Time to deregulate Will and Kyl, and send them to a sub-prime niche, like the Kabul Tribune or some such paper…

Neal Boortz was yapping about this a couple of weeks ago. Looks like the talking points are making their rounds.

“The government of the United States, bipartisan, pressured lenders into lending to marginal borrowers as a public policy.”
___________

Bullshit. The “pressure” came from the feeding-frenzy imperative to make all that groovy fee money by churning & burning paperm, because of a LACK of regulatory oversight.

But Democrats in congress were making that push.

Does he mean the same ‘Democrats in congress’ that were so weak they had to hold a hearing on the Downing Street Memo in a broom closet?

Sorry Jon, I call “bullshit” on you and Will on this one.

Let me guess… does George W. Will carry a variable-rate mortgage? Or any mortgage at all, given his posh speaking fees?

Oh, I forgot! I’m a Democrat! This is all my fault!

This reminds me of a famous Low cartoon from the late 1930s a propos of an attack on London Jews by a group of Mosely’s fascist thugs. Colonel Blimp: it’s the Jews fault for inciting the thugs to riot.

Yes, those darm Democrats keep pushing for the people of this country to have food, cloting and shelter. What’s next, affordable health care?

There are a HELL of a lot of well-to-do people crapping out on these mortgages. Poor people have nothing to do with it.

o/t

did someone say Mosely ?

tee hee

Kyl is SUCH A LOSER even his own “people” in texas think he’s an idiot….

The problem with health care is that we’re “overinsured.” Moral hazard, sloppy “consumers” and all that.

I heard this screed on rightwing radio recently – don’t remember the specific winger pushing it, but this is the Wurlitzer Talking Point of the Month.

London Jews by a group of Mosely’s fascist thugs.

Oswald has a son

Didn’t see your Mosley link I am not a plagiarizer!!!!

Poor. Marginal.

Two terms which aptly fit the stone-headed Kyl and the fop Will.

Bullshit. The “pressure” came from the feeding-frenzy imperative to make all that groovy fee money by churning & burning paperm, because of a LACK of regulatory oversight.

We have a “Bingo”!

This should serve as Exhibit ‘A’ for campaign reform.

As long as Wall Street can pay politicians to look the other way re: regulation, stuff like this will continue to happen.

Bear Stearns alone is costing us $30 billion. And I’ll bet you the campaign contributions that helped enable this mess were minuscule in comparison

I believe you have just insulted all the marginal people in this world.

Right, because big banks always jump to do what random congressmen from the minority party tell them to do…

Bullshit. The “pressure” came from the feeding-frenzy imperative to make all that groovy fee money by churning & burning paperm, because of a LACK of regulatory oversight.

Paging Alan Greenspan . . . Paging.

Apologies to the admittedly marginal.

that whole meme has been developing since steve kroft’s 60 minutes piece several weeks ago. all the emphasis on the word ’subprime’ (hint, hint, black welfare queens…)

it’s remarkable to me the power that $7/hr salon worker had to walk into any bank and demand and receive a $250,000 loan without any documentation whatsoevah. and those poor bank executives had no choice but to write that check.

They run their memes in any convenient direction. Many will buy it. Its being repeated in heavy rotation. Democrats are weak and ineffectual except when they were strong enough to push lending bills through a republican majority in both houses. I don’t remember that happening at any point in the last 7+ years. What I remember was Republican deregulation that encouraged predatory lending. When Spitzer tried to stop the bleeding, they ratted him out of the High Dollar Johns’ Club.

1,797 DAYZ AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…

Citizen Blue Texan:

Yer from Texas and that fascist, blame the poor and the Blacks shit surprises you??!! Hells bells, that shit is the best thing that ken happen ta the Democratic Party is they don’t sissy out…the last time the fascists tried ta blame “lazy working people” for an economic crisis they brought on with uninhibited capitalism was in 1932 when they tried ta save Hoover…how’d that work out??!!

The fascists have set up the same circumstances that prevailed from 1929-1932 and they thought they were gunna get a fascist politics and an economy like that of the antebellum South except FDR and the New Deal screwed ‘em. It ain’t gunna work today any better’n it did in 1932 unless the Democrats nominate Mrs. Clinton-McCain…holy shit, how’d ya like Al Greenspan back as czar of a completely unaccountable Federal Reserve??!!!

