President Obama, Fix Housing First

Dear President Obama,

I feel that you are off to an excellent start in your first week and believe you are well on your way to successfully addressing a host of problems facing this country and the world.

However, I am afraid much of your work will be undermined if you do not first address a problem that is the root cause of many of the economic problems our country is now facing: The declining U.S. Housing Market.

We have gotten to a point where the prospect of significant further free-market correction in the U.S. housing market is not only too painful to American society but has damaging effects on the entire world. One of the big three banks -- Citi, B of A or JPMorgan Chase -- is almost assured to fail given the declining mortgage assets on their books. And that will make the failure of the other two even more likely. Serious intervention must be undertaken to stabilize the housing market, which is the root cause of these bad assets.

The reason we're in this position is because the government failed to regulate and protect American investors -- and citizens -- from the outrageous financial derivitives that were created. Government action must be taken to compensate for previous inaction. That's you now!
First, President Obama, you should take action on an idea that is gaining popularity -- except with your newly approved Treasury Secretary -- to create a "First National Bank of Bad Assets" with that remaining TARP money (which is kind of what we all thought TARP was going to be used for in the first place, and why many people supported it).

Secondly, you should support an idea that I heard suggested today by CNBC's Jim Cramer, and is sure to be a big hit with those pesky Republicans: A tax credit to stimulate purchases of existing homes to clear the excess housing inventory.

OK, President Obama, there's my two cents. My sense is you have about two minutes to get this done.

Warmest regards,
Christopher Hain
Los Angeles, CA