Flag Day at Igor’s Dungeon
on Nov 20, 2009 in AEI Subprime Seminars Doom Transcripts: Index & Guide Doom’s collection of transcripts of AEI seminars now features a date-order list of our transcripts and the same list in the context of close to a hundred further events that throw light on some aspect of the...

Op-Ed Friday: Fighting For The Right To Hang
on Nov 20, 2009 in Housing Bubble Market trends It’s Friday, and if you are part of our Doom’s typical demographic, likely as not you are an affluent white male- and this issue might not be near and dear to your heart.  For this mother of five though, I’m watching the battle...

Will Court Ruling Help Kill Commercial Real Estate Lending?
on Nov 20, 2009 in Commercial Real Estate Housing Bubble Market trends Mortgage Banking A recent court ruling forcing Citibank to continue funding a New York development might be a case where developers win a battle, but loose the war: A ruling that Citigroup Inc. must resume lending to a stalled Syracuse, N.Y., mall project could push...

Foreign Cenbank Holdings of US Obligations Weekly Update — to November 18, 2009
on Nov 20, 2009 in Charts and Graphs NY Fed H.4.1 Updates The Board’s H.4.1 statistical release, "Factors Affecting Reserve Balances of Depository Institutions and Condition Statement of Federal Reserve Banks," has been modified to include information related to TALF LLC, a limited liability c...

Toxic Loans Ruled Cause Of Death For Banks
on Nov 19, 2009 in Housing Bubble Market trends Mortgage Banking This had to be an easy call- no one suspected the Butler.  Toxic loans have been found to be the cause of death for many banks: [Hat tip Freedom's Phoenix!] The coroner’s report left no doubt as to the cause of death: toxic loans. That w...

Good News- Housing Starts Down
on Nov 18, 2009 in Builders Housing Bubble Market trends   Wall Street may not like it, but lower housing starts is good news for the housing market: Privately-owned housing starts in October were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 529,000. This is 10.6 percent (±8.7%) below the revised Sep...

There are none so blind to bubbles as those who will not see
on Nov 17, 2009 in Housing Bubble Politics   Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said it’s impossible to know that you are in a bubble when you are in one.  It isn’t impossible for most of us, but it sure seems to be tough for the Fed. Federal Reserve Vice Cha...

Morgage Delinquencies Are Up 58% From Last Year
on Nov 17, 2009 in Housing Bubble Market trends Mortgage Banking Unemployed people can’t pay their mortgages.  Unemployment is up, and so is mortgage delinquencies: The pace at which people fell behind on their mortgages slowed during the summer for the third consecutive quarter, but the overall deli...

More Can Still Go Wrong With Housing
on Nov 16, 2009 in Builders Housing Bubble Market trends   Chris Low, chief economist of FTN financial recently said: [A] stable housing market is essential to a stable banking system, and he believes “everything that can go wrong in the housing market already has.” I would disagree. On...

AEI Subprime VI: Complete Annotated Transcript
on Nov 16, 2009 in AEI Subprime Seminars As Canadian As Possible Bailouts Charts and Graphs Commercial Real Estate Credit Contraction Housing Bubble Mortgage Banking Politics Systemic Risk 1:36:34 … This crisis was caused by massive government subsidies to purchase homes by people who couldn’t really afford them. So what does Congress do? They pass an $8,000 tax credit for people who can’t really afford to buy a hom...