KEEP THE FAITH AND DON’T BE AFRAID…BE MAD AS HELL AND VOTE LIKE IT!!

s’okay nomolos – can’t wait to show it to mr cbl:gearhead – his distaste for that governing body knows no bounds

btw – not a peep anywhere on the good senator’s site about Bear Stearns/econ 101/or those unwashed thieves – but if you wanna read the latest Kagan treatise or how Mike McConnell needs your help to spy on you . . .

I was channel surfing yesterday morning and caught about 25 seconds of one of Will’s rants. If there were ever a question of whether the “MSM” is controlled by a bunch of non-thinking pinheads, the presence of Will and his ilk on these Sunday morning time-wasters should settle the issue.

Sheesh!!

here’s a nifty little backgrounder:

Subprime Securities Market Began as `Group of 5′ Over Chinese

By Mark Pittman

Dec. 17 (Bloomberg) — Representatives of five of Wall Street’s dominant investment banks gathered around a blonde wood conference table on a February night almost three years ago. Their talks over take-out Chinese food led to the perfect formula for a U.S. housing collapse.

The host was Greg Lippmann, then 36, a fast-talking Deutsche Bank AG trader who aspired to make mortgage securities as big a cash cow for Wall Street as the $12 trillion corporate credit market.

His allies included 34-year-old Rajiv Kamilla, a trader at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. with a background in nuclear physics, and 32-year-old Todd Kushman, who led a contingent from Bear Stearns Cos. Representatives from Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. were also invited. Almost 50 traders and lawyers showed up for the first meeting at Deutsche Bank’s Wall Street office to help set the trading rules and design the new product.

“To tell you the truth, it’s not very glamorous,” Lippmann says. “Just a bunch of guys eating Chinese discussing legal arcana.”

Those meetings of the “group of five,” as the traders called themselves, became a turning point in the history of Wall Street and the global economy.

The new standardized contracts they created would allow firms to protect themselves from the risks of subprime mortgages, enable speculators to bet against the U.S. housing market, and help meet demand from institutional investors for the high yields of loans to homeowners with poor credit.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/…..YC1xKUoek#

I love that word, ‘pressure.’ It’s so vague. Was it mandated through legislation? If not then please STFU and take some of that personal responsibility you’re always talking about. If it was, sue.

BobbyG — left you a message downstairs re Medicare mess.

“But, but, Johnny made me do it!”

Thanks, Peterr.

I guess they are referring to the Clinton-Rubin program of forcing banks to obey regulations against geographic discrimination in lending (which cut out traditionally credit worthy racial/ethnic minorities and businesses simply because of geographic location), and Rubin’s policy of using federal programs to encourage compliance. Which was different from what has happened over last seven year. If I remember correctly, the Clinton-Rubin policy had as much or more to do with business loans than mortgage lending. In any case, they are mistaken, ignorant or lying.

Encouraging banks to end geographic discrimination against traditionally credit worthy borrowers, and encourageing business investment in poor communities is very different than experimnetal, and in some cases shady, loan practices.

In fact, I do believe that Democrats (at least some House Democrats) warned about the effects of deregulation on mortgage lending before the bubble burst.

So, they are ignorant, or lying.
I think Robert Reich and Krugman were on that show this week. Did they set the record straight?

Representatives of five of Wall Street’s dominant investment banks gathered around a blonde wood conference table on a February night almost three years ago. Their talks over take-out Chinese food led to the perfect formula for a U.S. housing collapse.

The wooden Wall Street dominators gathered around five blondes on a conference table. It was a February night. There was Chinese food. Their hair was perfect.

Kyl is SUCH A LOSER even his own “people” in texas think he’s an idiot….

Please.

It’s bad enough that those of us in Texas are burdened with “Box Turtle” John Cornyn and perpetual cheerleader Kay Bailey Hutchison; don’t try to saddle us with Kyl as well.

Place the blame for him where it belongs, on the fine people of Arizona.

Exactly.

Personal responsibility!

