When does Captain Obvious swoop down and dope slap these idiots?

That's a wee bit of a problem in our quest for the "home ownership of fools" society.

Overall 17.71% of FHA insured loans are delinquent, and 8.52% seriously delinquent.

---Taxpayer, pull down your shorts and grab your ankles.
You might feel a little pinch.

Maybe congress could throw more money at the problem

Hopefully that was included in the memo entitled "Stuff That's Obvious to Practically Everyone Other Than FHA."

I'm starting to feel like an idiot for continuing to pay my mortgage every month! Really, I could not pay for maybe a year or two, then live in my house by paying rent to the gubment every month......or not. I want my too!!!!

NOTaREALmerican wrote:

I'm predicting a BIG Republicrat victory in the next election. I'm guessing in the 98% range.

Since we're in predictive mode, I'm predicting some jackass will start his own party, siphoning a good 15-20% of votes from the republicans, which will give Obama another sweeping victory.

This is what you get for making homeownership qualifications the same as that of parenthood.

It will be interesting to see how the current batch of FHA loans season.

Since I am expecting unemployment to keep rising well into next year, and since the new buyers appear to be marginal, things do not look good.

Of course, the positive argument is that recent buyers know that housing prices very well might keep falling, so they are putting the minimum possible cash into the deals to avoid becoming bigger bagholders. Either way, if a roaring recovery doesn't show up, this is not going to end well.

I'll say it before someone else does....there is no way that is a complete and accurate representation of delinquencies. Look where it came from. So we are to believe that we are at (roughly) the same % of serious and a little worse on the >90 day side now then in 2004?

*ucking A bubba..... That is some serious data manipulation.

Ciao
MS

I would have to agree with your posters...If the majority of homeowners not equipped for homeownership then why are you relaxing your requirements so?

This is government madness.

tncubsfan wrote:

I'm starting to feel like an idiot for continuing to pay my mortgage every month!

The real question is tho: Do you have what it takes to be an amoral scumbag. THAT is the question. THAT is was separates the successful from THE LOSERS!!!!

"homeowners not equipped for the financial responsibilities of home ownership".

What say you, Barney Frank?

Do you still think making bad loans good policy?

Bruce in Tennessee wrote:

This is government madness.

Well, the government doesn't care about home ownership. It cares about support the assets of the nobility.

Wow, it's like I'm listening to myself.
[noob slowly raises hand to see if he's looking into a mirror]
Weird.

[slowly raises opposite hand due to utter incapacity for spatial reasoning]

I didn't think you guys had the Urban Blight Force Formerly Known as FHA in Canada. When I lived in Winterpeg, it was too damn cold for blight to form. Beggars can't survive on permafrost along, yanno.

Captain Obvious grew a pair of concrete shoes and went on vacation with Jimmy Hoffa.

ndk wrote:

I didn't think you guys had the Urban Blight Force Formerly Known as FHA in Canada. When I lived in Winterpeg, it was too damn cold for blight to form. Beggars can't survive on permafrost along, yanno.

You're right, I'm just a sucker for a good rant.

CR - 'However many of these recent homebuyers probably aren't ready to be homeowners.'

Most of the REALTORS may not know this or believe it anyway...

Overall 17.71% of FHA insured loans are delinquent, and 8.52% seriously delinquent.
---Taxpayer, pull down your shorts and grab your ankles.
You might feel a little pinch.

It's very strange. They're making preposterously lax loans to people with no hope of paying with deliberately severely overpriced assets as collateral.

HOOCOODANODE?

CDC: Swine flu has sickened 22 million in 6 months - Yahoo! News

HUcoodanode!

ndk -- short or long-term Treasuries?
When the first question a member of a culture asks is "how can I take advantage of this" I don't think that culture is too long for the world.

Long-term Treasuries. I'm a closet Puritan and I like feeling righteous when I do stupid things, like lend money to our Federal Government. It really makes me feel good. It's like giving to charity, or tithing, except they're heartless bastards bent on bombing civilizations into dust and seducing large segments of the peonage into serfdom in exchange for their votes.

ALL these programs are aimed at recapitalizing banks. All of them. You can swish the money around a bit before you give it to them, but make no mistake about where it's going.

