It’s no secret that California has been hard hit by the housing crisis. More than 1 million homes in the state were lost to foreclosure between 2008 and 2011, and some 700,000 more are currently in the foreclosure pipeline, according to state officials.

Since so many foreclosures were unfairly handled, Calif. Gov. Jerry Brown and Attorney General Kamala Harris have responded with the California Homeowner Bill of Rights, a new set of reforms for how the state will handle foreclosures moving forward.

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There’s a new effort in California with would end the foreclosure crisis as we know it.

The idea is to have a referendum and simply ban foreclosures. And while this is a thought which is surely attractive in many ways, as a practical matter it’s not going to happen.

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The fact that Washington has denied federal aid to both the auto parts suppliers as well as California within a week has us wondering if the “bailout era” in this country is finished. Has Washington finally learned how to spot a bad investment or is the fear of further public backlash the reasoning behind the U.S. saying “no”?

While the cause for bailing out financial firms centered around the “too big to fail” mentality, the reasoning behind rescuing GM and Chrysler seemed to focus on their legacy as long-standing American companies and the fact that there would be a tidal wave of layoffs if the automakers folded.

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