Category: Uncategorized

Telecom/Broadcasting Industry Leads in Investment Spending

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

While I was waiting for my plane at Heathrow on Sunday, I spent a bit of time looking through BEA statistics on investment spending by industry. (That activity may sound remarkably dull and boring, but remember I read stuff like this so you don’t). I put this together this little table showing which industries invested the most in equipment and software in the years 2007-2011

News flash: The top industry for investment in equipment and software from 2007 to 2011 was broadcasting and telecommunications. In many ways, that’s not surprising, given the data-driven economy, but it’s good to see in black and white.

Healthcare would be number one by a small amount if we combined hospitals and ambulatory care services.

‘Mysterious Divergence’ Between Investment and Profits: A Side Effect of Globalization

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Last week the FT did a long article on the broad divergence between U.S. corporate profits and investment. https://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/8177af34-eb21-11e2-bfdb-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2aKVhUHNE  The author, expressing surprise at the strength of profits compared to the weakness of corporate investment, ran through a long list of potential reasons, included the financial crisis, the information revolution,  short-sighted managers, mismeasurement of intangible investment,  and monopoly power.

Notably missing from the article, though, is any mention of globalization. In fact, the author apologizes in the comments, noting that “Globalisation is another possible factor that I couldn’t manage to fit in.”

But globalization gives the simplest explanation of the “mysterious” divergence. Because of the way that the national statistics are constructed, increased investment in China can produce higher domestic profits in the United States.

How does this work?  Suppose that a large retailer is sourcing a product from an American supplier.  Then a Chinese manufacturer invests $100 million in a Chinese factory to make the same product for half the price(aided by all of the Chinese infrastructure spending ).

When the retailer shifts from the American supplier to the Chinese supplier at the lower price,  the retailer makes some gain in profits, and passes some on to the consumer.  All of those extra profits are booked by economic statisticians as domestic profits.

Ta da! An increase in investment overseas shows up as domestic profits. Imagine the same story multiplied a hundred fold, and that goes a long way to explaining why the divergence is happening in the US.

The larger story, though, is that we have to start thinking globally rather than domestically. I don’t know whether global profits diverge from global investments, but we have to figure in China and other developing countries as well. Second, if we are talking about a fall in the labor share of income, we have to add in rising wages in China as well.

National income accounting is just that—national. And that may give misleading answers in an era of globalization.

 

 

The Data Economy Is Much, Much Bigger Than You (and the Government) Think

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

It’s become conventional wisdom among pundits that the tech and data boom is generating lots of wealth, but not much in the way of jobs or economic growth. The skeptics point to lack of job gains in the “information” sector, as defined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and to the country’s sub-2 percent GDP growth figures.

But as the U.S. shifts to a data-driven economy, the benefits of fixed and mobile broadband are showing up in ways that are not counted by traditional statistics. For just one example, take the number of jobs generated by the development and deployment of mobile apps. According to a new calculation by the Progressive Policy Institute, employment in the App Economy now comes to 752,000 jobs, up roughly 40% over the past year. This is a conservative estimate, based on tracking online help-wanted ads.

Auto companies are hiring software developers and testers to turn their vehicles into highly connected data platforms. Drugstores are going online to let their customers know when prescriptions are ready. Hospitals are ramping up their employment of clinical data managers to help handle the shift to electronic health records. Bed and breakfasts have shifted their entire booking operations online, driven by digital ads.

More broadly, demand for tech workers in the New York City region outstrips every other metro area, including San Francisco and San Jose, according to figures from The Conference Board. That reflects demand in finance, advertising, and media.

Read the full article here.

Who Says Tech Innovation Moves Too Slowly?

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

In his article for the July/August issue of the Washington Monthly, Barry Lynn correctly notes that the slow pace of technological progress in many fields could help explain many of the ills of today’s economy. That’s an absolutely key point. Faster, broader innovation could help create more jobs at higher pay, and help the United States escape the slow-growth trap.

But having identified the right field of battle, Lynn points his rhetorical guns at the wrong target. What’s worse, they are loaded with the wrong policy ammunition.

