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How to Stem the Foreclosure Tide

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A home for sale in Mayfield Hts., Ohio, in October. (AP)
A home for sale in Mayfield Hts., Ohio, in October. (AP)

The Great Recession started with the subprime lending crisis that rocked Wall Street and countless little streets across the country.
Now, the big banks are bailed out, settling down and counting bonuses. But the streets people live on are still being pummeled by home foreclosures. Millions of them. And maybe 13 million more to come, as Americans lose jobs and paychecks.
Intervention to ease that crisis has largely failed. And for that, the whole economy may still pay a price.
This hour, On Point: the unfinished foreclosure crisis, and what to do about it.
You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.Guests:

Joining us from New York is Floyd Norris, chief financial correspondent at The New York Times. He wrote recently about why so many home loan modifications are failing.

From Miami we're joined by Arden Shank, executive director and president of Neighborhood Housing Services of South Florida.

Joining us from New Haven, Conn., is John Geanakoplos, professor of economics at Yale University.

And from Washington, we're joined by Elizabeth Warren, professor at Harvard Law School and chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel charged with monitoring the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.

More links:
The Congressional Oversight Panel's year-end report, "Taking Stock: What Has the Troubled Asset Relief Program Achieved?" was released today. Its analysis concludes that "the foreclosure crisis continues to grow," and finds that "TARP’s foreclosure mitigation programs have not yet achieved the scope, scale, and permanence necessary to address the crisis."

This program aired on December 9, 2009.

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