Interview Excerpts: Volcker, Soros, Others Weigh In on Mortgage Crisis

An examination of the current U.S. mortgage crisis shows that it is comparable to some of the biggest financial disasters of the past half-century. Here are excerpts from interviews about the mortgage crisis with George Soros, Paul Volcker, William Seidman and Robert Shiller.

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A Time for Bold Thinking on Housing

WE have to consider the possibility that the housing price downturn will eventually be as big as that of the last truly big decline, from 1925 to 1933, when prices fell by a total of 30 percent.

As of this August, domestic home prices were already down 5 percent from their peak 14 months earlier, according to the S.& P./Case-Shiller Composite Home Price Index, and prices were falling at a faster rate in the months leading up to August. (Updated data will appear on Tuesday.)

This crisis should be an occasion for some inspired thinking about fundamental changes in our real estate institutions. The actions that have already been taken are not impressive. The housing market is worsening, and more and more home owners are getting into trouble with their mortgages.

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Imagining Recession

The world’s housing, oil, and stock markets have been plunged into turmoil in recent months. Yet consumer confidence, capital expenditure, and hiring have yet to take a sharp hit. Why?

Ultimately, consumer and business confidence are mostly irrational. The psychology of the markets is dominated by the public images that we have in mind from day to day, and that form the basis of our imaginations and of the stories we tell each other.

Popular images of past disasters are part of our folklore, often buried in the dim reaches of our memory, but re-emerging to trouble us from time to time. Like traditional myths, such graphic, shared images embody fears that are deeply entrenched in our psyche. The images that have accompanied past episodes of market turmoil are largely absent today.

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Bubble Trouble

The future of the housing boom, and the possible financial repercussions of a substantial price decline in coming years, is a matter of mounting concern among governments around the world. I learned this first-hand while attending this year’s Jackson Hole Symposium in the remote wilderness of Wyoming, where, ironically, there are almost no homes to buy. The howls of coyotes and bugling of elk rang out at night. But, by day, everyone was talking about real estate.

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The Liquidity Puzzle

We increasingly hear that “the world is awash with liquidity,” and that this justifies expecting asset prices to continue rising. But what does such liquidity mean, and is there really reason to expect that it will sustain further increases in stock and real estate prices?

Liquid assets are assets that resemble cash, because they can easily be converted into cash and used to buy other assets. The idea seems to be that there are a lot of liquid assets lying around, and that they are being used to get money to bid up the prices of stocks, housing, land, art, etc.

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