Harvard conomists are some of the highest paid “professionals” on earth. I guess it’s because they can spew deliberately useless crap like this piece of shit from back at the end of the housing bubble– The Nations Housing – 2006— thanks to the big fat checks they get from the industry mafiosi who pay them. The publisher of this report was the (smokin’ a) Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University.
Meanwhile I, with my 6th grade education from a commuter school in Philly, was so scared of what I was seeing in the housing market in 2005, that, in addition to repeatedly warning in my reports that the bubble was about to burst, I actually put my house in Florida on the market and sold it, closing in June of that year. I know from running active investment message boards at that time, that there were countless thousands of people from all walks of life who were well aware of the bubble and the dangers it posed. It is impossible that the Harvard conomists behind this piece of trash were not. For goodness sakes, Robert Shiller was just down the road at Yale, screaming his head off about it.
These people at Harvard obviously are not stupid. The reason that they can write crap like this is that they are corrupt. That’s just my opinion, but you can judge for yourself. I think that they’re so corrupt and blind to the conflict of interest, that they even advertise it. See, they have no scruples. They publish this list of who paid them right on the front page of the report.
Principal funding for this report was provided by the Ford Foundation and the Policy Advisory Board of the Joint Center for Housing Studies.
Additional support was provided by:
Fannie Mae Foundation
Federal Home Loan Banks
Freddie Mac
Housing Assistance Council
National Association of Affordable Housing Lenders (Seriously? Subprime Lenders?)
National Association of Home Builders
National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials
National Association of Local Housing Finance Agencies
National Association of Realtors®
National Council of State Housing Agencies
National Housing Conference
National Housing Endowment – Another Arm of the NAHB
National League of Cities
National Low Income Housing Coalition
National Multi Housing Council – More builders
Research Institute for Housing America – Mortgage Bankers Ass.
I could not quickly identify who was behind the other sponsors. But all of them would seem to have a vested interest in sponsoring a bullish report. Some appear to be legitimate charitable organizations. No worries, Harvard threw plenty of sops their way too. If you read the report with this money in mind, it’s all too clear and all too disgusting what this was about– getting paid.
Harvard is not unique. Any report from any “think tank” is not about the “think.” It’s about going in the tank to get those big bucks. The next time you read a supposedly unbiased research report from some think tank, think about that!
Thanks to the WSJ’s Nick Timiraos for bringing this report to my attention with a Tweet this morning.
It is our duty to speak out against this constant stream of paid professional propaganda and biased research. We must hold it to the light of ridicule and opprobrium that it deserves.
“Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – Santayana
No mystery here as to why he is paid so much. Advertising & marketing are lucrative businesses. A Harvard conomist is able to draw lots of customers because of being seen as a highly credible expert.
This guy successfully sold lots of houses to suckers at sky high prices, so the organizations who sold the houses and the mortgages, as a result of advertising/marketing by folks like him, are grateful. He has truly been worth his weight in gold to them.