Allowing George Will to say anything about economics or finance is journalistic fraud. He doesn’t know anything about it at all. Or he knows so much that he can spin dishonest (but very consistently dishonest) nonsense for years that always favors the GOP policy of the day.

He has qualifications as a historian. I will take on faith that he did actually study the history of some alternative universe.

Dec. 17 (Bloomberg) — Representatives of five of Wall Street’s dominant investment banks gathered around a blonde wood conference table on a February night almost three years ago. Their talks over take-out Chinese food led to the perfect formula for a U.S. housing collapse.

Really! Anti-trust anyone?

There was Chinese food. Their hair was perfect.

Yahooooooo, werewolves of Wall Street

One of Warren’s finest…

A repost of one of my Salon.com posts:
________

I worked in risk management for a subprime VISA/MC issuer for 5 years till early 2005. We knew from portfolio studies that subbies typically run right up to their credit lines in 3-5 months from issuance. So, a strategy that commenced in late 2004, after we’d been majority-purchased by a Wall Street “bad paper” firm, went something like this (in E-Z round numbers to illustrate):

Market and book 100,000 new accounts, each with a credit line of $1,000. Shortly thereafter we’d have acquired a pool of debt obligations (”asset”) with a present value of roughly $100 million. Bundle it up (”securitization”) and sell the whole shitload for whatever the securities bidders would pay for its projected risk-adjusted future value.

Lather, rinse, repeat. Lather, rinse, repeat. Lather, rinse, repeat. Lather, rinse, repeat. Lather, rinse, repeat. Lather, rinse, repeat…

Lotta handsome fees to be had throughout, while we offloaded the debt risk to others down the line.

Financial musical chairs. This is what they’ve been doing across a breadth of debt instruments. Works fine — until it no longer does (which is where we are now).

Nuthin’ but Lexuses in the executive covered parking area at our bank. They fucking laughed at the chump customers’ financial ineptitude.

I had to quit. It sucked.
_____________

None of this had shit to do with “pressure” from the government. It had everything to do with an absence of regulatory “pressure.”

Yes, Kyl is from AZ. You in Texas shouldn’t have to get credit for him. After all, you get Bush…and his family.

In fact, I do believe that Democrats (at least some House Democrats) warned about the effects of deregulation on mortgage lending before the bubble burst.

–and I also now think that I remeber that these House members specifically warned about the danger of these experimental/shady loan practices in *poor* and *minority* communities. I don’t remember where I say it. If anyone does I would appreciate a reminder of where to find it.

This is just the ReichWing circling the wagons, taking care of their own. Expecting them to express fact-based analysis rather than spin is like expecting Cheney to advocate open government and freedom of expression.

But if the ReichWing wants to play talk show cowboys ‘n Indians, I can also “Geronimo!” Which reminds me of t-shirt art I consider priceless: a picture of Geronimo and a small armed band, looking like a Special Forces team. The caption: “Fighting Terrorists Since 1492″.

I strolled into lots of open houses and condos in San Francisco all through the bubble, more to look than buy, but still. Every time I saw the loan paperwork, hidden away on a back kitchen counter, I would ask the real estate agent, “but how much are these payments in three years?” and “am I actually paying any principal with this loan?”

These questions were met with a laugh, and a request “not to worry about that, your appreciation will enable you to get a fixed rate loan when the time comes.” If I pursued my inquiries, I was usually asked if I’d brought my lender’s qualifying letter with me to the open house, and if not, there was the front door — Use it.

These weren’t homes for poor people, the other home-tourers weren’t marginal. All kinds of folks are getting caught in the no-appreciation, refi squeeze right now.

But I am happy to have the corporate cons continue to spout their drivel about the “subprime meltdown among the undeserving poor and minorities” — who you gonna believe, George Will or your lying eyes as you drive down your cul-de-sac?

You’re welcome. Let us know if it works.

What BobbyG is describing, is THE ONE BIG problematic factor that is making the current mess so intractable and hard to solve. Not the bad mortgages themselves. That is important to remember.

Though correct me if you think I am wrong, BobbyG.

