Economist Thomas Sowell Examines The Housing Boom & Crash

I'm reading this new book by economist Thomas Sowell — The Housing Boom and Bust.

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For more than a decade, US newspapers have editorialized that banks are more conservative than they should be about lending money to blacks. The current foreclosure debacle suggests otherwise.

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I took my first economics class at Sierra Community College in the Spring semester 1986. I had mono at the time. I was really struggling. I felt like hell for a few weeks and then it took me forever to recover. I was weak the whole semester. I was simultaneously the Editor of the college newspaper and I worked weekends at the local radio station.

I think I fell in love with economics a couple of years before this. I was fascinated by what President Reagan was able to do with the economy. I fell in love with supply-side economics when I saw what a difference it made with the economy. The years 1980-1982 were depressing. Then things took over.

I graduated high school in June 1984 and I moved to Australia to live with my brother Paul.

I eventually got a job as a cleaner and a groundsman at the Boyne Island shopping center. I found a lot of time to read between working. Sometimes I could squeeze in three hours a day. I read The Australian newspaper and was thrilled by President Reagan's re-election and the booming American economy, much of it attributable to deregulation.

A year after returning to the US, after recovering from mono, I got a job in landscaping. We mainly worked on beautifying track homes. There was a ton of construction in the Rocklin area at this time.

Sierra Community College was where the world-champion San Francisco 49ers came to train.

I got a lot of time to read the newspapers and watch political talk shows and listen to talk radio. This built my interest in political economy.

Many of my professors at college were Marxists. One in particular was inspiring — Larry Wight in Political Science. He eventually gave me a student-of-the-year award in this field in 1988.

I got into Marxism. I thought it might be a key to unlocking life. Understanding economics, Marx taught, was key to understanding a society. It was intoxicating. It didn't matter to me if it was all nonsense. I just wanted to immerse myself in this world and learn to look at life and society through its eyes.

I read a book on Marx by Thomas Sowell. I thought it was fair. It was also devastating. I didn't care if Marx was all bunk. I was just trying on a fancy attitude. Hell, I was young and this was my idea of freedom and play and intellectual experimentation.

I told everyone I was an "atheistic communist."

Coming from a conservative Christian home, that seemed like the most rebellious thing I could do.

At UCLA, I became exposed to Jewish theologian and conservative talk show host Dennis Prager. I converted to Judaism. I left Marxism behind. I kept enjoying the books of Tom Sowell however.

I started up this refinance blog in January 2008. It seems like a hot topic right now.

The best book I've read on the housing boom and bust is the one by Tom Sowell. It's my Bible for making sense of all the conflicting claims.