Doom recycles I’m blaming Crispy for this one.  Here’s an extract from his recent post "Stop paying your mortgage?"  Why should [anybody] pay their mortgage now? Why not just ask your lender for a reduction in the balance due or threaten them to walk away? What if ten million home-debtors did it, then what are they going to do? Why should only the most reckless financially among us get a bailout? … Leaving aside the possibility we’re all about to be sentenced to relearning "The Little Red Hen" and "The Ant and the Grasshopper," Here’s what one of Wall Street’s…
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"Our inaction did not hamper credit markets — it helped to destroy them." – Former FASB Board Member Last week the testimony by FHFA chief Jim Lockhart, and the immediate correction that went up on the regulator’s web site, did much to clarify the status of the government guarantee on Agency Debt (now officially "effective"). This week a Bloomberg story [1] gives us invaluable insight into how accounting rules contributed to the present disaster. Accounting rule SFAS 140 and the QSPE off-balance-sheet deals they govern are supposed to constitute a risk management package. For years I had suspected that there…
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It’s Friday, and I’ve been impressed with the novel approach to home loans expressed by former Treasury secretary, Paul O’Neil:  [Thanks L!]   WASHINGTON, D.C – Former treasury secretary, Paul O’Neill said that congress should scrap plans for a new economic stimulus package and instead simply require mortgage lenders to only make loans for people with a 20% or higher down payment. On Tuesday, O’Neill addressed reports and indicated that he was not surprised that neither presidential candidate supported his position. O[Neill had this to say about the $700 billion dollar bailout: