The Upside of Home Foreclosures

If you're facing foreclosure, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson wants to help. "If someone is willing to make a call to reach out," says Paulson, "there's a chance we can save their homes." But Paulson can't save these homes because the homes are not endangered in the first place. They stand to change hands, not to vanish.

None of these foreclosed houses is going to disappear. After a foreclosure, one family moves out, and another moves in. We see the sad faces of the people moving out, but we don't as often see the happy faces of the new homeowners moving in. Nevertheless, those happy faces are out there, and we should not discount them.

That's important, and it's important in a larger context. Often when it comes to economic policy, some effects—in this case, the genuinely moving stories of good people who can't afford to live where they've been living—are highly visible, while others—the genuinely moving stories of good people who can now achieve their dreams of home ownership—are less well-publicized. That doesn't make them any less real.

I predict

See more irresistible headlines

• U.S. Marine Lobs Puppy Off Cliff in Iraq
• Clinton paying black people to hold her signs in Texas
• 8 things you need to know about Obama and Rezko
• 5 Medical Tests to Consider Taking
• What high-schoolers don't know
• Disturbing New Photos From Abu Ghraib
• The 401K Debit Card
• Doctors Interrogate Children as Informants on Parents' Behavior
• Man sexually assaulted daughter 350 times, tortured with taser

Way beyond reading. Help write the news. Start a Newsvine column.
Join Newsvine now!