With RE appraisers having to take some responsibility for their appraisals now...I would think apprisers will tend to shoot low in an appraisal in a still sliding 'valuation' bubble market...

"When the first question a member of a culture asks is "how can I take advantage of this" I don't think that culture is too long for the world."

Yes, of course.

noob goldberg wrote:

No, it just feels like it. I'm affected by CMHC.

I should clarify that--like FHA--CMHC in Canada has also been approving higher and higher-risk mortgages to prop up the housing market. And in 2007-2008, they had approved 35 and 40 year amortizations at the behest of the Conservative government in power now.

It appears that no politician, with access to mortgage insurance agency, will ever willingly let housing prices correct whilst they're in power, no matter which nation they happen to be leading.

"Nothing else counts except maximizing your own situation."

Not very prudent if you live in a highly interdependent society. However, the Tragedy of the Commons often trumps adaptive good sense.

The crazy thing is it was the IRS who killed these things, not the FHA.

ResistanceIsFeudal wrote:

When the first question a member of a culture asks is "how can I take advantage of this" I don't think that culture is too long for the world.

I think asking the question is human. The important thing is how many ask. Nobility has always been allowed to ask. The peasants are NOT supposed to ask. That's why so many REAL Merican peasants (the morally pure peasants) hate unions. The purpose of the union is to screw the nobility. The peasants can't accept this.

If you get a zero interest 'loan' from the Casino and hit a jackpot...is that 'earnings'?

Bruce in Tennessee wrote:

This is government madness.

This is government SPARTA!!!

Nanoo-Nanoo wrote:

This is what will stimulate the economy, hasn't anyone learned anything yet?? snark/

Not a snark really. The system now exist purely to gamble. It's forcing the peasants to make decisions exactly as you describe. The Democrats are pushing the peasants into the capitalist casino to be feasted on by the smart amoral scumbags. It could have been different.

Just thinking out loud here.

Lots of homemoaners are just stretched and hving trouble just catching up. What if we had a one month FedGov paid mortgage holiday? Nobody pays in December. Cost would be ~10% of TARP and the nature of the break, while not fair, would be disproportionately targeted at those most at risk of default. Better would be to make it an income tax credit (110%) against your tax return. Then the payments are stretched out over 4 months and tax compliance would likely pay a portion of the costs. Win-win-win.

SomeArmchairEconomist wrote:

This is government SPARTA!!!

The peasants who are about to die, salute the nobility and THE SQUID. Survival of the fittest, just like we always wanted.

Rob Dawg wrote:

Win-win-win.

Unless you're in IT. Ugh. That would require allot of programming problem.

I have two years' worth of income saved in Treasuries right now with a credit rating around 800 and no other debt -- at the age of 27

ndk,

Your killing it, ndk. Another few years and you won't even need a mortgage!

The conversation will go something like this: "So, you're willing to give me a mortgage (death pledge) for 2-1/2 times my income? Huh? I've got that right here and more. F.U. and your interest payments."

MS,
the Federal Reserve basically made the move to ban rape, but permit shotgun weddings

Kitco - Commentaries - Brent Cook via Interesting Alphaville article

El Lurko wrote:

ALL these programs are aimed at recapitalizing banks. All of them. You can swish the money around a bit before you give it to them, but make no mistake about where it's going.

yep

"not equipped for the financial responsibilities of home ownership."

That's a lot of fancy words for "lied about their income."

pavel.chichikov wrote:

That's just normal. Insanity is when you don't apply an ineffective remedy because you don't think that anything requires a solution.

Where I come from that's normal. Doing nothing is just another choice of action.

"You can opt in, or cancel your account"

---Don't worry.
It's coming.

ndk wrote:

I hate my fucking Puritan morals, but I can't get rid of them. They are me.

A-hah! Then you deserve to be punished! It's fortunate that you enjoy it

This was a snark that referenced Chris Mathew's remark that when he heard BHO give some speech, it gave him a tingle down his leg. I have no doubt that you views are correct concerning Dion (any relation to Celine?), but I totally unfamiliar with her (or is it a him?).

I did get the reference. The Dion jokes are mostly for our Canuck buddies. We have enough laughs at their expense that we can at least laugh at a subset of Canadians -- also at their expense -- in recompense.

