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Mortgage fraud was rampant during the housing boom. Regulators were asleep at the wheel during all of this. But now we are getting some indictments as WFAA News 8 in Dallas reports (hat tip Housing Wire). This television station did the dirty work for regulators and uncovered massive amounts of mortgage fraud.
Byron Harris reports:
News 8 [...]

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I see Diana Olick’s recent comments about government mortgage modification programs as proof that these props will not work.
She says:
Despite extraordinary loss mitigation efforts that have resulted in the execution of approximately two million loan modifications – including the federal government’s Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) trial periods – the number of new delinquencies since [...]

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Michael Lewis is out with a new book “The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine” which discusses how the big hitters on Wall Street destroyed $1.75 trillion of capital. His phrase ‘Doomsday Machine’ is reminiscent of former IMF chief economist Simon Johnson’s ‘Doom Loop’ phraseology which I reviewed two weeks ago.
Below, Lewis discusses his take [...]

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The video below from the Wall Street Journal gets at the heart of why the bailouts have been so toxic for the economy. Banks, still laden with existing bad loans to small businesses, are unwilling to make new ones. Businesses, unable to receive credit, cannot expand or must downsize. This in turn puts a squeeze [...]

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The Bloomberg video is a bit sensationalist in my opinion. But it gets to the heart of the problem in Europe, namely Spain. Spain has an economy and debt which is an order of magnitude larger than Greece. That means that problems in Spain are more critical than in Greece. But it also means that [...]

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Ann Lee and Dan Alpert joined Bloomberg’s Pimm Fox today to talk about the housing market recovery. Lee, a professor of finance at New York University, was sceptical that population growth predicts any substantial increase in housing transactions and prices simply due to the continued pressure on wages and disposable income. and Dan Alpert, managing [...]

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This 30 Rock parody almost has it down.

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If you’re wondering where these ridiculous, hare-brained comments are coming from, then watch this video and listen to Rick Santelli speak about predatory lending. The only one who acquits herself in this segment is Janet Tavakoli.  Bill Isaac, a former FDIC head – the guy talking about regulation as if commercial banks are already subject [...]

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The following is a Wall Street Journal video on the sovereign debt crisis in Greece.

Also see the associated article in the Wall Street Journal: Greece Set to Outline New Austerity Measures Wednesday.

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Marc Faber talks with Bloomberg about the outlook for US shares, saying he believes the market could correct 20% if the S&P reaches a new high (above 1150). That’s the definition of a cyclical bear market, by the way.
Faber also discusses the outlook for the euro and the dollar. The video runs just under five [...]