Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said that the administration wants to bring private capital back to the housing finance market. But without reopening Dodd-Frank and reigning in the Federal Housing Administrations (FHA), winding down government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will not be enough to allow the private market to return

The Beeb once had (and perhaps still has) a great segment called “without comment” in which clips of incredible things are played.  Here’s your print version of our own “without comment” today, from yesterday’s jaw-dropping daily State Department presser discussing the suspension of food aid to North Korea.

With the US closing its embassy in Syria, a Chinese and Russian veto of sanctions at the UN, and violence in the streets American leaders must consider what the US can and should do.

Ignoring Deutsche Telekom’s needs, the DOJ and FCC blocked the proposed merger between AT&T and T-Mobile. As a result, an uncompetitive firm is now trapped in a market it wanted to leave.

For any housing finance reform plan to be credible, it must do much more than wind down the GSEs. Because of the Dodd-Frank Act a number of formidable legal obstacles now exist that must be cleared away before a private securitization market will come back. If the administration is serious, its plan must address all these issues.

Syria is going to hell in a handbasket, and the world is watching.

Despite increasingly tough talk about the importance of Asia, the Obama administration’s preview of its fiscal year 2013 defense budget proves that it is a “pivot” in name only. 

The best thing the Obama Administration did for Asia did not happen in Asia. Sure it was important that the president announced the movement of troops to Australia.  Equally so was the announcement of the Trans Pacific Partnership which could lead to greater trade liberalization and is a powerful way to tie allies together.