Then they mention something about CAD/USD and Detroit and tell me to settle down.

What is this country coming to when you can't even make fun of Canada? Come on Mark Carney, we're counting on you!!

Unless Treasuries blow up or the value of the dollar collapses..

ndk,

That seems remote imo. Rome wasn't built in a day and it didn't collapse in a day either. Besides, if you're worried about the dollar and inflation move some of your stash to TIPS.

ndk wrote:

What is this country coming to when you can't even make fun of Canada? Come on Mark Carney, we're counting on you!

Yes, we have our own little squidling in charge of the Bank of Canada. It's been wonderful watching him turn into a grown-up amoral scumbag.

That seems remote imo. Rome wasn't built in a day and it didn't collapse in a day either. Besides, if your worried about the dollar and inflation move some of your stash to TIPS.

I'm not worried about the dollar or inflation, though everyone tells me I ought to be. I'm actually bullish on the dollar and nominal Treasuries as I think real yields will rise and deflation will worsen.

I believe that those conclusions come from my conscious rational reasoning, but it might be that damn Puritan inside me working to destroy me from within.

Maybe I can ceremonially eat my inner Pilgrim for Thanksgiving.

I'm waiting for the IRS/Government to initiate a "one time" tax or assessment on outstanding 401k / IRA balances. Government is going to have a hard time resisiting the trillions of dollars "sitting around" in these accounts. Maybe??

nar
no

Either that or they just seize them outright.

Hosers? That term goes back to the pre-Zamboni days when the losing hockey team had to stay late and hose down the ice:

YouTube - Clark, the Canadian Hockey Goalie

HomeGnome wrote:

Either that or they just seize them [401k] outright.

No, they will be integrated into your uniform federal retirement and health care account. Of course any balance on death won't be inherited by your survivors.

IMHO the decisions of TPTB will be made accordingly. A lot of very wealthy people don't WANT to expatriate or change their lives any more than you do.

And probably much less than I do, RIF. I rent my little floor of an apartmentalized old Victorian house, but they've got the Malibu beach house they own. The top 1% has generally done best for themselves during bull markets, and were really wounded by the inflation of the 1970's.

This, of course, puts me in the paradoxical position of hoping that those smart amoral bastards retain their death grip on power. But I'm a Puritan. I'll internalize it. 'sall good.

What's that about perfect vaginas?
George W. Bush: I Kept my Values - Political Hotsheet - CBS News

ndk wrote:

And probably much less than I do, RIF. I rent my little floor of an apartmentalized old Victorian house, but they've got the Malibu beach house they own.

But if they sell it to some sucker, they can buy a whole beach in Costa Rica.

Just say no? Nah, stand in-line with everyone else for the day after pill.

You're right, Nanoo-Nanoo, and I appreciate all the kind words. I just really don't want to wait so long to begin a life. One of my closest held dreams is to plant a tree, spruce, oak, something, when I first buy my first home. Then I can watch it grow over the years alongside me and my family, or at least return to it someday to say I've missed it when I've long since moved on. There are a few of those little intangibles I'm missing out on.

But the best thing I can do for my future is to wait until all this passes. And it will pass, and new dreams can grow and join the silly ones I've got.

The sheer lack of sense in the entire situation is just maddening, though. For all of us. The sooner this bullshit ends, the better.

black dog wrote:

Hot off the press. St Louis fed just updated the M1 multiplier.

They need to include a factor to account for moving money from under one mattress to another.

m1 multiplier down to .831? This means that freshly printed money isn't making in to the economy? Sitting in bank vaults? Is that right? What does this mean for the economy? I'm not well versed on this data......

HomeGnome wrote:

perfect vaginas.
George W. Bush: I Kept my Values - Political Hotsheet - CBS News

It appears the top 1%'s still have lots of loot to throw around.

Art Eclectic (profile) wrote on Thu, 11/12/2009 - 1:40 pm "not equipped for the financial responsibilities of home ownership."

That's a lot of fancy words for "lied about their income."

...Art, that is right. The question then becomes,"Did the government check those incomes before granting the FHA loan."

Er, I seem to remember ghost income being part of the problem at the start of this mess...you don't mean the government might not have learned the lesson the first time?