That stil works today.
“You got raped? What did you expect, wearing that?”

this is a very good nyt article:

December 18, 2007
Fed Shrugged as Subprime Crisis Spread
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
WASHINGTON — Until the boom in subprime mortgages turned into a national nightmare this summer, the few people who tried to warn federal banking officials might as well have been talking to themselves.

Edward M. Gramlich, a Federal Reserve governor who died in September, warned nearly seven years ago that a fast-growing new breed of lenders was luring many people into risky mortgages they could not afford.

But when Mr. Gramlich privately urged Fed examiners to investigate mortgage lenders affiliated with national banks, he was rebuffed by Alan Greenspan, the Fed chairman.

In 2001, a senior Treasury official, Sheila C. Bair, tried to persuade subprime lenders to adopt a code of “best practices” and to let outside monitors verify their compliance. None of the lenders would agree to the monitors, and many rejected the code itself. Even those who did adopt those practices, Ms. Bair recalled recently, soon let them slip.

And leaders of a housing advocacy group in California, meeting with Mr. Greenspan in 2004, warned that deception was increasing and unscrupulous practices were spreading.

John C. Gamboa and Robert L. Gnaizda of the Greenlining Institute implored Mr. Greenspan to use his bully pulpit and press for a voluntary code of conduct.

“He never gave us a good reason, but he didn’t want to do it,” Mr. Gnaizda said last week. “He just wasn’t interested.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12…..038;st=nyt

It is the ’securitizaton’ BobbyG describes that produced this crisis and makes this particular financial panic and recession combo so worrying and dangerous. A financial panic and a recession in the real economy are two different things. People forget that.

I remember it well, every time I turned on my teevee there was another Democrat proclaiming how great it will be in the new “ownership society”….er, wait, no…..never mind.

But this financial panic has the potential to send the economy into a depression. A real depression. Riots in the streets. Bread lines.

They’re different in concept but the pain is gonna be the same in the end.

Hello Blue Texan! Thanks for the thread.

The Senate is reponding to Paulson’s 212 page report on overhauling finance regulators and taking their position on the Senate floor now on C-SPAN.

Me thinks the division is deeping!

I predicted this mess in 2004 when my bank started down that path. Now, whereas the risk-adjusted “value” of our SDOs (securitized debt obligations) was in large measure a function of our astute stratified proprietary risk scorecard modeling (because there were only promise-to-pay signatures at root), mortgage lending became “you got a pulse? you got a loan!” because the money was in the transaction fees generated by quickly moving the paper out the door. NO ONE gave a shit about what would eventually happen.

After all, you get Bush…and his family.

Actually, I do believe Connecticut gets those honors. Or at least the honors of Poppy and Dubya. I guess Texas does have to accept Laura and the Twins.

hell, i knew something was kablooey when someone i wouldn’t lend $100 to expecting to get it back, was given a $150k mortgage.

What was the typical interest rate for those (suckers!/s) $1000 credit limit cards? IIRC, you are in Nevada.

You are correct. But the reason this financial panic has such potential to sink the economy is that the securitization BobbyG described has flooded the market with securites that no one knows how to value. It is financial market for lemons, with an unacceptably high probability that any mortgage backed security, or derivative based on such is lemon. So there may be no equilibrim price at which it can be traded.

And that is just the problem in pricing. Added to that is the problem that some of it is worthless because the borrower, or the compnay holding the paper is insolvent. Bankruptcy is an everyday event, but it does not exist in standard economic theory, and has always been handled by ad hoc post hoc procedures to patch things up. But hard to patch things up now because so hard to figure out how has claims against real resources of those who are insolvent, or how they can exert control to minimize real losses to the economy.

So, that was my point -it was the unregulated securitization that makes the COMBO of this financial panic and housing bust so dangerous. If we did not have the securitization, but bubble would not have been so large and figure out how to clean up the mess after the bust would be much quicker and easier.

Every time Bush talked about how great the economy was he would cite as proof that there were more home owners than ever before, I’d shout at my TV, “You don’t own your home until you make your last mortgage payment. Until then, the lender owns your home.”

My parents would say they were in the process of buying their home. That was common language used while paying a mortgage. We would celebrate when the last mortgage payment was made. Today, people are urged to call their first payment “home ownership”.

