Posts Tagged ‘media’

Media and Economic Understanding

In NYC on April 6? Then think about coming to a conference, sponsored by Columbia U’s School of International and Public Affairs and the Roosevelt Institute: “Facing the Fracture: Media and Economic Understanding.”

Featuring a stellar lineup of smart folks, most of whom really really want to make financial issues comprehensible to the uninitiated, including Joseph Stiglitz, Arianna Huffington, Amy Goodman, Peter (no relation to Amy) Goodman, Mike Hudson, Yves Smith, and many more, including yours truly. See you there.

On the rise and fall of mortgage brokers

I talked with NPR’s Marketplace Money recently about mortgage brokers’ creative efforts to stay alive in an increasingly hostile environment — give it a listen. Brokers now sell just one in six mortgages, down from four in five just a couple of years ago, as lenders and mortgage insurers put strict (by 2000s standards, anyway) limits on the terms of loans brokers can sell, and many banks shut have simply down their divisions that rely on mortgage brokers to deliver the goods.

You can also hear me on KNPR, in Las Vegas, explaining (along with the Wall Street Journal’s Michael Corkery) the pitfalls and potential of the Obama administration’s Making Home Affordable plan, better known as the homeowner bailout. Scroll past the “Metro Prostitution Crackdown” discussion. Apparently what happens in Vegas no longer stays in Vegas, at least not if you’re the one getting paid.