Asset Building Program: Latest Articles

As foreclosure rates continue to reach record highs here in the Washington region and across the country and the global economy reels, many Americans have begun to question whether expanding homeownership is a wise strategy. While there is plenty of blame to go around for this mess, the goal of expanding homeownership is still an important one and should not be sacrificed.

With "green" on everyone's tongues, it was only a matter of time before the question of environmentally-friendly practices arose in microfinance.  Practitioners and microfinance partner groups have focused their efforts on asking questions about the impact of microfinance clients on the natural environment.  I, on the other hand, can't help but wonder if we should be asking what microfinance can do to protect the most vulnerable from environmental woes brought about by climate change. 

Central bankers usually don’t like to admit that their economies are in recession. But Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke did just that earlier this week in testimony before Congress. He had little choice. The financial storm he has been weathering has almost certainly unleashed a global and national recession. The pain of the recession and the accompanying job loss is already being felt by families and communities across the country, and it is likely to get worse before it gets better. Bernanke realizes that the job… more

Last fall, Countrywide Financial, then the nation's largest mortgage lender, had a curious new idea --or, more precisely, an old one. No longer would it slush foreign capital through Wall Street to make subprime loans. Instead, the lender would depend entirely on deposits from savers who would finance one another's mortgages--kind of like that humble thrift institution run by George Bailey in the movie It's a Wonderful Life.

Sadly, Countrywide waited too long to get back to basics and became the first major bank of 2008 to… more

Los Angeles philanthropist Eli Broad has probably never met Soledad Moya, an eighth-grader at Middle School 302 in the South Bronx. But both are big believers in an approach that has people wringing their hands and wagging their fingers: paying students to perform on standardized tests. Moya's school is a 45-minute subway ride from the Manhattan hotel where Broad took the stage at last month's Clinton Global Initiative to announce a $6-million grant to help launch EdLabs -- an initiative at Harvard University to advance innovations in public… more