Back to Willem Buiter's Maverecon homepageOn the Vox blogsite of the Centre for Economic Policy Research, I have written a piece called The Paulson Plan: a useful first step but nowhere near enough. The title is rather self-explanatory. In the blurb preceding the column it reads: “The Package also needs some goodies for US homeowners”. The column in fact argues the opposite. The populist, re-election oriented faction of Congress is asking for such goodies and they may be politically necessary to get the rest of the plan through, but both from an economic efficiency and from a fairness perspective, sops to over-stretched mortgage borrowers are undesirable.
Professor of European Political Economy, London School of Economics and Political Science; former chief economist of the EBRD, former external member of the MPC; adviser to international organisations, governments, central banks and private financial institutions.