It’s amazing how leadership influences the way people think.

DERIVATIVES DIARY: Goldman Develops Housing Derivatives
Fri Oct 20 12:18:03 2006 EDT

These products, whose value is derived from the underlying real estate, come at a time when rising interest rates and housing inventory levels are damping the $22.2 trillion U.S. residential property market…

“We always felt that there was a market need to develop derivatives indexed to real estate,” said Rajiv Kamilla who is responsible for new products trading within Goldman’s structured products business in New York.

A forward is a contract through which investors can bet on an index’s absolute value at a predetermined future date. An individual who expects home prices to fall will bet the index loses value while an individual who reckons home prices will rise will bet on the index trading higher.

Nothing to see here, just some poor people suffering, move along…

23.9% at the time.

Last Friday I discussed the mortgage subprime crisis with an AZ libertarian who said that NO person should be bailed out because they HAVE to take the personal responsibility for agreeing to a bad mortgage….

I asked this person if they had ever bought a home…. “no”
Next questions…..
“Have you seen the documents required for a mortgage?”…. “no”
“Do you know that most of the process of buying a home is based on trust?”…. “why?”
“You develop a relationship with your real estate agent and who you pick to do your mortgage, it might be the very bank you do your daily business and people trust they are given correct advice”…. “why don’t they have the documents reviewed by an attorney?”

“A person would need to find an attorney who specializes in mortgage law and may need to specialize in the actual terminology of that specific lending institution and there would be significant additional costs”

Everyone at this event who had bought a home said the same thing. The 5 plus inches of 8×14 papers are NOT written in plain language which could be understood by the layperson. The issue is that there could be clauses that reference something which only has meaning within that lending institution.

Part of any regulation of the lending industry is to require loan documents to be in PLAIN language and ALL hidden clauses actually addressed in the document they signed.

“In any case, they are mistaken, ignorant or lying.”

or all three …

he press has swallowed Wall Street’s line that millions of US families are about to lose their homes because they bought homes they couldn’t afford or took loans too big for their wallets. Ba-LON-ey. That’s blaming the victim.

Here’s what happened. Since the Bush regime came to power, a new species of loan became the norm, the ‘sub-prime’ mortgage and its variants including loans with teeny “introductory” interest rates. From out of nowhere, a company called ‘Countrywide’ became America’s top mortgage lender, accounting for one in five home loans, a large chunk of these ‘sub-prime.’

Here’s how it worked: The Grinning Family, with US average household income, gets a $200,000 mortgage at 4% for two years. Their $955 monthly payment is 25% of their income. No problem. Their banker promises them a new mortgage, again at the cheap rate, in two years. But in two years, the promise ain’t worth a can of spam and the Grinnings are told to scram – because their house is now worth less than the mortgage. Now, the mortgage hits 9% or $1,609 plus fees to recover the “discount” they had for two years. Suddenly, payments equal 42% to 50% of pre-tax income. The Grinnings move into their Toyota.

Now, what kind of American is ‘sub-prime.’ Guess. No peeking. Here’s a hint: 73% of HIGH INCOME Black and Hispanic borrowers were given sub-prime loans versus 17% of similar-income Whites. Dark-skinned borrowers aren’t stupid – they had no choice. They were ‘steered’ as it’s called in the mortgage sharking business.

http://www.gregpalast.com/elli…..ts-nailed/

It is the FIRST time that Trickle Down Economics actually work….

Bad Mortgages (sh*t) bundled and sold as securities (packaged sh*t) and then sold as investments for union pension funds so everything is based on sh*t… and as each segment fails…. it trickles down to the next until all we have is one big pile of steaming sh*t

Looks like Dodd agrees with Krugman that the big news on the Bush regularatory reform will do nothing (See Krugman’s column today in NY Times)
–

Senate’s Dodd: Paulson plan “not even close” 1 hour, 41 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Democratic chairman of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee on Monday called the Treasury Department’s plan to overhaul financial regulation “a wild pitch … It’s not even close to the strike zone.”

Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut said he welcomed the plan put forward by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson but questioned its relevance in addressing the immediate housing market crisis threatening to tip the economy into recession.

