As the housing market struggles to keep pace with economic recovery elsewhere, homeowners would love to have a crystal ball.  Absent that, however, they have AEI resident fellow Edward Pinto, one of seven panelists to be awarded with Zillow and Pulsenomics' Crystal Ball Award.

When confronted with a problem such as the one currently playing out in the housing market, policy makers are by nature oriented toward identifying and implementing a solution. However, government intervention should be reserved for market failures, and this is not one.

The Federal Housing Administration is supposed to support low-income housing without costing taxpayers a dime. Today, the FHA is subsidizing middle and upper-middle income homes - and setting itself up for a huge taxpayer bailout. 

Government policies promoted a systematic loosening of underwriting standards in an effort to promote affordable housing, which then contributed mightily to the housing bubble, mortgage meltdown and resulting financial crisis.  

When he was director of central intelligence, Leon Panetta earned a reputation as an energetic advocate for his agency. When he replaced Robert Gates at the Pentagon, it was reasonable to hope that Panetta would continue to play the role of a senior statesman.

There's nothing wrong with these loans, but there's no good policy reason why taxpayers should subsidize them.

At this AEI event, housing policy experts will discuss the condition of the housing market and evaluate policy proposals. Mark Fleming, chief economist at CoreLogic, will describe the current status and outlook of the US housing market. Christopher J. Mayer of Columbia University will present the refinance proposal that he and R. Glenn Hubbard of AEI and Columbia University first offered in 2009. AEI’s Phillip Swagel, assistant secretary for economics at the Treasury Department during the financial crisis, will assess the Hubbard/Mayer proposal and other policy options and Steve Liseman from CNBC will comment on the broader macroeconomic impact of these policies and expectations from Wall Street.

Although the Schumer-Lee plan deserves credit for seeking to promote international capital flows and labor mobility, it would neither make a measurable dent in the housing sector's backlog nor fix a broken immigration system that hampers our economy's long-run prospects.