Housing Crisis

Over at The Erstwhile Conservative, Duane Graham has found a really interesting article about a Roy Blunt trip to Joplin in March 2008,  printed ten days after the collapse of the subprime mortgage market brought down the fifth-largest Wall Street investment bank, Bear Stearns, foreshadowing the broader financial crisis.

The condition of the U.S. economy is not as bad as it is being portrayed, U.S. Rep Roy Blunt said Tuesday [3/25/2008] on a tour of a Joplin-area manufacturer.

Blunt never spoke the word recession, instead citing “unemployment at historic lows” and an increase in housing starts in February.

“You won’t hear that on the 24-hour news,” he said. “All the fundamentals are strong, especially in Southwest Missouri. I’m concerned we’re going to talk ourselves into economic problems.”

Blunt made the comments while touring MSW Restaurant Furnishings near Carterville, calling attention to a part of the economic stimulus package he said should benefit businesses such as restaurant suppliers.

The stimulus package referenced in this story was the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 that passed in February 2008.  A Fox News story about the legislation said it was drafted to boost "an economy battered by a housing downturn and a credit crunch" -- making it even harder to understand what Blunt meant when he worried we might "talk ourselves into economic problems.”