The Wall Street crowd that packed into the ballroom of the fancy Times Square hotel didn't know what was about to hit it. As the bankers and analysts sliced into their grilled beef tenderloin and chicken, Sheila Bair stepped up to the microphone and told them off. Too many people couldn't make their mortgage payments, she said. The mortgage industry was sitting on a ticking time bomb and just didn't get it. Pick up the phone, she said, and talk to borrowers. "The sense of hostility from that audience was overwhelming," said Howard Glaser, a Washington-based mortgage industry consultant who...