..and don't get me started about how much the FHA wanted down...that requires that I go walk around awhile to prevent damage to my keyboard...

black dog
what does that mean? it scares me and i dont even know what it means.

debt-deflation

You aren't missing out ndk. You are young and obviously have a great head on your shoulders.

Dang I feel so bloody old these days. Unless a parent gave you a home, most of my peers didn't have enough funds to put a downpayment a home until they were in their 30s, usually. Twenty percent down was the minimum. I didn't expect to buy a home as a single working nobody, let alone a few years out of college. Of course those were different times, before credit ratings replaced due diligence in lending standards, people weren't moving every 3-5 years and that stuff.

You'll get there, it will be all the sweeter when you do too. One more piece of free advice while I'm handing it out. Make sure you have 6mos to 1 year of savings of living expenses around as soon as you can do it. It saved our azzes more times than I care to count because the unexpected happens in life, bad and good. Don't be fooled into you can liquidate something quickly, when its bad stuff that happens, sometimes you don't have the time, energy, opportunity.

What other corporation has their christmas party plans reported on Reuters?
THE ROT is deep.

Yes, it's weird. It basically represents a complete breakdown of the banking system and its ability to support the real economy through lending.

I happen to believe the fundamental problems are actually in the real economy -- too much capacity, mostly overseas, and not enough demand because nobody's getting paid enough to buy anything -- rather than the financial system, but that's more of a religious debate than anything else until we get more time and more data.

The takeaway is that fractional reserve banking as we once understood it is hiccuping, and it's the last leg that's broken: the fractional lending by the banks to end businesses and consumers. That lending might catch up to this huge increase in reserves eventually, but even if it did, the Fed could just raise the interest rates it pays on those reserves to brake inflation. Oh, and feed more money to the banking system in the bargain.

The reason we have banker bonus bashing is because eveyone now understands that bankers didn't earn the money. The bonuses are the result of an epic asset re-flation by central banks and governments the world over .

LLoyd Blankfein is dope. If he had any common sense he wouldn't be going around claiming Goldman earned their money or that Goldman was doing "Gods" work. Blankfein isn't even smart enough to keep his mouth shut.

Gold man got $11 billion fom the AIG bailout, $10 billion from TARP, Buffet only invested after the Gov't committed to not letting any more big banks fail, Goldman raised $28 due to FDIC guarantees on their bonds, they were allowed to CONvert to a BHC under emergency CONditions, Goldman also got access to the Fed via the alphabet soup window. Plus Goldman benefitted from the "no shorting rules".

Even with all that, Goldman's fate was still in doubt until the Fed started handing out $1.5 trillion for junk mortgages and CONgress leaned on FASB and made them allow mark to myth accounting.

Claiming that Goldman "earned" the bonuses is an outright lie.

le H2 relèvement échouent, tout comme l'MHP aies dit qu'il ce passerait. Pauvre Benny-boy, il est si bête qu'il est honteux

Everyone knows that GAWD don't like poor people.
If HE did; he'd let them have some money.

Thanks, Nanoo-Nanoo. The perspective is invaluable -- which is my polite way of saying, dang, you sound so bloody old these days. But seriously, the wisdom means a lot to me. All I ever saw was the generation before me and mine, and they're the ones who have credit binged as you describe. It's so good to know there was a time in America when it really was different, where them Puritan ethics that were once the core of the nation served them well. A boon, not a hinderance, to the national character and the individuals and their quirky selves who compose it.

but the fed doesn't have a direct link between the printing press and the end consumer, helicopters notwithstanding.

And even with helicopters, the Fed has to buy something to get the currency into the system, or it will have absolutely nothing to show on the asset side of its balance sheet. I remember when we used to think that would be an issue, even if you treat the central bank's balance sheet as consolidated with that of the Treasury.

My daughter-in-law called today. We are sending her to nursing school. We can afford it, she can't. She and my wife talked, and they have 3 children 6,5, and 2.

DIL said they just finished dissecting a sheep's brain. Told my wife have exciting it was and it was her first experience and she is soaking this stuff up like a sponge. She went home and told the three kids all about the sheep's brain and the oldest boy, age 6, started crying. "You didn't have to kill it did you?" he asked her. Thinking rapidly, she replied,"No, it died of old age and donated its body." Which pacified him...but a few minutes later the 5 year old girl came in crying, and my DIL thinking it was another question about whether she'd killed the sheep asked her,"You aren't afraid Mommy killed the sheep are you?"