“To talk about overhauling the regulatory system is a wonderful idea. But frankly it doesn’t relate to the issues we’re grappling with,” Dodd told reporters on a conference call. “I would call this a wild pitch,” he said. “It’s not even close to the strike zone.”

(Reporting by Kevin Drawbaugh; editing by John Wallace)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/200…..on_dodd_dc

We simply must get the financial system back to normal. Normal as aptly described by Michael Lewis (”Liar’s Poker”):

“The firm made money, and the broker made money. Two outa three ain’t bad.”

Yes. Check this out, 60 Minutes “Mortgage Meltdown.”

“…The Wall Street and foreign investors are now stuck with the millions of distressed properties on Sean O’Toole’s map, the unsold condos in Miami, the unfinished apartments on the Vegas Strip, the developments in Atlanta that are sitting idle and the thousand stucco houses in Stockton. Not even Kevin Moran, who has copies of the foreclosed mortgages, can figure out who exactly owns them.

“That’s the fascinating part of this whole debacle we’re in. Mortgages are sold in mortgage backed securities, so they’re pooled. I’ve seen everything from some of the largest financial institutions in the country, and you see ‘Deutsche Bank’ in a series and a series of numbers and letters to a mortgage pool,” he says.

The pools are part and parcel of those high-yield mortgage backed securities everyone gobbled up a few years ago, and are now stuck in the windpipe of the world’s financial system. No one wants to buy them, so no one can sell them.

“Bonds marked triple-A are now quoted at 50 cents to the dollar, 40 cents on the dollar. Some of them, much less,” Grant says.

“How much on the dollar, do ya think?” Kroft asks.

“Some of them are worth nothing on the dollar. Nothing on the dollar. This is the worst thing that has happened to Wall Street in a long time,” Grant says.

Asked how many of these securities are out there, Grant says, “A trillion with a T-plus.”…”

Er, no. Bush and his family are from CT.

Now, what kind of American is ‘sub-prime.’ Guess. No peeking. Here’s a hint: 73% of HIGH INCOME Black and Hispanic borrowers were given sub-prime loans versus 17% of similar-income Whites. Dark-skinned borrowers aren’t stupid – they had no choice. They were ‘steered’ as it’s called in the mortgage sharking business.

Any time George Will wants to debate this we should ask for an investigation into wether the banks charged Dark Skinned borrowers more than similar income whites. Any bank or financial company found guilty SHOULD NOT BE ELIGIBLE FOR A BAILOUT FROM THE FED.
Unless they confess to their wrongdoing open their books for an investigation anyway and say that George Will is just a paid lying hack.

Unbelievable is right!

OT…here is something else unbelievable….Ed Rendell goes on FOX and tells them HOW FAIR they have been this primary season…after all Fix Noise says about Dems?????? Another LIEbercrat HACK that Rendell

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…..450/487704

BTW Blue Texan…. the title is wrong… it is Jon Kyl…. my OTHER AZ Senator….

Ugh, thanks — fixed.

That is how I tell them apart…. Jon is more wingnuttery than John….. Jon wanted to spy on me, take away my habeas corpus rights and John is the pander bear who will do anything to be Prez….

George Will should be very careful about his lies. The GOP needs our majority votes in the House and Senate for the next round of government welfare for the banks which is coming.
The Fed cannot save the banks by itself. We can’t let the GOP use the subprime crisis they created this as a wedge issue to divide white and minority votes.
So unless George wants to play chicken he better admit that he’s wrong.
Otherwise we can bailout the banks but not the Hedgefunds which means Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital, Dan Qualye’s Cerbebus, and Bush 1’s Carlyle group all take huge hits.
We can stop the bank bailout by refusing to let the Fed accept any subprime mortgages at face value, only current value. George is pro free markets I’m sure he will agree its for the best.
Plus we can put on trial the bankers for screwing minorities.

Laissez faire capitalsim – the idea that private initiatives and production are best allowed to roam free. Failed again!

BTW- I am proud of my snarky son, he has done his pop proud.

Scroll down in my current blog post, pics of Nick with Senator McCain the other day.

