In a post a few weeks ago, about some of the assumptions around the financial crisis, I wondered what proportion of foreclosures and mortgage defaults are homeowners who honestly got screwed by greedy brokers and bankers, versus informed buyers who knowingly took risks and simply lost that gamble. I wasn't even really thinking about outright fraud but a recent post on Citizen Economists certainly has me thinking about it now. It's a fascinating post about the increase in mortgage and foreclosure fraud, including a very nice explanation of exactly how such fraud can be perpetrated. In the comments, SteveP claims to have reviewed hundreds of foreclosures in Florida and Georgia and found that over 70% were fraud scenarios. I'd like to see more rigorous and comprehensive analysis but thought this anecdotal data was certainly interesting.
As I mentioned in my last post , I am asking my Econ for Teachers students to reflect on their reading by responding to discussion prompts. It occurred to me that it wouldn't be a bad idea for me to share my thoughts on those issues here and see if anyone wants to chime in. For this week, the students were asked to read the California and national content standards , an article by Mark Schug and others about why social science teachers dread teaching economics and how to overcome the dread, an article by William Walstad on the importance of economics for understanding the world around us and making better personal decisions (with some evidence on the dismal state of economic literacy in this country), and another article by Walstad on the status of economic education in high schools (full citations below). The reflection prompt asks the students to then answer the following questions: What was your high school econ experience like? What do you remember most from that class? How do...
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