Even with the cheerleaders trying to put a sunny face on the credit crisis we’re still not out of the woods yet. We’ve had another bank failure and we’re still looking at billions in write downs. But feel free to sing “the sun will come out tomorrow” if it makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside. Some of the dour news of the day - just to make sure the message isn’t being lost on ...

The FDIC is reducing mortgage payments and interest rates for delinquent borrowers at the federally-controlled IndyMac Bank. FDIC spokesperson Shelia Bair said that the FDIC hopes to keep nearly 30,000 delinquent borrowers in their home with the changes. Must be nice though. If you’re in trouble with your mortgage I’m sure you’re rooting for an FDIC take-over. They seem to be far more willing to work with delinquent borrowers than traditional, private servicing companies. More ...

I’ve said numerous times that the main reason for bailing out the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was not for the US homeowner but for the Chinese who have bought a huge portion of our mortgage backed debt. By letting the GSEs go under the US government would have defaulted on a huge promise to its number one pimp partner who has helped fuel this massive expansion in credit and debt. Bloomberg now ...

Nouriel Roubini, former White House economic advisor and most recently foreseer of the housing and credit bust has a great article in Barron’s where they dig in to his all-to-prescient forecasts of the economy. Here is just a brief excerpt, but it’s more than worth the entire read. From Barron’s (via Roubini’s blog RGE Monitor): LIKE THE EXHORTATIONS OF JEREMIAH TO THE NATION OF Israel before the first temple’s destruction, the warnings of economist Nouriel ...

The Massachusetts Educational Financing Authority is unable to grant loans to college students this year as it is unable to secure financing due to the condition of the capital markets. More than 40,000 college students will be locked out of financing for their college education due to the beating taken on Wall Street. This is where it gets really unfortunate folks. Taxpayers bear the burden of a Fannie and Freddie bail out while the companies ...

I’m on the road training folks as part of my job, so unfortunately I wasn’t able to cover much of the news today - that primarily being Washington Mutual tanking and respected, former White House economist Nouriel Roubini estimating that it will take $1 trillion to get us out of the housing/mortgage mess. Here’s the links to the stuff I wish I could have written about had time permitted - maybe your schedule is currently ...

Citigroup chairman Win Bishcoff said that housing prices in the US and Britain could fall for another two years before leveling off. It sounds nice, but it’s wrong. House prices are going to continue falling for long than two years - especially in highly-speculative areas like California, Florida and Nevada. The reason? Option ARM and Alt-A loan resets that start to kick-in in earnest around 2010. See below graph. So while various pundits and “people ...

JP Morgan’s CEO Jamie Dimon said that prime mortgages are “terrible” during the company’s earnings report which saw the Wall Street bank beat earnings estimates. The rapidly rising prime mortgage delinquencies may signal the second wave of the credit crisis; and one that we’ve been pointing to for a long time now. In an article I wrote last year I said that “your FICO score can’t pay your mortgage” when times get tough, money gets ...

That’s according to Jim Rogers, George Soros’ former fund manager, when asked his thoughts on the Fannie/Freddie bail out. Simply put, Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke are bailing out their friends on Wall Street and passing the buck to 300 million American taxpayers. Personally I couldn’t agree more. I bought a house, maybe I made a mistake, but I certainly am not asking you dear reader to pick up the slack for my mistake, or ...