Can George Will point to a single government law or regulation that says banks have to make ninja home loans (No Income No Assets). Also GEORGE BUSH THE PRO BUSINESS PRESIDENT AND THE GOP HAVE CONTROLLED THE WHITE HOUSE, SENATE, HOUSE AND SUPREME COURT FOR YEARS, until recently.
But the probusiness party did not make a peep until their ponzi scheme started to threaten their cash.

And by the way they talk of the RISK these bankers run.

Well here’s how it works over here. Adam Applegarth CEO of a British bank called Northern Rock. He puts much of Northern Rock’s assets into rubbish US sub-prime instruments, so we don’t know whose rubbish it is but we do know it’s rubbish.

Smarter banks notice and stop lending Norhtern Rock money. Depositors queue around the block to get their savings out. Northern Rock is effectively out of cash so the british Government buys it, yes that’s buys as in takes it onto the books, not gets a buddy to do it like Bear Stearns.

Adam Applegarth leaves, not before time you might say. Adam has a good watertight contract so Adam leaves with $1.5M. Some risk!

been trying to get this number out there
program announced about a month ago, they’re not making a lot of effort to publicize it.

so i am.

1-888-995-hope is the department of treasury’s number for people who are 90 days behind on their morgages, they also want people to call who know they are going to be behind.

the focus is to keep people from foreclosure.

the number hooks you up with a person/case worker that can help you.

And yet the strongest and most stable housing market in the country right now, the safest place in which to buy a house. You’d never guess it was upstate New York. We bought our house in 1999. We ain’t losing a damn thing. In fact, our appreciation, while not spectacular, has continued throughout this whole mortgage clusterfuck.

Not even a VA mortgage is a ninja loan. You still have to qualify, and that means you have to have a job. The only reason you can get one of those with no money down is because the VA is securing the loan at 25% of principal, and that’s only good up to the $427,000 or whatever it is that is the threshold amount of a jumbo loan.

The other thing you have to do in order to qualify for one of these is serve on active duty in the military a minimum of 180 consecutive days. I would say anyone who gets this deal has more than earned it.

I guess by “Ownership Society” Bush didn’t really mean ownership per se, especially for Democrats and “Minorities. In his typical misspeak, he meant to say Receivership Society or Bankruptcy Society or Foreclosure Society”.

Will needs to move on. He’s stuck in the the tar pit.

George Will has been tying that bow-tie too tight for decades. We’re starting to see some serious damage from lack of oxygen. It’s not just him. I’ve always disagreed with him and his fellow RW travelers but over the past seven years in particular, it’s become painfully clear that everything they know is wrong. Why do they take up such valuable space in the editorial pages when they don’t even deserve the good corners for their soapboxes.

Completely OT, but I looove your handle :)

I like the FDR analogy……. Bush is looking for the next Gliewitz to give McFried a boost, amongst the deaf and dumb! The “Iraq Oil Plot” has made the 1933 Business plot look like a “wet dream.”

After last night’s 60 minute’s, that little voice in my head…nazis nazis nazis. Can’t help it, I’m 1/2 kraut…………

Keep up the good work! We have seen this before!!!

and good coverage tonight about Sec. Al. Jackson being pushed out, to take care of family, dontcha know? I kept expecting to hear refrains of “Heckava Job, Brownie” as W accepted his resignation with regret. And his proudest moment: Clearing out that public housing in New Orleans so a cleaner crowd with more money can move in. Yeah, it’s all their fault, that flood.

And some nit-wit on the radio this am was saying Liberals are those ones who hate America. Yep, she was covering for Laura Ingraham. More and more, I am struck not only by the serious snark from these people but the depth of their contempt from those “not them.”

Will’s take on the housing crisis will in all liklihood carry the day. After all, he’s on TEEEEEE VEEEEEE.

I don’t read either quote as blaming poor people. Fault certainly lies with the lenders and with the financial institutions that bought the paper backed by subprime mortgages. If Congress pressured lenders to make bad loans, Congress is at fault and so, again, are the lenders. But, borrowers bear responsibility too, as do mortgage companies and mortgage brokers. There is plenty of blame to go around. Borrowers are not blameless.