Ökonomen streiten über Verteilungsfrage

U.S. home prices posted their biggest annual jump in more than six years in October in a sign the housing sector continues to recover, data analysis firm CoreLogic said on Tuesday.

CoreLogic's home price index rose 6.3 percent compared to October a year ago, the biggest increase since June 2006 and the eighth consecutive increase in home prices nationally on a year-over-year basis, CoreLogic said.

Home prices fell 0.2 percent in October from September but this was due to seasonal factors as the housing market enters the off season, CoreLogic said.

Excluding distressed sales, prices were up 5.8 percent on a yearly basis and rose 0.5 percent month on month.

Homeowners in danger of foreclosure, or in "distress", often sell their homes at a significantly reduced price.

"The housing recovery that started earlier in 2012 continues to gain momentum," said Mark Fleming, chief economist at CoreLogic, said in a statement.

Of the top 100 Core-Based Statistical Areas measured by population, 17 showed year-over-year declines in October, four fewer than in September.

With President Obama insisting on higher tax rates for affluent Americans and winning public support for the idea, Congressional Republicans find themselves in an increasingly difficult political spot and are quietly beginning to look for a way out.
 

Senior Republican leadership aides say they are contemplating a fallback position since a standoff over expiring tax rates will be portrayed by Democrats as evidence that the opposition is willing to allow taxes to rise on the middle class to keep taxes from rising on the rich — and their intransigence could mean taxes go up on rich, poor and middle class alike.

The leadership officials now say that if no deal can be struck to avert the automatic expiration of all the Bush-era tax cuts and the onset of deep, across-the-board spending cuts, they could foresee taking up and passing legislation this month to extend the tax cuts for the middle class and then resume the bitter fight over spending and taxes as the nation approaches the next hard deadline: its statutory borrowing limit, which could be reached in late January or February.

"There's always better ground, but you have to get there," said Representative Michael C. Burgess, Republican of Texas, who made it clear he does not support allowing any taxes to rise.

"Our ground is on spending, and the president intends to continue to spend more than he has coming in," said Representative Austin Scott, Republican of Georgia. "For conservatives like me, we don't want to see any debt ceiling increase without spending cuts to match."