Friday's announcement that the administration is overhauling its mortgage modification program to encourage principal forgiveness shows they understand that unless folks have equity in their homes, mortgage defaults will continue in huge numbers. The plan is a decent one, and it appropriately would have lenders absorb the lion's share of losses. Still, its an all-carrots approach that may be tough to get off the ground. And taxpayers would get even more deeply involved in housing finance.
If it doesn't work, regulators have a stick to force lenders to take losses, which I describe at the end.
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