To which my granddaughter replied." No, I just want to go look at the sheep's brain with you."

...Women......

To

ndk wrote:

where them Puritan ethics that were once the core of the nation served them well. A boon, not a hinderance, to the national character and the individuals and their quirky selves who compose it.

Hmm, let's not get all carried away here. The past might look pure, but only if you were weren't one of unworthy. The mythology of US greatness was largely a result of the country being empty (of white people) and was the last easily exploitable place on the planet.

FHA just continues to stun me. We shifted the housing bubble to the fed govt./taxpayers. And we just now realize low down-payment is a problem? And 25% of 2008 loans are already delinquent?

The new subprime bagholder: You! (Hu?)

TJ and The Bear wrote:

A dollar collapse isn't just plausible, it's in the cards.

Dow 36k?

ndk - Having just rolled over the odometer on decade three I can relate, though you're romanticizing a golden age to some degree. We traded a lot of good qualities in for the stupidity and ease of a technology-saturated postindustrial economy and a largely pecuniary view of the world now held by a majority, but we always had the scumbags.

Oh - you can get to recent links from Toys->Recent Links in the new theme, and it's on the left sidebar in Legacy and Mobile.

NOTaREALmerican wrote:

Damn secessionists.

They're going to suffer from passing the point where added debt slows GDP growth just like the rest of us...

though you're romanticizing a golden age to some degree.

I know, as is my wont. We've had serious problems since time immemorial, and always will. I just think I would've fit better in that time than I do in this one, and that's what gives me the rose coloring in my goggles. That's all. For other people, I'm sure it's the inverse.

kcoop wrote:

All, I've added a new feature. You can see a list of recently contributed links

Great Idea. Thanks!

ndk - I'd fit in well in Renaissance times, of course I would probably have died of childhood asthma so it would have been a short life, but at least one more compatible with my value system.

Tylenol causes asthma, and there wasn't the same pollution back then. Most likely you would not have noticed any asthma

nope, hosers are the losers who have the hose the ice down for the next game
think of 'losers walk' football

lawyerliz wrote:

Client was joined in a foreclosure suit, 'cause her ex forged her name on a mortgage (not the note), a month before the divorce was final.

No notary required?!

ndk...you'll find I'm hardly a PURITAN....HA! I'm old but not THAT old but I do resemble the wicked witch. That good old economics 101 is a horrific taskmaster, it requires prudence, diligence, patience, unemotional detachment from THINGS vs needs and ones security going forward; and its not easy. Us peasantry, as you will learn, are slaves not only to K-street, Wall Street and the US GUBBMIT, but also to Economics 101. There really was no new economy, just the same one except with a bunch of crooks telling us all they are the best bookies in town to do business with. Its not just the USA, peasantry world wide must pay attention to economics 101 or starve. Everyone thought they could be Wall Street gurus, rich and famous, live the lives of rock stars without actually working for it.

Right now I've got an DEAL for you though, I'm thinking of opening up a franchise of opium dens for people to deal with the reality they aren't rock stars and can't really beat the at their own game. All I require is 50% investment up front and I'll pay you 75% on that investment over 25 years guaranteed (unless I consume the profits of course).

noob goldberg
that's when you whip out the joual and round it off with a big laugh before staring them down

'The Suffolk Bank And the Panic of 1837'
-Before FDIC, there were periodic banking panics.
-In such panics, banks suspended payments...they refused to pay species (gold or silver) at par for their outstanding notes or deposits.
-At the time, banks wer often forced to reduce lending, and a slowdown in economic activity usually followed.
http://www.minneapolisfed.org/research/QR/QR2421.pdf
Thank goodness things are different now with having FDIC...

Right now I've got an DEAL for you though, I'm thinking of opening up a franchise of opium dens for people to deal with the reality they aren't rock stars and can't really beat the squid at their own game. All I require is 50% investment up front and I'll pay you 75% on that investment over 25 years guaranteed (unless I consume the profits of course).

I'm a little unsure how this gets us free of the clutches, Nanoo-Nanoo. Wouldn't you have to source it from our puppet government in Afghanistan and their Karzai puppets?