Lynn argues that technological stagnation is due to “a concentration of economic control that enables a few corporate bosses to manipulate technological advance entirely outside of any open and competitive marketplace.” Looking back to Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the New Deal, Lynn’s solution seems to be “stepped up antitrust enforcement with the forced licensing of key patents held by monopolistic enterprises.”

In the current day, Lynn’s prime examples of innovation-sapping monopolies are drawn from the tech industry. He spends some time on Monsanto and Pfizer, but he primarily focuses on tech companies such as Microsoft, Intel, Oracle and Google. Drawing the analogy with the 1911 antitrust case against Standard Oil, he notes that “it’s not hard to identify which corporations could be renamed Standard Operating System, Standard Semiconductor, Standard Enterprise Software, Standard Storage, and Standard Search.”

Unfortunately for Lynn’s analysis, the tech sector is the one part of the economy where innovation is proceeding at a breakneck pace. In particular, the introduction of the iPhone by Apple in 2007, followed by the release of the Android mobile operating system by Google, rapidly transformed the way that people in the U.S. and around the world do business and live their lives. Continue reading “Who Says Tech Innovation Moves Too Slowly?” →

How to Build a New Detroit

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Following a half-century of economic decay and depopulation, there was a tragic inevitability to Detroit’s decision last week to declare bankruptcy. Motown must now restructure $18 billion in debt owed to 100,000 creditors and bondholders, deciding who gets paid, how much and when.

That’s the plan to deal with Detroit’s past. But what about a plan for the city’s future?

Like Pittsburgh, Baltimore and other former industrial hubs, Detroit must now reinvent itself. At this stage, no one knows what a New Detroit might look like. So before they start courting businesses and looking for investments that generate new jobs and tax receipts, city leaders should focus on the fundamental preconditions for an economic revival.

That means making Detroit safe and livable for its citizens, and “right-sizing” a city that once was home to 2 million people but now has only 700,000 residents. How do you do that? One answer lies in the 78,000 abandoned homes that litter Detroit proper.

In 2010, Mayor Dave Bing launched a pilot program called “Project 14.” The city took 200 foreclosed homes and offered them to police officers for $1,000. They then used federal stimulus funds to offer up to $150,000 to owners to re-hab the homes into good condition. That’s a start, but with a murder rate at a 40-year high, 5,000 fires a year and an ailing public school system, Detroiters still have plenty of good reasons to flee for the suburbs.

To help staunch the bleeding, the city should engage in wholesale “urban homesteading”: Take those 78,000 abandoned homes and offer them for free – that’s right, for free – to new police officers, firefighters, EMS and public school teachers.  This would create a new infusion of human capital into Detroit, and help it emulate the success of other big cities in bringing down crime rates and replacing “dropout factories” with new and better schools. It would implant the backbone of a new middle class.

Continue reading at U.S. News & World Report

New York Tech Strength

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Recently I wrote about how the job gains from Internet/tech growth were spreading from San Francisco and Silicon Valley to other parts of California (The Rebalancing of the California Economy, May 2013).

Now let’s look at another striking phenomenon: The strength of the New York metro area as a tech hub. I looked at employer demand for computer and mathematical occupations, as reflected in the number of want ads for software developers, web developers, data analysts and the like. What I found was quite surprising.

1. The New York metro region is #1 in the country in demand for computer and mathematical occupations.* The Washington DC metro area is second, though demand has sharply fallen since a year ago.

2. The New York metro region is #1 in the country in demand for web developers, by a wide margin.  Washington is second, and the Los Angeles metro area is third.

3. The New York metro region is #1 in the country in demand for app economy workers, slightly ahead of  San Francisco, San Jose, and Seattle.

4. The. New York metro region is #2 in the country in demand for information security analysts, behind Washington DC.

5. The New York metro region is #4 in the country in demand for software developers, behind Seattle, San Francisco, and San Jose.

In some ways, New York’s strength reflects the sheer size of the region. Still, it’s remarkable that New York competes so well agains the tech powerhouses on the West Coast.

