can fight back. Behind this shift, he contends, is the Personal Responsibility Crusade, eagerly embraced by corporate leaders and Republican politicians who speak of a nirvana of economic empowerment, an "ownership society" in which Americans are free to choose. But as Hacker reveals, the result has been quite different: a harsh new world of economic insecurity, in which far too many Americans are free to lose. The book documents how two great pillars of economic security--the family and the workplace--guarantee far less financial stability than they once did. The final leg of economic support--the public and private benefits that workers and families get when economic disaster strikes--has dangerously eroded as political leaders and corporations increasingly cut back protections of our health care, our income security, and our retirement pensions. Blending powerful human stories, big-picture analysis, and compelling ideas for reform, this remarkable volume will hit a nerve, serving as a rallying point in the vital struggle for economic security in an increasingly uncertain world.

Download or read book Conceptualising Home written by Lorna Fox O'Mahony and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2006-12-01 with total page 568 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is difficult to overstate the everyday importance of home in law. Home provides the backdrop for our lives, and is often the scene or the subject of legal disputes. In addition, in recent decades there has been growing academic interest in the meaning of home, which has prompted empirical studies and theoretical exploration in a wide range of disciplines. Yet, while the authenticity of home as a social, psychological, cultural and emotional phenomenon has been recognised in other disciplines, it has not penetrated the legal domain, where the proposition that home can encapsulate meanings beyond the physical structure of the house, or the capital value it represents, continues to present conceptual difficulties. This book focuses on the competing interests of creditors who lend money against the security of the property and the occupiers who dwell in the property, in the context of possession actions. By mapping the concept of home as it has evolved in other disciplines against existing legal frameworks, Conceptualising Home examines the possibilities for developing a coherent concept of home in law.

Download or read book Evil Geniuses written by Kurt Andersen and published by Random House. This book was released on 2020-08-11 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • When did America give up on fairness? The author of Fantasyland tells the epic history of how America decided that big business gets whatever it wants, only the rich get richer, and nothing should ever change—and charts a way back to the future. “Essential, absorbing . . . a graceful, authoritative guide . . . a radicalized moderate’s moderate case for radical change.”—The New York Times Book Review During the twentieth century, America managed to make its economic and social systems both more and more fair and more and more prosperous. A huge, secure, and contented middle class emerged. All boats rose together. But then the New Deal gave way to the Raw Deal. Beginning in the early 1970s, by means of a long war conceived of and executed by a confederacy of big business CEOs, the superrich, and right-wing zealots, the rules and norms that made the American middle class possible were undermined and dismantled. The clock was turned back on a century of economic progress, making greed good, workers powerless, and the market all-powerful while weaponizing nostalgia, lifting up an oligarchy that served only its own interests, and leaving the huge majority of Americans with dwindling economic prospects and hope. Why and how did America take such a wrong turn? In this deeply researched and brilliantly woven cultural, economic, and political chronicle, Kurt Andersen offers a fresh, provocative, and eye-opening history of America’s undoing, naming names, showing receipts, and unsparingly assigning blame—to the radical right in economics and the law, the high priests of high finance, a complacent and complicit Establishment, and liberal “useful idiots,” among whom he includes himself. Only a writer with Andersen’s crackling energy, deep insight, and ability to connect disparate dots and see complex systems with clarity could make such a book both intellectually formidable and vastly entertaining. And only a writer of Andersen’s vision could reckon with our current high-stakes inflection point, and show the way out of this man-made disaster.

Download or read book Economic Opportunity and Security for Working Families written by United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 68 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Hidden in Plain Sight written by Peter J. Wallison and published by Encounter Books. This book was released on 2016-03-29 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 2008 financial crisis—like the Great Depression—was a world-historical event. What caused it will be debated for years, if not generations. The conventional narrative is that the financial crisis was caused by Wall Street greed and insufficient regulation of the financial system. That narrative produced the Dodd-Frank Act, the most comprehensive financial-system regulation since the New Deal. There is evidence, however, that the Dodd-Frank Act has slowed the recovery from the recession. If insufficient regulation caused the financial crisis, then the Dodd-Frank Act will never be modified or repealed; proponents will argue that doing so will cause another crisis. A competing narrative about what caused the financial crisis has received little attention. This view, which is accepted by almost all Republicans in Congress and most conservatives, contends that the crisis was caused by government housing policies. This book extensively documents this view. For example, it shows that in June 2008, before the crisis, 58 percent of all US mortgages were subprime or other low-quality mortgages. Of these, 76 percent were on the books of government agencies such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. When these mortgages defaulted in 2007 and 2008, they drove down housing prices and weakened banks and other mortgage holders, causing the crisis. After this book is published, no one will be able to claim that the financial crisis was caused by insufficient regulation, or defend Dodd-Frank, without coming to terms with the data this book contains.