Other than that, though, it sounds on the level.

The money is dead electrons, no longer spinning around, except perhaps
to inflate the stock market.

ndk wrote:

Wouldn't you have to source it from our puppet government in Afghanistan and their Karzai puppets?

I'm starting a botanical group of nice old boomer ladies to grow some pretty flowers in their gardens and encouraging them to grow native weed species.

noob goldberg, ah you saw through the language barrier to see how conceited I am
I don't know why the FedGov doesn't have some kind of no-barrier language lessons. We have all kinds of people that want those services (young/old, immigrants/federal government employees), it is the FedGov's intent to encourage the bilingualism, it is the FedGov with the immigration oversight. The internet is how old now?

CR,
If you talk to the K-man anytime soon, please pass word on to him that he should go back to his roots and update his work on trade. Go back and look at how much of the benefits of trade internal to a company were because of tax advantages, larger size correlating to more leverage, as in selection biases

Barofsky said his office is set to release an audit next week that looks at whether AIG paid more than necessary to banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. after the insurer’s bailout.

AIG Bailout

Lawmakers, frustrated with the cost of an AIG bailout that has expanded three times, have asked why about $50 billion was paid after the initial September rescue to banks that bought credit-default swaps from the firm.

Barofsky Says TARP ‘Almost Certainly’ Will Bring Loss to U.S. - Bloomberg.com

An audit? Of ? Next week? No way.

I'm starting a botanical group of nice old boomer ladies to grow some pretty flowers in their gardens and encouraging them to grow native weed species.

Excellent.

WRT Blankfein and the others claiming divine purpose, they're not so stupid to A) believe they're really doing God's work or B) think that they can say that in public even if they believe it to be true.

The only motivation I can think of is that they're punking us. A big belly laugh at the expense of the commoner believers. Don't give them the satisfaction.

Maybe Blankfein just thought it was funny, and he's secretly related
to Joe Biden.

ndk wrote:

All I ever saw was the generation before me and mine, and they're the ones who have credit binged as you describe.

I'll second Nanoo-Nanoo's advice, but with a twist. Don't spend time fretting about timing the market, instead work backwards. If you want to buy a house, you want to have it paid off by the time you are 55, a little earlier if you can. So save up until you think you can qualify for a loan at a term length that will expire at your target age (55 or so). Saves a lot of aggravation in thinking "Is now the right time to buy?" The right time to strike is when you are positioned to meet your goals.

Yogi,
If Barofsky keeps it up he may have to be 'laid off' and replaced...

If Barofsky keeps it up he may have to be 'laid off' and replaced...

They already took down Lewis for leaking. I have to suppress my cynicism in thinking they're just a more effective smokescreen. I do have a lot of faith in Warren. We'll see if anything meaningful comes from their actions, though. I judge by results, not intentions.

New appraisal 'rules' make RE appraisers liable for 'mistakes' I think...

EvilHenryPaulson wrote:

written French with its acronyms and homonym conjugations throws me off

Spoken French with its metaphors will drive me to insanity. However, it has forced me to restrict my use of metaphors when speaking to ESL folks, as I now know how frustrating it is when someone says 'a hot knife through butter' when all they really meant was 'quickly and easily'.

I don't like blaming the appraisers, they just offer opinions
If their opinion is used to set the price high, don't pay it and if it is used to set the price too low then don't sell it
it's the problem of anyone hiring someone they don't trust, but most 'problems' were actually appraisers telling their clients what they wanted to hear

homeGnome
it isnt god that dont like poor people,its the churchs because they dont give enough

opium poppy grows very well here in the states legal unless you milk it, or whatever you do. pretty flower wonder if it will grow in pots

EvilHenryPaulson wrote:

0.831

Sacré Bleu!

Scary when it's less than unity, eh?

gabyjan wrote:

someone please give me a ballpark figure of how many layed-off investment bank workers there are since say bear sterns.

You're really not going to like this. Speaking as one of those laid off investment bankers, and knowing a lot of them, every single one of us has jobs again now. Probably a lot of pay cuts, but I don't know anybody in the industry still unemployed after a year and a half of looking.

Now, over on the mortgage side, that's way different.