*Demand reflect the number of help-wanted ads in a metro region. These results are preliminary, pending additional validation.  Computer and mathematical occupations, as defined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, include occupations such as software developers, web developers, and statisticians, but not electronics engineers.  All results based on number of help-wanted ads in June 2013, as reported by  The Conference Board HWOL database.  App economy jobs were defined in The Geography of the App Economy from South Mountain Economics LLC.

(Computer and mathemeatical occupations include software developers and web developers, but not electrical engineers. )

(based on June 2013 data from The Conference Board HWOL database).

 

 

 

A Grand Bargain on Student Debt?

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Yesterday a coalition of eight Senators finally announced a deal on federal student loan interest rates. The compromise, which takes cues from previous proposals from the White House and House Republicans, will peg interest rates on all new federal student loans to the rate on 10-year Treasuries plus a margin. The deal, several months in the works, will retroactively replace the doubling of interest rates that took effect July 1.

Senate Democrats, who had wanted more generous terms for students, are calling the deal more of a grand rip-off than a grand bargain for students pursuing college. Although the deal calls for capping interest rates, they argue that even with the caps borrowers will still pay higher rates than before, especially as the economy improves and interest rates rise. Moreover, according to CBO estimates, the deal will increase federal student loan profits by additional $700 million over the next decade – all on the backs of innocent parents and students.

This deal should be seen as a reasonable compromise.  As I’ve written before, interest rates are only a small part of the actual problem facing student debt. Whether interest rates are 6.8 percent or 8.25 percent (the deal’s new cap for unsubsidized Stafford loans, which most undergraduates get) makes little difference in an economy where half of recent college graduates are underemployed or unemployed, and where real earnings for young college graduates are falling. It does little to address what’s really bloating the amount students owe – ever-rising principal from higher tuition – and it does nothing to address the existing $1.2 trillion mountain of outstanding student loans.

Moreover, it’s not clear pegging long-term student debt to short-term debt borrowing costs, like the federal funds rate or 1-month Treasuries, is the best approach. Such term mismatching – borrowing on short-terms and lending on longer-terms – can be risky, especially for student loans, which are uncollateralized and dependent on future earnings.

If Senate Democrats are unhappy with the deal, they should take the rising burden student debt seriously when they review federal student loan programs for the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act (HEA) later this year. That will be a great opportunity to address one of the biggest issues of our time: helping young people succeed in today’s economy.

Five Key Objectives for a Progressive Broadband Policy

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

For many progressives, “getting the Internet right” means addressing what they see as undue market power in the provision of broadband and, even more so, the potential for the abuse of that market power, as the Internet is seen as a landmark tool for social and political empowerment. Crafting a progressive broadband agenda that protects consumers and allows for innovation is key to the future of broadband in America.

In my latest report, Shaping the Digital Age: A Progressive Broadband Agenda, I outlined a progressive broadband policy agenda that consists of five key objectives:

  1. We must close the “digital divide” by leveraging all platforms. Given the dispersed populations across the country we should integrate a cloud-based, wireless framework or a mixed system in which signal is taken over wirelines to hubs that serve wireless customers. But the idea that “it must be wired” has been dispelled by the rapid advance of wireless broadband.
  2. We must bring more spectrum—the “airwaves” that “fuel” wireless—to the market to alleviate the spectrum crunch. Greater use of auctions, encouraging spectrum sharing, and looking to the government to give up its unused spectrum are all possibilities.
  3. We must explore “informating” key sectors of the economy. Broadband has the power to transform non-market sectors of the economy such as health, education and the environment. These entities will be driven by more than just market signals, and for that reason, we should look at positive programs to improve their performance.
  4. We must protect personal privacy. Movement within the broadband space invariably creates a trail of data. Progressives must honor rights of privacy in the digital age that and look at the role of transparency and choice in protecting consumers.
  5. We should examine the role of the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC labors under outdated law. While many of its missions—such as public safety—are legitimate, we should realistically evaluate limitations on its ability to deal with the real challenges of the digital age.

The fact that the Internet has become a driving force in shaping daily life doesn’t mean that it can’t be governed primarily by market forces. In fact, those forces have already delivered a competitive, innovative, and rapidly disseminating broadband network. There is a more appropriate policy agenda for progressives that would achieve important progressive goals in a way that “neutrality” and other regulatory forays cannot and will not.

