The Trillion-Dollar Mortgage Time Bomb

CNN. Money.com ^ | April 21, 2008 | Chris Isadore

[OeOeO]

They all worked for Churn, Clip and Hedge Stockbrokers - Investment Bankers

Get ready for Dewey,Cheatum and Howe, industrial strength lobbyists, appearing soon at a congressman near you.

[Vaduz]

One of the problems of over building.

[HamiltonJay]

This whole housing mess is going to be well over 1 Trillion when all is said and done... I would not be suprised if it hit 2.5+ by the time its all over.

[ex-Texan]

This report hardly scratches the surface. Like most CNN reports they vomit out quotes spoon fed to them by bankers. Total mortgage losses are far higher. Some examples:

Bank of America Net Income Falls 77% on $ 6 + Billion in Writedowns Admitted Thus Far

B of A is burnt toast. These idiots bought out Countrywide along with its toxic mortgage paper. Mozillo ought to spend his vacation time in an orange jump suit.

Bad Real Estate Loans Stack up for Smaller Local Banks

It is so bad out there that many local banks are BK. The stock holders have not been informed yet. Management teams are ducking telephone calls. A bunch of ostriches and monkeys are running the show.

UK Bank Bailout Losses Could Easily Top £ 50 Billion

That is what the Government admits today. Next year the total will be adjusted upwards.

This slow motion train wreck is becoming very, very fugly. It will get even uglier when China refuses to accept USD. OPEC may start demanding oil payments in Euros soon.

Then you will all see where the rubber meets the road. The US is about $ 53 trillion in debt (off the books) for entitlement programs. But nobody want to talk about real issues. Our politicos are all BS artists, monkeys and ostriches. The Amero is coming and the public cannot do anything about it. Why?

Because the policy is being run silently. Off the books and out of sight. The Wally World business model almost works for government, too. Ship all real work overseas and just feed the monkeys stateside.

Do you people want to learn something? Really, really, really? Most people just want to go to work and hide under a pile of paper and busy work like everybody else.

[xtinct]

Taxes = hack pensions

Hacks = ALL elected officials, firefighters, police, state, city, and town workers. This includes ALL administrators, professors, teachers, etc.

You see regarding the upper echelon state employees... when they retire... anytime after 4 or 5 years... they get their salaries for life.

Firefighters - 172 of them are now being investigated by the FBI... why? Scam: Either got hurt on/off the job while they were substituting for their supervisors... SO ...they get the disability benefits of the supervisor....

MA is a cesspool of these kinds of scams...

Last week... elected hack went to Nantucket for vacation... However, he is a miracle worker in that he voted 8 times while in Boston and Nantucket at the SAME time. Salary is somehow tied to this behavior... shrug!!

Can't wait to leave MA... which will be soon :o)

[olrtex]

Sorry, Charlie. This ain’t much of a problem at all. A bunch of folks borrowed more than the could repay (they should have to suck it up and suffer the consequences, but sugar daddy Uncle Sam seems determined to reward their stupidity), and some investors bought mortgages when they should have known better (the loans were made by outfits that knew they were going to sell the loans without warranties and would not bear the losses if losses occurred). Yes, the idea of Uncle Sam as the perpetual sugar daddy is a problem, but no worse here than with the Katrina mess, subsidies for ethanol, and all kinds of other absurd spending.

[doug from upland]

1. I’m not Charlie.

2. This ain’t much of a problem? The economic ramifications of this mess is enormous. I’m not defending what stupid people did and not saying they should be bailed out. What I am concerned about is a mortgage/credit/banking collapse and potentially millions of jobs.

[Forgiven_Sinner]

“Arguing against this is that FDR used a similar opportunity to drive the country far to the left, a position from which we have never retreated

But the super cynic says: fine. Let's have Obama and the crisis, and lets have one more giant dose of Leftism as the cure to the Leftist disease. The resulting disagreement may finally bring us the purge we need. “

You're thinking too much. Ask “Who will do the most damage in the next four years?” Don't think of the next election—it's too unpredictable. We can't could on the Democrats losing if they're in office, nor the Republicans being hurt if they are in office.

[hinckley buzzard]

No group of people on the planet can lose money faster and for a greater amount than these wunderkind uber-genius Harvard-MBA-type bastards

You may be right. George Bush has a Harvard MBA doesn't he. And hasn't he done a fine job spending money he didn't have.

[Concentrate]

.

[AnimalLover]

bttt

[bmwcyle]

Fannie and Freddie, government imposed failure.

[dennisw]

You said it all

[ex-Texan]

Already, the Brits have screwed the pooch . . . The poor pooch is running for the hills.

The government is stating openly they 'misunderestimated' total bailout costs for the English taxpayer. It appears "nobody knows and nobody is saying" if in fact anybody knows what the total cost will be. Cost will easily exceed £ 100 Billion and maybe even go higher than £ 200 Billion. Or . . . Whatever . . . !

Why not just say straight out that this financial crisis is so HUGE it will virtually burden English taxpayers for the next 30 years ______________________?

£ 50 Billion Estimate Has Been Doubled to £ 100 Billion !

[Pardon my 'Bushism' -- LOL!].

[Travis McGee]

But there is a part of me that says the Dems MUST own the next recession. Things like Social Security and Medicare are Dem programs. They MUST fail duringa Dem administration so they "get the blame"

Often I feel the same way, but my fear is that their "solution" to a crash would be soviet-style brutal command economics.

And half of the country would go along with wage and price controls etc, even as they wait in lines for food and gas.

[olrtex]

Sorry, Charlie, only the best tuna gets to be Star Kist. The stock market seems to disagree with you, but who knows? Maybe lower house prices will bring the world to an end, but I doubt it.

[doug from upland]

I agree with many of your conclusions. Is there a reason, after I suggest that I am not Charlie, that you had to use that name again? Perhaps I read it wrong, but it seemed condescending.

I’m not for bailouts of stupid people, and we won’t collapse if housing prices make an adjustment. We do, however, need the free flow of credit, and it is being impacted significantly. People who buy the paper, the individuals who do that, are buying into large pools of mortgage backed securities. They dealt with professionals whom they have trusted with their stock and bond portfolios.

California is in deep economic trouble. The main reason is the out of control spending by the socialist/Dems who are determined to see that we support an invasion Mexico’s poor. Another problem is tax revenue from property taxes that will affect the state and local communities. I discussed this on KGO in San Francisco two years ago. A house that sold for %700,000 would have property taxes of about $8400 per year. When it takes a hit and is bought for $450,000 from the lender directly or in a short sale, the property taxes are about $5400. On a large scale, that is a significant drop in revenue to the California treasury. These fools spent money and made commitments as if the money would just keep flowing in with a continued feeding frenzy.