mortgages

This morning I was reading Simon Johnson’s excellent post “President Obama’s Regulatory Reforms Announcement: A Viewer’s Guide” about what Barack Obama should say when he makes his regulatory reform pitch today at 12:30 PM.  I agree…

It’s about time.  The SEC has finally charged a high level executive in the banking industry in connection with activities that led to the largest bubble in U.S. history.  The accused, as expected, is Angelo Mozilo, otherwise known as “The…

Jim Cramer is not just calling a stock market bottom, but now he’s calling a housing bottom too.  In fact, he says go buy a house.  “Buy a house and buy Bank of America too?”  Cramer says: “This is patently obvious.” Take a…

Asset bubbles are strange animals. Ideally, you would like to punch the air out of them relatively early before they become a real danger but, in practice, it is not quite so simple. Ben Bernanke and Alan Greenspan have actually both argued…

Actually, I lied.  He really is not that bullish at all.  But he does sound relatively upbeat by comparison to 5 months ago. I have seen Whitney Tilson of T2 Partners a lot in the media of late.  The two most recent…

Earlier today I posted an article about how accounting was favourable to banks in that it could help them weather the storm and appear well-capitalized until a recovery is underway.  Afterwards, a buoyant economy would increase…

Back on the 16th, I posted a link to a Wall Street Journal article by James Hagerty which detailed how the Federal Home Loan Banks were able to prevent asset writedowns because of guideline changes to mark-to-market accounting.  I…

This is a video from Bloomberg Television yesterday. It underscores the fragility of this incipient recovery. You will notice that California is leading the way in terms of foreclosures, one reason the state will 00 bankrupt or be bailed…

This report comes via “The Center for Public Integrity”: The top subprime lenders whose loans are largely blamed for triggering the global economic meltdown were owned or bankrolled by banks now collecting billions of dollars in bailout…

If you read my recent post on How big banks earned so much money this quarter you would see that much of the income at Wells, JPMorgan, US Bank and others came from refinancing old mortgages. While this may be a boon to present income, it…