To read the report, please visit https://www.progressivepolicy.org/2013/07/shaping-the-digital-age-a-progressive-broadband-agenda/

PPI Releases New Report on Broadband Policy

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

New PPI Report by Ev Ehrlich Outlines Progressive Agenda for Broadband Policy

Economic and Consumer –focused Objectives Key to Progressive Broadband Agenda

WASHINGTON – The administration and Congress need to adopt a progressive broadband policy agenda that balances respect for the private investment that has built the nation’s broadband infrastructure with the need to realize the Internet’s full promise as a form of social infrastructure, says a new report released today by the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI).

The report, Shaping the Digital Age: A Progressive Broadband Agenda, is authored by Ev Ehrlich, president of ESC Company and former Undersecretary of Commerce for economic affairs in the Clinton Administration and current PPI fellow.

According to Ehrlich, for many progressives, “getting the Internet right” means addressing what they see as undue market power in the provision of broadband and the potential for the abuse of that market power, as the Internet is seen as a landmark tool for social and political empowerment.

Ehrlich’s progressive broadband policy agenda consists of five key objectives:

  • Extending the combined wired/ wireline broadband network to all Americans;
  • Creating an active market for spectrum;
  • Using broadband to advance if not revolutionize key non-market sectors of the economy, particularly education, health care, environmental protection and government;
  • Protecting personal privacy in broadband-based interactions;
  • Defining the role of the FCC as a catalyst, honest broker and market enabler rather than a regulatory implementer

“The fact that the Internet has become a driving force in shaping daily life doesn’t mean that it can’t be governed primarily by market forces. In fact, those forces have already delivered a competitive, innovative, and rapidly disseminating broadband network,” said Ehrlich. “There is a more appropriate policy agenda for progressives that would achieve important progressive goals in a way that “neutrality” and other regulatory forays cannot and will not.”

“Ev Ehrlich is a leading progressive economist and a key architect of the policies that nurtured the Internet’s early development,” said Will Marshall, president PPI. “In this trenchant new analysis, he urges progressives to stop fighting old regulatory battles, and instead champion a forward-looking agenda for ubiquitous, high-speed broadband as a tool for social empowerment as well as economic innovation and growth.”

 

Shaping the Digital Age: A Progressive Broadband Agenda

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The broadband Internet is an epochal technology. It is transforming the economy and changing the nature of everyday life. Its construction and development requires large quantities of resources, and its existence generates substantial innovation and economic growth.

What is the public sector’s best policy approach to this burgeoning phenomenon? Views differ across the political spectrum. The conservative vision of policy regarding the Internet is to leave it alone. Progressives find that view wanting, but what is their corresponding vision?

The answer is unclear. To some advocates, it involves an aggressive regulatory stance, whether in the form of “net neutrality,” “common carriage,” limitations on the sale of spectrum, or other policies that limit that latitude and operations of the companies that build and manage broadband networks. The most recent example of this type of advocacy is Susan Crawford’s Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age. To others, this agenda seems excessive, but plays to an innate skepticism about large (and older) companies in general–particularly when contrasted to such new corporate Goliaths as Apple, Google, or Facebook, which have made their fortunes by existing on the Internet, rather than by providing it.

What should the progressive agenda be? Are our choices either to embrace this aggressive regulatory agenda or to accede to conservative laissez-faire? This essay argues that there is a third, and far more promising, option for such a progressive broadband policy agenda. It balances respect for the private investment that has built the nation’s broadband infrastructure with the need to realize the Internet’s full promise as a form of social infrastructure and a tool for individual empowerment. It turns away from problems we may reasonably fear but that simply do not exist–most importantly, the idea that the provision of broadband services is dominated by an anti-competitive “duopoly” that stifles the broad dissemination of content. And it forthrightly addresses the new ones–such as the need to create mechanisms to develop broadband as a ubiquitous social asset, to create institutions that do not second-guess its unpredictable and burgeoning growth, and to protect consumer privacy and users’ right to control the use of their personal information.

