joegold

Five Questions About Government's Role in the Mortgage Business

certain people moon, please elaborate what you mean by "certain people"....newsflash, the majority of lending in the past 5 years no matter what color, "income"(if documented), or region the loan was originated in was probably "sub-prime". The standards were relaxed for everyone. And please don't respond with the tired and subversively racist CRA excuse, it's getting old.


On Sep 09 08:59 PM Moon Kil Woong wrote:

> The government's role in home ownership has been touted by politicians
> for years with both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac who have made it impossible
> for legitimate rivals as has the implementation on the Community
> Reinvestment Act. Both have ben disasterous.
>
> As mentioned Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has acted like a poison killing
> off the mortgage market while entwining government in their overly
> low interest loans which end up on the governments balance sheet
> by either the Fed or Treasury buying them up or by simply losing
> so much they need loans or money directly infused into their failing
> corpse. Their business model is monopolistic. If there was real antitrust
> enforcement in this industry they would have been broken up ages
> ago.
>
> CRE has also been disasterous and is cited by Republicans as one
> mjor facet for the problems in the mortgage market. By requiring
> banks to loan to people with less than stellar credit and in certain
> areas if they wish to do business they had created a vast market
> of high risk loans. This was exacerbated when Glass Stegall was removed
> thus letting insurance derivatives sterilize these bad loans which
> encouraged even more gorging on bad loans. Finally, they were bundled
> and sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as they still are today. Garbage
> going onto garbage.
>
> Thanks for the article. Indeed the mortgage market has been socialized
> for decades now. No wonder it unhinged from the real market and left
> the government with massive losses. Being that it is still more than
> ever dependent on the government makes us realize we are destined
> to relive the recession we are in now. Give it a few years or a few
> dacades depending on how unscrupulous the powers that be are.

Place Not Your Hopes in Mortgage Servicers

There is no skull-duggery or evil doing here, I highly resent that statement. I am an educated individual but the demands of people to be modified has exploded beyond all reason. Also we can underwrite, but trying to underwrite a poorly underwritten loan after the fact is madness, ( so in some sense I guess I agree with Felix)

De-Leveraging Is Not Deflation

one question, one only. Everyone says all fiat currencies will fail fine. Gold is the answer fine. IF this is the case, and the dollar and all other fiat currencies are worthless paper...why would anyone ever exchange one tenth of one millionth of one ounce of gold for paper money? I am not trying to be snarky, I am just trying to understand the argument.

Gold May Not Be Just Another Commodity Anymore

oh please let's go back to the gold standard so the same people who got us into this mess can have control since they hold all the damn gold...I'll take the silver thank you

The Strange Case of Dr. GLD & Mr. Bullion

where can one buy gold coins without extreme markups, I bought coins when gold was at 1000 and they still wat the same thing when the spot dropped $200.

'Gold Dividends' And Other Shyster Tactics

Tim, I don't understand, if the dollar is falling and I barely have enough money for one ounce of gold what good does it do me to put my money in gold in the short run when I eventually need to sell it for dollars that won't be enough to support myself with unless gold goes from 850 to 8500? Every author (including yourself) always point out that we should buy gold, but rarely seen how to practically go about it to protect myself. Imagine you are 22 years old just started working, weren't born wealthy and can barely save a few thousand a year. What do regular people who don't already have hundreds of thousands of dollars do