Op Eds by Dr. Foster

Article #1

Why Real Estate values around UofA will  rise

Dr. William Foster and Tom Mendola, from Inside Tucson Business, July 21, 2008, Vol. 18, No.7  Why Home Prices Will Rise around the University of Arizona - PDF format

Dr. William Foster is a Faculty Associate in the Science, Technology and Society Program at Arizona State University Polytechnic.He can be reached at WAFoster@asu.edu.

Tom Mendola is the owner of Maya Investments company and can be reached at TMendola@gmail.com

Article #2

Housing Bill Article
(Text version below)

Article #1

A Fine Jar of Dirt: The Housing Bill

By David C. Rynearson and William A. Foster, PhD

President George Bush has just approved “the” Housing Bill, this bill will provide 3.9 billion dollars to local governments, 4 billion to help lenders, 300 billion in federal guarantees, and an undisclosed amount of credit and equity injections into Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage lenders (both with 5 trillion each of held or guaranteed mortgages). This bill could total as much as 10.3 trillion give or take a few billion.

This leads to the question; where is all this money going to come from? We’re already paying as a country for the war in Iraq (800billion) and now we want to take on several hundred billion dollars (at least) and possibly 10 trillion as well? The federal debt will spiral out of control, and there will be a huge impact on the value of the American dollar. If that’s not enough to make your doomsday preaching uncle gloat well there’s more.

The big hook on this is if we can sell treasury bonds to China and Japan, which already own over 1 trillion dollars, then we are able to survive for at least a little while longer, but if they don’t buy or worse they sell the bonds back to us, we’re financially ****ed our currency will be worse off than the Japanese yen or Indian rupie and the NYSE will probably feel the heat as investors become unconfident in the U.S. economy and will slowly but surely begin to withdraw from the stock market.

What can be done about all this? I mean it seems like the end is near, and those clever signs in Tempe that state “Coming Soon: Great Depression Fall ‘08” might actually come true. The government itself has decided to ruin the nation with this bizarre bill that helps the few and hurts the many. I have no problems helping the people in need, but the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac companies are being saved from the brink of death, when instead they should fade into the pages of history as one of the biggest financial and credit disasters in United States history.

It’s to late now; we’re through the looking glass and we all have to live with the consequences of the man we elected, and the congress we appointed. In the end we as a society have to accept personal responsibility.

Dr. William Foster is a Faculty Associate in the Science, Technology and Society Program at Arizona State University Polytechnic. His books and articles are available at www.FosterandBrahm.com. He can be reached at WAFoster@asu.edu.

David C. Rynearson is a student at the W. P. Carey School of Business. He can be reached at David.Rynearson@asu.edu.