One of the main provisions of the 2012 Farm Bill is a “shallow-loss” program. This program is being portrayed as a safety net, but there are significant questions that must be examined before the program is enacted. At this event, Vince Smith and Barry Goodwin will discuss these questions and will release new research and analysis on the cost of shallow-loss programs.

Retargeting FHA will be a long process, but that process should begin with allowing the temporary loan limits to drop.  While the reduction in loan limits affects few loans; a reversal will indicate that Congress is not serious about beginning the process of bringing back private sector involvement.  

Three years into the nationalization of housing finance by government-sponsored entities Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Authority, it is time to start reducing their footprints. 

Weaning off the Fannie and Freddie addiction and retargeting FHA will be a long process, but that process should begin with allowing the temporary loan limits to drop.

Slow and steady increases in the retirement age and minor tweaks in benefit formulas can no longer stave off disaster: Reformers must now entertain policy solutions once considered unimaginable. And prominent among those solutions is subjecting Social Security and Medicare to some form of means-testing, by which poorer seniors would receive more generous benefits and the wealthy would receive less (or none at all).

Two rounds of fiscal stimulus have produced neither a sustained rise in growth nor a sustained drop in the unemployment rate. Another round would merely increase deficits and debt levels.

Often failing to fulfill its assigned mandates and unable to implement the initiatives it has begun, the UN's World Health Organization desperately needs to reform.

The resignation of Unicredit Bank's CEO is an indication of how in Italy, the operators of the financial system are part of a political system in which freedom, democracy and participation have been claimed in the name of sectarian and nepotistic particularism.