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Mark A. Calabria, is director of financial regulation studies at the
Cato Institute. Before joining Cato in 2009, he spent six years as a member of the senior professional staff of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. In that position, Calabria handled issues related to housing, mortgage finance, economics, banking and insurance for Ranking Member Richard Shelby (R-AL). Prior to his service on Capitol Hill, Calabria served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Regulatory Affairs at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and also held a variety of positions at Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies, the National Association of Home Builders and the National Association of Realtors. Calabria has also been a Research Associate with the U.S. Census Bureau's Center for Economic Studies. He has extensive experience evaluating the impacts of legislative and regulatory proposals on financial and real estate markets, with particular emphasis on how policy changes in Washington affect low and moderate income households. He holds a doctorate in economics from George Mason University.
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Mark Calabria (May 29, 2012)
Unsurprisingly, President Obama and others have used the recent $2 billion loss by JPMorgan Chase as a call for more regulation. Obviously, our existing regulations have... more
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Mark Calabria (May 15, 2012)
Mark A. Calabria, is director of financial regulation studies at the Cato Institute. Before joining Cato in 2009, he spent six years as a member of the senior professional... more
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Mark Calabria (May 13, 2012)
Back in March the Senate Banking Committee voted out President Obama’s latest nominations to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Jeremy Stein and Jerome... more
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Mark Calabria (May 06, 2012)
Apologists for big government have regularly warned that Europe’s austerity measures would push the European economy into a recession.
To some extent they’ve been... more
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Mark Calabria (Apr 23, 2012)
The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 was intended to "promote the financial stability of the United States by improving accountability and... more
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Mark Calabria (Apr 08, 2012)
One of the more contentious issues in corporate governance, particularly as it relates to the stability of financial institutions, is whether a company’s CEO should also... more
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Mark Calabria (Apr 05, 2012)
The normally insightful Gretchen Morgenson ran a column Saturday that I at first suspected must have been intended for April Fools’ Day. She discusses a paper by... more
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Mark Calabria (Apr 02, 2012)
Obama’s recent nomination of Jeremy Stein and Jerome Powell to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System raises an important question: How should the Senate treat... more
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Mark Calabria (Mar 25, 2012)
In late January President Obama submitted to the Senate the appointments of Jeremy Stein and Jerome Powell to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. ... more
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Mark Calabria (Mar 19, 2012)
The same people who helped create the $180 billion bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are now demanding the head of Ed DeMarco, the acting director of the Federal... more
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Mark Calabria (Mar 18, 2012)
I’m a little behind on my reading, so you’ll have to forgive that the paper I’m about to talk about has been out for over a year. We tend to associate the push for more... more
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Mark Calabria (Mar 11, 2012)
Despite what looks like a national mortgage market, what we do not have is a national foreclosure process. Almost all the law that matters in terms of foreclosures is... more
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Mark Calabria (Mar 05, 2012)
Despite the substantial and continuing repayment of TARP bank assistance, the U.S. government maintains an equity interest in 371 banks. A small number of those... more
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Mark Calabria (Mar 04, 2012)
In case you missed Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s revisionist fiction in today’s Wall Street Journal, he takes the critics of Dodd-Frank to task for forgetting about the... more
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Mark Calabria (Feb 20, 2012)
Most narratives of the financial-mortgage-housing crisis tend to focus on what are essentially demand-side factors. Whether it is federal mortgage subsidies, like... more
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Mark Calabria (Feb 19, 2012)
With the continuing bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, along with the impending bailout of the Federal Housing Administration, it is easy to think that the federal... more
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Mark Calabria (Feb 13, 2012)
First let me admit I do not have a crystal ball, nor does anyone I know, so given the limitations of economic forecasting, one can only attempt educated guesses as to the... more
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Mark Calabria (Feb 12, 2012)
Thanks mainly to the efforts of the Inspector General at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), we know that the agency's staff was nothing less than asleep at the... more
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Mark Calabria (Feb 11, 2012)
After reading the few details provided on the mortgage settlement, it could be easy to forget that this whole thing was supposed to be about compensating families who lost... more
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Mark Calabria (Feb 03, 2012)
Mark A. Calabria, is director of financial regulation studies at the Cato Institute. Before joining Cato in 2009, he spent six years as a member of the senior professional... more
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Mark Calabria (Feb 01, 2012)
Perhaps I’m a little sensitive from having spent 7 years working in the Senate (rather than just using the Senate as a stepping stone), but when Obama makes statements in his... more
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Mark Calabria (Jan 30, 2012)
In his State of the Union address, President Obama let us know that he will be "sending this Congress a plan that gives every responsible homeowner the chance to save about... more
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Mark Calabria (Jan 26, 2012)
The recently released Federal Reserve White Paper on the Housing Market has received considerable attention, at least for its policy proposals. I found one of the more... more
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Mark Calabria (Jan 22, 2012)
One would think that after a housing boom driven by cheap credit, we would have heard the end of the “minorities charged higher rates regardless of credit” narratives. ... more
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Mark Calabria (Jan 21, 2012)
It has just been over a week since President Obama made his “recess” appointments to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the National Labor Relations Board. I... more
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Mark Calabria (Jan 20, 2012)
If you’ve followed Obama’s nominations to the Federal Reserve, he’s been pretty consistent, displaying a strong preference for coastal academics or politicos. Not one... more
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Mark Calabria (Jan 18, 2012)
One of the more controversial provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act is its restrictions on proprietary trading, contained in Section 619. Setting aside the fact that even Paul... more
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Mark Calabria (Jan 16, 2012)
In just a few weeks Washington enters that alternative universe called “budget season,” when the President delivers his budget proposal to Congress and Congress begins... more
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Mark Calabria (Jan 14, 2012)
If you believe that the Constitution’s Commerce Clause empowers Congress to do pretty much anything it wants (that is, if you believe that me scratching my nose impacts... more
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Mark Calabria (Jan 11, 2012)
Last week President Obama made the “recess” appointment of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, created under the Dodd-Frank Act. I’ve... more
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Mark Calabria (Jan 09, 2012)
Although Franklin Roosevelt did go on to win another term after his court-packing debacle in 1937, his support dramatically declined after the incident. ... more
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Mark Calabria (Jan 08, 2012)
President Obama is announcing today that despite the fact that the Senate is not in recess, he’s going to recess appoint Richard Cordray to be the head of the Consumer... more
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Mark Calabria (Jan 03, 2012)
We’ve sunk $169 billion, and counting, into bailing out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Every economist understands the concept of opportunity costs—that is, alternatives... more
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Mark Calabria (Jan 01, 2012)
Recent actions against Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) also produced the standard reaction by GSE apologists. The... more