Download or read book A Study Guide for Gwendolyn Brooks s Home written by Gale, Cengage Learning and published by Gale, Cengage Learning . This book was released on with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Study Guide for Gwendolyn Brooks's "Home," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Short Stories for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Short Stories for Students for all of your research needs.

Download or read book Fragile by Design written by Charles W. Calomiris and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2015-08-04 with total page 584 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why stable banking systems are so rare Why are banking systems unstable in so many countries—but not in others? The United States has had twelve systemic banking crises since 1840, while Canada has had none. The banking systems of Mexico and Brazil have not only been crisis prone but have provided miniscule amounts of credit to business enterprises and households. Analyzing the political and banking history of the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Brazil through several centuries, Fragile by Design demonstrates that chronic banking crises and scarce credit are not accidents. Calomiris and Haber combine political history and economics to examine how coalitions of politicians, bankers, and other interest groups form, why they endure, and how they generate policies that determine who gets to be a banker, who has access to credit, and who pays for bank bailouts and rescues. Fragile by Design is a revealing exploration of the ways that politics inevitably intrudes into bank regulation.

Download or read book International Encyclopedia of Housing and Home written by and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2012-10-09 with total page 3870 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Available online via SciVerse ScienceDirect, or in print for a limited time only, The International Encyclopedia of Housing and Home, Seven Volume Set is the first international reference work for housing scholars and professionals, that uses studies in economics and finance, psychology, social policy, sociology, anthropology, geography, architecture, law, and other disciplines to create an international portrait of housing in all its facets: from meanings of home at the microscale, to impacts on macro-economy. This comprehensive work is edited by distinguished housing expert Susan J. Smith, together with Marja Elsinga, Ong Seow Eng, Lorna Fox O'Mahony and Susan Wachter, and a multi-disciplinary editorial team of 20 world-class scholars in all. Working at the cutting edge of their subject, liaising with an expert editorial advisory board, and engaging with policy-makers and professionals, the editors have worked for almost five years to secure the quality, reach, relevance and coherence of this work. A broad and inclusive table of contents signals (or tesitifes to) detailed investigation of historical and theoretical material as well as in-depth analysis of current issues. This seven-volume set contains over 500 entries, listed alphabetically, but grouped into seven thematic sections including methods and approaches; economics and finance; environments; home and homelessness; institutions; policy; and welfare and well-being. Housing professionals, both academics and practitioners, will find The International Encyclopedia of Housing and Home useful for teaching, discovery, and research needs. International in scope, engaging with trends in every world region The editorial board and contributors are drawn from a wide constituency, collating expertise from academics, policy makers, professionals and practitioners, and from every key center for housing research Every entry stands alone on its merits and is accessed alphabetically, yet each is fully cross-referenced, and attached to one of seven thematic categories whose ‘wholes' far exceed the sum of their parts

Download or read book Ending Poverty in America written by John Edwards and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2009-06-09 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An “engrossing collection of rigorously researched articles” from Elizabeth Warren, Jared Bernstein, William Julius Wilson, and more (Publishers Weekly). Can the wealthiest nation in the world do anything to combat the steadily rising numbers of Americans living in poverty—or the tens of millions of Americans living in “near poverty”? In this book, some of the country’s most prominent scholars, businesspeople, and community activists answer with a resounding yes. Published in conjunction with one of the country’s leading anti-poverty centers, Ending Poverty in America brings together respected social scientists, journalists, neighborhood organizers, and business leaders—both liberal and conservative—to tackle hot-button issues such as job creation, schools, housing, and family-friendly social policy, offering a template for a renewed public debate and a genuine effort to confront this urgent issue that undermines the long-term security of our nation. Contributors include: Jared Bernstein, Anita Brown-Graham, Carol Mendez Cassell, Richard Freeman, Angela Glover-Blackwell, Jacob Hacker, Harry Holzer, Jack F. Kemp, Ronald Mincy, Katherine S. Newman, Melvin L. Oliver, Dennis Orthner, David K. Shipler, Beth Shulman, Michael A. Stegman, Elizabeth Warren, William Julius Wilson.

Download or read book High Stakes written by Sam Skolnik and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2011-07-05 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What the explosive growth of legalized gambling means socially, politically, and economically for America. Forty years ago, casinos were legal in just one state. Today, legalized gambling has morphed into a $119 billion industry established in all but two states. As elected officials are urging voters to expand gambling’s reach, the industry’s supporters and their impassioned detractors are squaring off in prolonged state-by-state battles. Millions of Americans are being asked to decide: are the benefits worth the costs? With a blend of investigative journalism and poignant narratives of gambling addiction, award-winning journalist Sam Skolnik provides an in-depth exploration of the consequences of this national phenomenon. In High Stakes, we meet politicians eager to promote legalized gambling as an economic cure-all, scientists wrestling with the meaning of gambling addiction, and players so caught up in the chase that they’ve lost their livelihoods and their minds.

