Danielle DiMartino at the Dallas News has an update on subprime lending. " For two days running, the articles in the top right-hand corner of The Wall Street Journal's Personal Journal section have left me scratching my head. The first was on the explosive growth of 10- to 15-year fixed-rate, interest-only mortgages – in essence, an expensive lease."

"The second was on the return of margin loans; not to buy stocks, but to pay for anything from real estate to boats, jets, fine art, tax bills and children's tuition. Is this what cash-hungry consumers turn to when they can't cash out any more home equity?"

"I got yet more confirmation from John Lonski, chief economist at Moody's: Subprime mortgages, those made to borrowers with the weakest credit profiles, skyrocketed in the first two months of this year. According to Mr. Lonski, the issuance of RMBS backed by subprime mortgages grew by an annualized rate of 86 percent in January and February."

"Of course, the theory is that regulators will step in to gain the upper hand on lending standards before things get out of hand. But lenders of all stripes, whether they are lending against a portfolio or a home, seem to always be one step ahead of regulators."

The LA Times. "The nation's top bank regulator issued an alarm Thursday about mortgages with artificially low starting payments, telling participants at a Los Angeles conference that borrowers needed better warnings that their bills inevitably would jump."

"'After the limited initial period ends, the monthly payment for the holder of a nontraditional mortgage must increase, even if interest rates stay flat, and the size of that increase can be very substantial,' Comptroller of the Currency John C. Dugan said."

"Dugan's remarks was the latest salvo by regulators who have proposed tighter restrictions on the use of exotic mortgages that are advertised as making homes more affordable."

The Boston Herald looks at how that's working out. "Shady mortgage operators have been flooding unbelievably easy credit into Boston’s neighorhoods. Behind the real estate trend are some very suspect mortgage companies from California and elsewhere that will give you a mortgage, whatever your history. Enough bad debt and bankruptcies to sink the Titanic? No problem."

"If the statistics aren’t bad enough, the horror stories are even worse. There’s the poor Fields Corner homeowner who lost her two-family home, not once, but twice, to foreclosure."

"Undaunted after Citizens Bank foreclosed on her $159,000 mortgage in 2002, she bought it back again, this time for a bargain $310,000. A well-known 'subprime' lender provided a no-money-down loan. That lasted all of 14 months, until the Bullard Street home was foreclosed upon earlier this month, the second time in five years, John Anderson points out."

"'The last two days we had 28 more defaults,' Anderson said. 'They are just piling in, right and left.'"