Too-easy credit and millions of bad loans made during the U.S. housing bubble paved the way for the financial calamity and Great Recession that followed. Today, by contrast, credit is too tight. Mortgage loans are particularly hard to get, creating a problem for the housing market and the broader economy.
Tags: way, bad, great, today

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Investor demand for distressed property has been healthy, as rents rise to levels that can cover investors' costs while they wait for properties to appreciate. Giving investors a small tax break should further juice up demand, supporting prices for distressed homes and the market in general.
Tags: juice, rise, appreciate, wait
It is hard to be enthusiastic about the economy's prospects when house prices are falling: Households spend less, small business owners can't use homes as collateral for loans and local governments are forced to cut jobs and programs as property-tax revenue disappears.
Tags: small, hard, house, business
The extension and expansion of the payroll tax holidays for workers would be number one on my list and key to avoiding recession.
Tags: tax, avoiding, key, holidays
The clearest way to cut some of this fiscal drag would be to extend the current payroll tax holiday and increase it - as proposed by President Barack Obama. This would cut the fiscal drag by almost half.
Tags: half, some, holiday, way
There is plenty of blame to go around for the U.S. housing bubble, but not much of it belongs to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The two giant housing-finance institutions made many mistakes over the decades, some of them real whoppers, but causing house prices to soar and then crater during the past decade weren't among them.
Tags: mistakes, go, house, past
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