This paper consists of three sections. The first discusses what progressives should want from the Internet, the second examines the true state of competition in the broadband sector, and the third lays out a progressive agenda.

Download the entire report.

Killing Immigration Reform Hurts the Housing Recovery

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

It is looking more likely that the comprehensive immigration bill the Senate passed last month will end up stalling in the GOP-controlled House. Although Republican partisans probably don’t realize it, killing immigration reform could do serious collateral damage to the housing recovery.

Most economists believe that bringing 11 million undocumented immigrants out of the shadows would be a boon to the economy, and boost tax revenues in the bargain. It could also put as many as three million legalized immigrants in the market for a home, according to the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals.

The housing market has seen such a sharp and furious rebound in the last year that many experts are now wondering if we are repeating the crazy go–go days of 2007. That’s not likely with rates still at historic lows thanks to the Federal Reserve. We could see some corrections, but nothing like the sickening 30 to 40 percent plunge housing prices took when the bubble burst last time.

One troubling sign, however, is the dearth of first–time homebuyers. In normal times, first–time homebuyers account for about 40 percent of new home sales. In May, that number fell to just 28 percent, down from 36 percent two years ago. The decline was due to cash–heavy investors, a tepid job recovery and tighter credit. That number won’t sustain growth in housing.

Continue reading the article at U.S. News & World Report.

Rep. DelBene, Policy Experts and Economists to Discuss Need for Progressive-Focused Broadband Policy Agenda

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 16, 2012

PRESS CONTACT: Steven Chlapecka – schlapecka@ppionline.org T: 202.525.3931

Progressive Policy Institute to host conference featuring Rep. DelBene, Policy Experts and Economists to Discuss Need for Progressive-Focused Broadband Agenda

Panel will examine PPI’s new report by Ev Ehrlich, “Shaping the Digital Age: A Progressive Broadband Agenda”

WASHINGTON – A panel of leading policy experts and economists will meet on Thursday, July 18 to discuss a new PPI report by Everett Ehrlich, which explains why the administration and Congress need to adopt a progressive broadband policy agenda that balances respect for the private investment that has built the nation’s broadband infrastructure with the need to realize the Internet’s full promise as a form of social infrastructure. This public forum will outline five key economic and consumer-focused objectives for a more appropriate policy agenda for progressives.

WHEN:           Thursday, July 18, 2013, 8:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. EST

WHERE:         B-340 Rayburn House Office Building

WHO:

Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.) Member of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet and Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law

Everett Ehrlich, PPI Fellow; President, ESC Company; and former Undersecretary of Commerce for economic affairs in the Clinton Administration

Elliot Maxwell, former Special Advisor for the Digital Economy to U.S. Secretary of Commerce William Daley and U. S. Secretary of Commerce Norm Mineta

Nicol Turner-Lee, President and CEO, National Association for Multi-ethnicity in Communications

Moderator: Will Marshall, President and Founder, Progressive Policy Institute (PPI)

Watch the live webcast: www.progressivepolicy.org. 

MEDIA COVERAGE:

The event is open to the press. Media in attendance are required to register in advance of the event to Steven Chlapecka at 202.525.3931 orschlapecka@ppionline.org.

The Perils of Non-Intervention in Syria

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

After two years of escalating violence, the Syrian rebellion looks more and more like a Middle East version of the Spanish Civil War. It has turned into a vicious proxy war that is cleaving the region along sectarian lines and inspiring atrocities on all sides – ironically, the very dangers opponents of U.S. intervention have warned against.

President Barack Obama’s original decision to stand aloof from the Syrian uprising reflected his broader strategy of extricating America from Middle East conflicts. It also mirrored the anti-intervention consensus that has come to dominate U.S. foreign policy debates in the wake of our long and costly engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But as the death toll rises — and as Iran and Hezbollah go all in for Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, provoking a counter-mobilization of Sunni jihadists from across the region — Washington’s hands-off stance has become strategically and morally untenable…

Continue reading at CNN.

