It's wrong to say only banks were bailed out and the public was ignored. Here's how it all works.
TARP
ZeroHedge ran a post from OfTwoMinds today with eight steps to fix the economy. Among the recommendations are requiring all banks to mark MBS, real estate and all other assets to market daily/weekly and imposing massive fines for mark-to-market misrepresentations. Doing so would mean writing off at least $5.8 trillion of fantasy “value,” most of
I finally saw HBO’s Too Big To Fail, a movie based on Andrew Ross Sorkin’s book of the same name. It was about Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson’s enactment of TARP during the darkest days of the financial crisis, and begins with Treasury taking over Fannie and Freddie on Sunday, September 7, 2008. That day, my
Yesterday I summarized new Finreg rules requiring banks to retain at least 5% of loans they sell into secondary markets, and outlined which Qualified Residential Mortgage (QRM) loans will be exempt from this rule. The exemption debate rages, and here’s the Mortgage Bankers Association’s “profound concerns” on the matter. The QRM proposals are now open
Buying Cheaper Than Renting In 72% Of U.S. Cities Recently Trulia compared the median list price with the median rent on two-bedroom apartments, condominiums, townhouses, lofts and co-ops listed on its website, and compared that to ownership costs including mortgage payments, property taxes and insurance. It determined that buying is cheaper than renting in 72%
Economist vs. Market Participant Outlook Economists make their living off of forecasting the future or explaining why their earlier predictions were incorrect. But by then, many have forgotten the earlier prediction. Rarely do traders base decisions on what an economist will say but in the mortgage banking arena, predictions by the MBA, Freddie, and Fannie
TARP Update Below is a Treasury chart of TARP payoffs from their 3Q2010 TARP update. Also the FT reports that according to Treasury officials, 122 TARP recipients have now repaid all or a portion of their government aid. The FT story also said: “Bank of America has told US regulators that it has sold enough
What If All Mortgages Were 1% Lower? A Wall Street acquaintance of mine wrote to me about dropping trillions of dollars of mortgages by 1%. “I think that something like it may just happen. Many people I’ve talked to have said the same thing: ‘The money would go directly to the borrowers to help our
Rates Benefit on Stock Weakness The drop in the equity markets yesterday, and possibly again today, certainly helped the flow of funds into “safer” investments – such as Treasuries and MBS’s. But we also had some economic news of note, the first being Pending Home Sales. The index was up 5.3% in March, with sales
Rates dropped last Tuesday when S&P downgraded Greece and Portugal debt, which caused bond investors to reallocate to safer mortgage (and Treasury) bonds—when bond prices rise on buying, rates drop. This positive mortgage sentiment generally held throughout the week, and zero-point rates on loans up to $729k ended the week at record lows. GOOD JUMBO
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is testifying before congress this morning about the AIG bailout in Fall 2008. At issue is whether AIG counterparties should have been paid in full for AIG’s obligations to them using government aid. As the testimony points out, Treasury and the Fed were mostly concerned about broad economic meltdown and had
Warren Buffet Quote on Bank Tax In an interesting quote, Warren Buffett weighed in on the plan to tax banks. “I don’t understand plans for a bank tax – it just doesn’t make any sense to me that banks should be taxed to cover losses at other bailed-out companies, such as automakers, Fannie Mae, or
Yesterday President Obama proposed a 10-year fee on large financial services firms to make sure taxpayers are repaid for the TARP and other massive assistance the government provided to those firms during the heat of the credit crisis in 2008. The fee is intended to raise about $90b over the next 10 years, and according
The CEOs of Goldman, Bank Of America, JP Morgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley went before the Congressional Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission today to revisit what happened during the heat of the financial crisis in 2008. Yesterday the NYT published a good list of questions that should be asked. Some are populist propaganda, but many are
Denver Pot Club Fun Fact According to news sources in Denver, where the City Council voted to regulate medical marijuana dispensaries, more applications have been received for licenses for selling pot than there are Starbucks coffee shops in the entire state, 390 versus 208. Fun with numbers… Mortgage Volume Projections for 2010 There seems to
Treasury’s Unlimited Fannie/Freddie Backing, Buffett To Buy Mortgage Firm?, Light Economic Data Week
Treasury’s Unlimited Fannie/Freddie Backing Regardless of whether or not it is good or bad for our industry, or the debate about the timing of the announcement, on Christmas Eve the U.S. Treasury agreed to provide Fannie & Freddie unlimited capital as needed over the next three years. It is an effort to reassure the investors
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