If there’s a tipping point early on in every presidency, this is it. Obama is reaching the end of his first year — and a point where his decisions may well require him to stand up against not only his adversaries, but also his friends.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/OPINION/11/24/borger.obama.tipping.point/index.html

Real estate, which has traditionally brought the economy out of recession, seems increasingly likely this time to hold it back. The housing market’s epic boom early this decade has turned into an epic bust whose effects may take years to shake off.

The housing market is confronting an abundance of inventory, high unemployment, fearful consumers and devastated family balance sheets.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/25/business/economy/25home.html?_r=1&ref=business

The Gathering Geithner Storm

As a result, the conspiracy theorists are having a field day. Consider their fuel:

As president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Geithner worked very closely with Henry Paulson–his predecessor as Treasury Secretary and before that head of Goldman Sachs–as was warranted by the situation.

Geithner’s primary deputy at the New York Fed was William Dudley, a former Goldman Sachs economist.

The chairman of the Board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York until May 2009 was Stephen Friedman, former Chairman of Goldman Sachs, and a member of the Goldman’s board at the time of his New York Fed service.

Friedman also chaired the search committee that selected Geithner’s replacement–William Dudley.

At the time his former Goldman Sachs colleague Dudley was appointed–December 2008–Friedman purchased an additional $3 million of Goldman stock in violation of the rules.

Now ask yourself, surrounded by this crowd of influences, how likely is it that Geithner would have asked Goldman Sachs to take a serious haircut on their AIG positions?

http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/24/timothy-geithner-treasury-secretary-opinions-columnists-thomas-f-cooley.html

Bankers making turkeys out of taxpayers

On Tuesday, the American Financial Services Association even held a conference call with reporters to update them on its efforts — successful so far — to torpedo plans for a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency, which would protect people from the sort of lending abuses that led to last year’s implosion.

The ASFA, a trade group of credit card issuers, auto-finance companies, mortgage lenders and others leading the fight against the CFPA, took the unusual approach on Tuesday of publicly celebrating the reform’s fading prospects.

But the argument most likely to prevail for the financial firms on Capitol Hill was offered by Chris Stinebert, the trade group’s chief. “Especially now, when we’re in a very, very sensitive time, when the capital markets are just starting to recover,” he said, “introducing a high level of uncertainty in the marketplace could be very detrimental.”

Or, to put it another way: Don’t regulate us now because the economy is still suffering from the mess we made because we weren’t regulated the last time. Chutzpah, it appears, is recession-proof.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/24/AR2009112403566.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

700k sold the first week!

They’re ever-creative when it comes to excuses and rationalizations for all things O.