[Update: An updated article has been posted to the NY Times that includes the rest of the conference. This worries me:
Broader guarantees create greater risks for taxpayers, but also lower interest rates, bringing ownership within reach for more families.
Shaun Donovan, the housing secretary and a host of the conference with Mr. Geithner, said that the administration remained committed to “broad access to homeownership, including options for those families who have historically been shut out of these markets.”
I think it's very hard to not conclude after the recent crisis that we already pushed homeownership farther than was realistic. Trying to expand it past where it is now is the opposite of the direction I'd like to see us going. Some of the others topics seem sensible, such as trying to reduce government exposure to systemic risk factors but as long as increasing homeownership rates is an explicit policy goal there's a problem. Sooner or later we need to say we've done what we can and pat ourselves on the back for a job well done. Having a goal of always increasing ownership rates and opening new markets is not a sensible policy goal.]
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