时事资讯:美国经济已对刺激计划上瘾_时事

时事资讯:美国经济已对刺激计划上瘾

And there's even 'free money' available: Until November 30th, first-time homebuyers qualify for an $8,000 tax credit. We're back to buying $150,000 homes for only a few thousand dollars down.

So with all these inducements, how could home sales have possibly declined?

Well, it could be just a statistical blip ─ 'bad weather kept buyers at home' as the retailers are fond of saying. Or it could be that all our Keynesian tinkering is messing with the natural balance of supply and demand. Once you start introducing one-off special incentives, things get unpredictable when you take them away.

That's what happened with the $3 billion Cash-for-Clunkers program. The $4,500 government subsidy produced a great July and August for car sales, but September is dismal. As Edmunds.com CEO Jeremy Anwyl put it: 'Cash for Clunkers was supposed to prime the pump, but that is a physics concept, and economics is quite different. Demand has dropped off significantly since the program ended.'

Is the August drop in home sales the result of the coming expiry of the $8,000 tax credit or of the FHA finally starting to tighten credit? We don't know.

But we do know that no matter how badly we crave them, the drugs in fact can make you worse. Just look at what the Fed's easy money, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and all those subprime mortgages did to us not too long ago. It almost killed us.

But how quickly we forget. The National Association of Homebuilders and the National Association of Realtors have already started their predictable campaigns for the extension of the $8,000 homebuyer credit.