From the category archives:

Housing Bust

The Treasury’s New Mortgage REIT

September 21, 2008

I just had some fun reading the text of the proposed treasury bill. It’s basically a $700 billion Mortgage REIT that has yet to be named let’s just call it expensive. Not only that, the draft of the enormous bill, which requires an increase in the federal debt ceiling in order to accommodate its incredible [...]

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Cash is King

September 14, 2008

Confirming today that the subprime crisis is “largely contained”, Lehman Brothers Holding Inc., declared bankruptcy, and Merrill Lynch confirmed it doesn’t need to raise more capital (“these problems are behind us”), it just needs to sell out to a commercial bank in Charlotte. And the Fed has now added equities to the list of assets [...]

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U.S. Treasury to Make Open Market MBS Purchases

September 9, 2008

WASHINGTON, DC-While market participants work to digest the details of the government’s takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Globest.com is reporting that one of the more intriguing aspects is a new program in which Treasury will purchase agency mortgage backed securities on the open market, in addition to the direct portfolio acquisitions that the [...]

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Fannie & Freddie Can’t Sell Their Debt

August 23, 2008

A few days ago, I was talking with a friend who until very recently had been in charge of capital markets at a privately-held “hard money” lender. Hard money is a rough and tumble world of last resort, where borrowers who are out of both time and luck go for quick cash, priced at [...]

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Poof! The Two Decades That Didn’t Happen

July 31, 2008

The collapse of the housing bubble is likely to eliminate most, if not all, of the gains that families had made in accumulating wealth over the last two decades, according to a new study from the Center for Economic Policy & Research in Washington, DC. In the report, entitled The Impact of the [...]

More on this topic (What's this?)
CHART OF THE DAY: ARE HOME PRICES FALLING AGAIN? (THE PRAGMATIC CAPITALIST, 2/24/10)
Even the Dead Cats Aren't Bouncing (Financial Armageddon, 3/2/10)
CHRISTOPHER THORNBERG: DOUBLE DIP IS COMING IN 2011 (THE PRAGMATIC CAPITALIST, 3/11/10)
Read more on U.S. Housing Market at Wikinvest
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Fed Extends Emergency Measures

July 30, 2008

Gonna be alright…
Everything is under control The WSJ
Remember FDR’s alphabet soup? It consisted of a series of government programs intended to end the Great Depression. It gave birth to the WPA (the Works Progress Administration), the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corp), and household names such as the TVA, the FDIC and the SSA – the spenders [...]

More on this topic (What's this?)
Guest Post: 7 Questions About Public Banking (naked capitalism, 3/14/10)
Auerback: Bernanke Fesses Up: America Has No ‘Insolvency’ Issue (naked capitalism, 2/26/10)
The Problem That Hasn't Gone Away (Financial Armageddon, 3/6/10)
Read more on Banking, Federal Reserve at Wikinvest
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Gonna Be Alright

July 29, 2008

No, but it’s different this time, really. And by finger printing (see below) those crooked mortgage brokers, we’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again!
With the Fed’s bailout of Bear Stearns, the Treasury’s blank check rescue of Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac, Merrill Lynch having just sold its “super senior” ABS CDO assets at only .22 [...]

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NAR Optimists Drubbed By Their Own Dismal Data

March 30, 2008

In the hierarchy of half-truths, hoodwinks and practical jokes, there are lies, damn lies and then there are statistics. Somewhere within this hierarchy must also be NAR press releases.
According to the NAR, which just released its new home sales statistics for February, the supply of homes in the U.S. dropped 3 percent at the end [...]

More on this topic (What's this?)
CHART OF THE DAY: ARE HOME PRICES FALLING AGAIN? (THE PRAGMATIC CAPITALIST, 2/24/10)
Even the Dead Cats Aren't Bouncing (Financial Armageddon, 3/2/10)
CHRISTOPHER THORNBERG: DOUBLE DIP IS COMING IN 2011 (THE PRAGMATIC CAPITALIST, 3/11/10)
Read more on U.S. Housing Market, New Home Sales at Wikinvest
Read the full article →