The Perils and Promise of Payroll Debit Cards

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Last week, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman started looking into the controversial new practice of issuing workers debit cards in lieu of paychecks. The practice first came to light last month when an employee of a McDonald’s franchise in Pennsylvania sued over being forced to accept pay in the form of debit cards. Soon after, the New York AG’s office sent inquiries about debit card payroll practices to several companies, along with a request to see a list of fees associated with the cards.

Some of the companies that were contacted by the AG’s office were high profile brands such as Wendy’s, Costco, Darden Restaurants and Walmart. As the list suggests, these are enormous corporations with lots of hourly workers. Instead of a physical paycheck or direct deposit, workers get debit cards they can use to purchase items or access cash via ATMs.

So far so good. But workers soon discovered that such transactions are often laden with income–reducing fees on common transactions such as balance inquiries and even penalties for periods of inactivity…

Continue reading the article at U.S. News & World Report.

752,000 App Economy jobs on the 5th anniversary of the App Store

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

In honor of the 5th anniversary of Apple’s App Store, I decided to update my estimates of the number of App Economy jobs. Following the same methodology described in my October 2012 study The Geography of the App Economy (with Judy Scherer),  I find that there are currently 752,000 App Economy jobs in the United States, all created since the first iPhone hit the marketplace.

App Economy jobs are growing at a rapid rate–roughly 40% over the past year, showing the very fast penetration of apps into the very mainstream of the U.S. economy (see the definition of ‘App Economy jobs’ below). These jobs are all over the country–for example, Scottrade, a leading online brokerage, is currently advertising for an Android Mobile Developer to work in St. Louis, Missouri. General Motors is advertising for a Detroit position for someone “certifying apps that get submitted by third party developers and internal teams before publishing the apps to the curated app store hosted by GM.”

Indeed, three-quarter of a million App Economy jobs are nothing to sneeze at, at a time when many industries still have not recovered from the financial crisis. All sorts of employers hire employees with App Economy skills–large and small app developers, large media and software companies who develop apps to sell under their own name, finance and retail companies that use apps to reach their customers, large and small non-tech companies that develop apps for their own use, military and other government agencies that need apps, nonprofits, large companies—including Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft,and RIM—that develop and maintain mobile app ecosystems/platforms, and so on.

One big issue now is whether government regulation will end up squelching the job growth in the App Economy. This could be a particular problem in Europe, if privacy regulations are tightened enough to make ‘free’ apps uneconomic.

Note: These estimates are based on the HWOL database from The Conference Board.  They are preliminary and could change in the future.By my definition, App Economy jobs are:

–An IT-related job that uses App Economy skills—the ability to develop, maintain, or support mobile applications, whether it’s for iOS, Android, or any other mobile operating system or app ecosystem (our methodology picks up all major app ecosystems)

–A non-IT job (such as human resources or marketing) which supports app developers in the same company.

–A job in the local economy that is supported by app developers (we use conservative estimates for the spillover effect).

 

 

Why We Should Relax and Learn to Love Rising Mortgage Rates

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Mortgage rates have been scraping the cellar floor in recent years, bottoming out at around 3.5 percent for 30-year loans. Economics 101 says cheap money can’t last forever and, sure enough, goverment backed mortgage giant Freddie Mac reported last week that fixed rates jumped, now up a full percentage point, to 4.5 percent

For the average homebuyer, that’s not trivial. On a $270,000 loan, roughly the national median price of a single family home, it will boost monthly interest payments by around $125 a month. That could be just enough to deter a first-time homebuyer or to eat into the savings of families trying to refinance their homes before rates get any higher.

In housing finance circles, there’s been a lively debate over the recent surge in housing prices: Is the sector’s recovery real – that is, built on market fundamentals? Or are we seeing yet another housing bubble inflated by the Fed’s policy of monetary easing?

Surging interest rates – and all indications are they aren’t going back down – will likely give us the answer by testing the resilience of U.S. housing markets. Here are some key indicators housing experts will be keeping their eyes on:

What happens to credit that many claim is already too tight? The idea that credit is too tight – that capable borrowers can’t get mortgage loans despite low interest rates – is widespread, but is it really true? In fact, the real issue may be bank origination capacity, not credit.

Continue reading at US News and World Report.