Savings

In most things, I adhere to the principle that free trumps fee. Accordingly, I happily opt to run through my neighborhood, braving variable weather conditions and swarms of families with dogs and strollers, to avoid paying a gym for what I can accomplish for free.

So, how did Groupon get me to join a gym?

This item was originally posted on The Huffington Post.

When I was growing up my mother made a concerted effort to drive home the idea that choices have consequences. My sister and I were dense, maybe because we were kids, or maybe because we were just dense, so lessons that conveyed that idea had to be delivered with blunt force to penetrate our self-involved, adolescent minds. Like, the time she was taking me to school for the third or so day in a row because I had missed my bus. My normally lead-footed mother became a law-abiding driver and took deliberate care to drive UNDER the speed limit.

At our event yesterday, "Mitigating the Impacts of the Current Foreclosure Crisis," Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) laid out a convincing case for paying more attention to the ongoing foreclosure crisis, putting distressed homeowners first and supporting homeownership as a goal for America in the future.

By now, everyone knows the paradox of money and happiness, subject of a thousand articles written by penniless journalists. Rich people aren't much happier than the rest of us. But in fact there is a relationship between the two -- it is just the reverse of what most people think. Money may not be able to buy happiness, but happiness can apparently buy money -- happy people become richer than unhappy people over time.

This essay explores the issue of economic mobility from a variety of perspectives. It was designed to inform the work of the Economic Mobility Project (EMP), an initiative of The Pew Charitable Trusts. The essay begins by considering whether we should focus on relative or absolute mobility, and how we should collectively decide the optimal and desired levels of mobility. The essay closes with some principles and policy recommendations for promoting economic mobility in America.

While far from robust, most economists are treating the March jobs report of 216,000 net new jobs as a sign that the recovery is finally picking up some steam. But we have miles to go before we sleep. At this rate of growth, it will take us another seven years to get back to the 5 percent unemployment rate of early 2008. This means there will be a great deal of pressure on local housing markets, where mortgage default and home foreclosures will continue to devastate formerly stable families and communities alike. I’m fairly surprised that the unfolding hardship is not generating more attention here in DC among policymakers and I’m also fairly certain that there is shared interest in findings ways to limit the extent of household displacement and property abandonment.

Next week, we will be holding a public event that seeks to focus attention on the current foreclosure crisis and what policy ideas can be deployed to help communities and families mitigate the impact of the current foreclosure crisis. You can join us in person or tune in to the webcast live or on demand.

We will be looking at what’s working and not working at the local level, and also what specific set of policies and practices can be scaled and deployed to effectively manage the crisis. Sen. Merkley from Oregon is scheduled to help kick off the session, as he and his staff have been working on elevating this issue and shining some light on potentially promising proposals. Obviously, with the current political climate  it will be difficult to generate the degree of bipartisan engagement necessary to forcefully address this problem. That’s a shame and given the scale of the problem, it’s a real indictment of our politics. But I also think another challenge is to raise the profile of specific policy ideas that can make a difference.

Across the country, a range of strategies and policies are being tried out and are candidates for replication. For example, in a recent issue of Shelterforce put out by the National Housing Institute, Miriam Axel Lute describes the promising strategy of lease-purchase agreements. Also known as rent-to-own, lease purchase allows for “not-quite-mortgage-ready buyers” to occupy the house they intend to buy as a tenant until they are ready to take on a new mortgage. What I like about this is that is keeps homes occupied and is a potential avenue to keep families under the threat of foreclosure in their homes but under new terms. Both of these scenarios are preferable to the alternatives of a long-term vacant home and a displaced family.

It is a good idea and there is a growing body of practice out there showing how it can work.

As you may know, Ray Boshara recently left his day to day gig at New America for the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. We're really excited for Ray (and that we still maintain a strong relationship with him.) One of the reasons we're so excited is that Ray will bring his unique perspective and focus on asset building to an institution as powerful and important as the Federal Reserve Bank. In fact, Ray started on that endeavor a while back, publishing a piece in the St. Louis Fed's Bridges newsletter, "Seven Surprising Findings from the Asset Building Field."

It's a really nice introduction for people who are new to the asset building framework and a great reminder for people with some more familiarity with the subject.

The seven surprising findings:

On Tuesday, Congressman Jim McDermott (D-WA) gave the keynote address at an event organized by the Center for American Progress and Women of Color Policy Network on Measuring Our Progress in Reducing U.S. Poverty. In a political environment where existing poverty fighting tools are fending off rescissions in the name of deficit reduction, Congressman McDermott insisted that, as the wealthiest nation on Earth, the U.S.