The Pickens Board of Real Estate meeting this month was a little more interesting than usual. We had a guest speaker, Tom Cunningham, from the Atlanta Federal Reserve speak. Tom is a VP with the Fed and is in Charge of research and development as it relates to real estate. So his talk was much anticipated. Here are some of the points he made that we all can find interesting
1 The Fed intervened in the financial markets to try and prevent a melt down. The Fed bought a tremendous amount of Treasuries as well as mortgage backed securities.The problem came in evaluting securties and the lack of assigning value to them caused a run in the markets.
2 The Fed has pretty much stopped buying Mortgage backed securities and has them off their books. Opinion was that once the Fed stopped buying these securities interest rates would rise. This did not happen. The indications are that the market for good mortgage backed securities is more bullish than anticipated ( good news)
3 The U. S, economy is growing at a rate of about 2 percent. This is good news as it dampens the worries over inflation. The bad news is growth needs to be higher to reduce the unemployment rate.
4 Productivity gains in the private sector account for more job losses in the U.S. moving jobs overseas. This is something that is not equally felt across job markets. "Low end" jobs are moving over seas but "high end" jobs are actually increasing.
5 Consumer spending in the US accounts for about 75 percent of our GDP. The only other country whose economy is so dependent on consumer spending is , interestingly enough , Greece.
6 The Bush tax cuts did little to stimulate the economy. Their expiring may have a negative effect on the economy. However data is inconclusive and some models actually show the tax expiration having a positive effect. So the jury is out on this issue.
7 Housing in Georgia is very dependent on influxes of people from other areas. Georgia has grown more than the national average due to this influx. However as people in other parts of the country cannot sell to move it has had a negative impact on the Georgia housing market.
8 Potential problems for our recovery are, strength of the world economy. Right now the world economy is good and so we have the ability to export and build jobs and revenue. Our exports over all are actually increasing.
9 The Fed is waiting for financial reform legislation to come out of Congress. This legislation is needed to regulate going forward
10 When asked if the Fed is advocating a return to Glass Steagall the response was that is a political issue and the Fed has no position .
11 States are faced with balancing budgets with reduced sources of income, even if a State does not have a balanced budget law. The problem is States that do not balance their budgets will have a hard time raising capital through the sale of bonds. This is a troubling issue in the economy.
Over all the picture for the economy is mixed, with job creation, or lack there of being a major concern. The financial picture however is a lot better than it was 2 years ago and that is a good sign
I have hit the high lights of Toms talk and hope you find it interesting. These folks are numbers people so his conclusions are mostly drawn from data. So stuff like, why does bank X stink at responding to short sales and questions like that were things he was not at our meeting to talk about
Early last week, the House of Representatives passed an emergency supplemental appropriations bill. That bill includes a provision to both reform and restart the USDA (Rural Housing Service) single-family guarantee program. 
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