No Dice

Calculated Risk sees no justification for bailing out commercial real estate owners.

Let me quote the gist of his argument, which strikes me as unassailable ...

Although the headline says "developers" this is really about property investors who bought commercial buildings at the price peak and are now underwater. But say the owners default and the properties are transferred to the bondholders - what is the risk to the economy? None.

There's a tendency in cases where we reject pleas for a bailout to lard it with a few 'nice trys' and 'tough lucks'. But when you take into account the human cost, there's nothing funny about people losing their shirt, even if it's people who have a lot of shirts. But this does seem like a textbook case of what the bankruptcy courts are for.