The wrecking-ball response

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Builders has supported giving a $7,500 tax-credit to first-time buyers. It hopes this will help allay their fears of tighter credit conditions and falling prices.

Some sensibly argue that it is unwise to inflate the market artificially before prices find their natural bottom (on the heels of a housing bubble no less). Eventually, the forces of supply and demand will work their magic. But Lawrence Lindsey, of the American Enterprise Institute, a think-tank, has proposed his own miracle cure. He wants to grant provisional green cards to foreigners willing to invest at least $10m in groups of residential properties and to hold them for at least five years. Mr. Lindsey points out that 100,000 participants in the scheme would pump at least $1 trillion into the housing industry, and would wipe out a large slice of excess housing inventory. His proposal gets points for creativity, but not for credibility. Given the dreary American jobs market, and plunging house values, only foreigners with more money than sense would apply.