So, it seems it was next to impossible to get live coverage of today’s Senate Banking Committee meeting on the housing bubble. Despite numerous calls and emails to C-Span, both Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL) and Senator Paul Sarbanes (D-MD) Communications Directors, and even staff members of the Dirksen Senate Office building itself, the committee hearing could not be broadcast live.
Apparently, since this was technically a sub-committee meeting, the Senate would not broadcast it on their website as they would normally do for a general committee meeting.
As for C-Span, they had already fixed their schedule for Wednesday morning and was not planning on covering the event but they did indicate to me this morning that they would be taping it and airing it later in the day (a possible tip of the hat to all of you that stopped to email or call them yesterday…).
Well, they eventually aired the meeting tonight and for those of you who were not fortunate enough to catch it, I ripped the entire broadcast and posted it at my website.
You can watch it anytime you want by clicking the following link:
Downlaod and Play with RealPlayer
Stream with Windows Media Player (High Quality)
Stream with Windows Media Player (Low Quality)
You’ll need to have the RealPlayer installed in order to view it.
Ill try to convert it to a Microsoft video format tomorrow for those of you who prefer the Windows Media Player.
Also, it appears that the entire transcript for this meeting was posted earlier this afternoon by both CalculatedRisk and BubbleMeter.
On a funny note, during NAR President Stevens opening comments, he apologized that NAR Chief Economist David Lereah could not be present but offered the Senators a hard copy of the now infamous “Reality Check” PowerPoint presentation.
That seemed to me to be an almost comical attempt to enter NAR’s “official” position into the Congressional record.
Also, there were several questions related to the OFHEO’s home price index as the Chief Economist of that office, Patrick Lawler, was one of the guest speakers.
Remember, ALL 462 statistical regions of the OFHEO home price index are hosted right here at PaperMoney so feel free to browse them anytime.