Download or read book International Banking Crises written by Benton E. Gup and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 1999-10-30 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The financial crises that began unexpectedly in Southeast Asia in 1997 spread rapidly around the globe, causing banks to fail, stock markets to plummet, and other newsmaking disruptions. Gup and his contributors examine these failures and crises in the main arenas where they occurred—Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea, Russia, Argentina—and provide some important answers to the critical questions these frightening events raised. The result is a readable, easily grasped study of issues relating to bank failure and the effectiveness of bank regulation, and important reading for academics and practitioners alike. In July 1997 Thailand devalued its currency. This one event sparked financial crises that spread with astonishing speed from Southeast Asia around the world to Russia. Even in the United States and South America the impact was felt. Southeast Asia had been considered a model—in fact a miracle—of economic growth. No one foresaw the crises that soon occurred there, and the severity and contagion of these crises raised questions globally: What happened? Why? And what can we do about it? Gup and his contributors offer some answers to these critical questions. Gup and his panel finally conclude that government actions were at the root of these crises. Banks were pawns in the hands of governments, and banks helped fuel the booms that ultimately burst, booms supported by investments from other countries around the world, not incidentally. Gup goes on to lay out other provocative questions, among them: How effective are bank regulations? And how do we resolve failed and insolvent banks? The result is an important contribution to the literature in banking, finance, investment, and the role government plays in these activities—a book not only for academics but for practitioners and informed laymen as well.

Download or read book Affordable Housing and Public Private Partnerships written by Nestor M. Davidson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-16 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With distressing statistics about rising cost burdens, increasing foreclosure rates, rising unemployment, falling wages, and widespread homelessness, building affordable housing is one of our most pressing social policy problems. Affordable Housing and Public-Private Partnerships focuses attention on this critical need, as leading experts on affordable housing law and policy come together to address key issues of concern and to suggest appropriate responses for future action. Focusing in particular on how best to understand and implement the joint work of public and private actors in housing, this book considers the real estate aspects of affordable housing law and policy, access to housing, housing finance and affordability, land use, housing regulation and housing issues in a post-Katrina context. Filling a critical gap in the scholarly literature available, this book will be of particular interest to policy-makers, academics, lawyers and students of housing, land use, real estate, property, community development and urban planning

Download or read book Chain of Title written by David Dayen and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2017-12-19 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NOW IN PAPERBACK The "gripping" (New York Times) and "Hitchcockian"(Publishers Weekly) story of how a nurse, a car dealership worker, and a forensic expert took on the nation’s largest banks A Kirkus Reviews and The Week best book of the year, David Dayen’s Chain of Title is a riveting work that recalls A Civil Action, Erin Brockovich, and Flash Boys, recounting how three ordinary Floridians—a car dealership worker, a cancer nurse, and an insurance fraud specialist—helped uncover the largest consumer crime in American history, challenged the most powerful institutions in America, and—for a brief moment—brought the corrupt financial industry to its knees. Lisa Epstein, Michael Redman, and Lynn Szymoniak did not work in government or law enforcement. They had no history of anticorporate activism. Instead they were all foreclosure victims, and while struggling with their shame and isolation they committed a revolutionary act: closely reading their mortgage documents, discovering the deceit behind them, and building a movement to expose it. Harnessing the power of the Internet, they revealed how the financial crisis and subsequent recession were fundamentally based upon a series of frauds that kicked millions out of their homes because of false evidence by mortgage companies that had no legal right to foreclose. As Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi noted: "Chain of Title is a sweeping work of investigative journalism that traces the arc of a criminally underreported story in America, the collapse of the rule of law in the home mortgage industry."

Download or read book Left Right Christ written by Lisa Sharon Harper and published by Elevate Publishing. This book was released on 2016-08-09 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can two people have a common faith but different political loyalties? How does the Christian faith shape how we should vote and participate in the political process? In this updated edition of Left, Right, and Christ, authors D.C. Innes and Lisa Sharon Harper discuss and explore how the Christian faith speaks directly to American politics today, but with different understanding and applications. They address questions like: Does God care about politics? Should we? Is it the government's role to take care of the sick? Do legalized abortions increase the number of abortions? Should we support people's freedom to choose a definition of marriage, even if we disagree with their choice? Does a free country mean that everyone is free to come here? Is the earth so fragile that the government should step in to protect it? Harper and Innes craft compelling chapters on hot issue that will keep Christian Americans thinking about how to navigate the intersection of faith and politics.