to infinity, and beyond!

Furst?

Delinquencies for Alt-A mortgages rated between 2005 and 2007 are climbing, with total delinquencies rising as high as 17 percent in some cases, more than 6 percentage points higher than previous estimates, the ratings agency said in a report.

This just makes it all the more imperative that we jump in to protect the people that made these bad loans.

Otherwise they might not be able to make any more.

Fed's Braunstein just on the tapes saying "housing is bad and it's getting worse"
Banker|Homepage|05.22.08-12:25 pm

He should have said this in 2003 when the entire middle class could only afford housing in large areas of the US with unworkable financing.
Housing is now getting better. The financial situation of puchasers from 2003-2007 was baked into the cake at that point, not now.
You are screwed when you jump out of a plane without a chute, not when you hit the ground.

Fed's Braunstein just on the tapes saying "housing is bad and it's getting worse"
Banker|Homepage|05.22.08-12:25 pm

I would say housing is getting better by the day. More and more people can afford it as the days go by. Also, it is getting better by the day for banks, insurers, builders, and realtors as things come back to more sustainable levels.

It is always good to get back to stable, sustainable states.

I don't think they're so much "bad" as weak. 2 weeks after one FOMC indicating they had no intention of cutting they cut 75 bps?? I do feel for Bernanke having to deal with Greenspan second guessing his every move, though. I think Bernanke would make a nice Dean of a business school.
I'll retract the comment about Braunstien and replace "he" with "she". 9/2006 was about 500 feet off the ground in my analogy.
Thanks for the details.

The Fed was a part of the problem, but it is pretty hard to argue that the Fed under Bernanke was a part of the problem. He continued hiking rates, which should reduce lending excesses, and banks under Fed supervision have reported tightening lending standards through much of his tenure as Fed chairman. Unless you want to argue that Bernanke and company should have stopped hiking earlier, it is hard to see that they are the bad guys in this little horse opera.

It seems to me that they were doing the right thing for a while and suddenly stopped. But perhaps due to political pressures or perhaps due to genuine fear of financial meltdown.

I defended him for a while and I don't think you can't blame the Bernanke Fed for any problems in housing, but looking at the situation a little bit more I have to conclude that like everyone else associated with the Fed, Bernanke deliberately misrepresents the benefits of certain actions for personal gain via the Fed.

There's ample historical evidence that negative real interest rates are financial and economic poison and yet here we are again with negative real interest rates and the the exact same symptoms of disease we seem to get in every case.

I believe that Bernanke's name, like Greenspan's, needs to be forever associated with any disasters that ensue as a result of more speculation and more inflation. If we don't get disasters, then hey maybe he's right and he didn't misrepresent the Federal Reserve's abilities.

Right now it isn't looking good though.

Didn't Paulson say everything was now honky dory?

REworld, where nothing can ever go wrong...wrong...wrong...wrong...

"We the market makers, banksters, and fraudsters acknowledge that while this data may be important, we are currently on vacation for the next 2-10 weeks swimming in our pools of money. We will be unable to accurately price this data in until after Labor Day.

Sincerely,
TPTB"

ac, hold on their partnur, three trillion yur sayin', hum..how about carbon based CDOs, CDSs, CBLOC. Yes sir, I do bee leave we have a way out of this here mess.

Wake me when Alt-A delinquencies hit 80% and subprimes hit 100%. Oh, and please let me know when you can buy (FRM + 20% down) the same house as cheaply as you can rent it in any major metro area along either coast.

Until then, I'm not catchin' any knives...

Anonymous writes:
Greenspan and Bernankie need to be hung with the same rope, preferably a very rough one.

On a pulley.

k harris, Wasn't Bernanke Greenspan's top deputy for years? He had the opportunity to learn from mistakes without taking the rap. Now he is making different mistakes.