Some housing bubble news from Wall Street and Washington. Bloomberg, "Standard & Poor's said today in a report...writedowns from subprime securities will probably rise to $285 billion. The ratings company previously estimated losses of $265 billion in January. The world's largest banks and securities firms, including Citigroup Inc., UBS AG and Merrill Lynch & Co., have reported more than $188 billion of subprime-related losses since the start of last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg."

"'It is clear that the ultimate credit losses on the more than $1.2 trillion of subprime loans originally granted in the U.S. from 2005 to 2007 will be substantial,' S&P said in the report, which focused on U.S. subprime asset-backed securities."

"Future writedowns may come not only from banks but also hedge funds, insurers and institutional investors, S&P said."

From Reuters. "An affiliate of U.S.-based buyout firm Carlyle Group has defaulted on about $16.6 billion of debt and expects its lenders to seize remaining assets."

"Carlyle Capital Corp, a fund listed in Amsterdam, said that talks with lenders deteriorated after a drop in the value of its mortgage investments, which it said would result in margin calls of $97.5 million on top of the $400 million it was already facing."

"A 'successful refinancing is not possible,' Carlyle Capital said."

"'We've been expecting, for a while, for the hedge funds to get into trouble,' said Andrea Cicione, a credit strategist at one of Carlyle Capital's lenders. 'We are in a vicious spiral of unwinding years of increasing leverage in the space of a few weeks,' he said, and no one can say how much leverage must be wrung out before the unwinding comes to an end."

"Carlyle Capital said the only assets it has left are AAA-rated residential mortgage-backed securities, and it expected lenders to foreclose on this collateral. On Tuesday, the U.S. Federal Reserve expanded a securities lending program to provide short-term liquidity of $200 billion."

"The Fed 'clearly could provide an incentive for the banks to let hedge funds go under when they get in trouble, rather than keeping them afloat,' Cicione said. 'Now banks can seize the assets and post them as collateral.'"

"The Carlyle Group, based in Washington, DC, has more than $75 billion under management and has attracted a string of high-profile advisers."

"According to CCC's annual report, counterparties for its repurchasing agreements as of the end of 2007 were Bank of America, Bear Stearns, BNP Paribas, Calyon, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, ING, JP Morgan, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and UBS."

From CNBC. "Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke should resign and the Fed should be abolished as a way to boost the falling dollar and speed up the recovery of the U.S. economy, investor Jim Rogers, CEO of Rogers Holdings, told CNBC Europe Wednesday."

"'No country in the world has ever succeeded by debasing its currency,' he said. 'That's what this man is trying to do. He's trying to debase the currency as a way to revive America. It has never worked in the long term or the medium term.'"

"The Fed's move to accept risky collateral is not part of the central bank's business, he added. 'What is Bernanke going to do? Get in his helicopter and fly around the world and collect rents? That's absurd,' Rogers said."

"A recession may be a good way to clean up the economy, while trying to prevent one may cost more and actually worsen the recession, Rogers said. Also, investment banks should be allowed to fail."

"'Listen, investment banks have been going bankrupt since the beginning of time. If people make mistakes -- if you bail out every investment bank that gets in trouble, that's not capitalism, that's socialism for the rich,' he said."

"Japan's Shinsei Bank lowered its full-year forecast for a third time on Thursday, hit by widening subprime losses. Shinsei, which still owes the government more than 200 billion yen ($2 billion) from a bailout in the 1990s, has been one of the Japanese banks hardest hit by the subprime crisis."

"Shinsei spokesman Donald Macintyre said subprime-related losses could total as much as $100 million in the fourth quarter, or the three months to March. That is on top of the $218 million the bank reported as of the end of December."

"Japan's banks have so far lost about 600 billion yen from the subprime crisis, according to the Financial Services Agency, Japan's regulator. That is still just a fraction of the massive hit taken by western banks."

"Shinsei has taken criticism for being slow to repay the government. 'From an investment standpoint, Shinsei has very little to offer,' said Koichi Ogawa, chief portfolio officer at Daiwa SB Investments."

"Sales of new apartments in Tokyo fell to a 15-year low for February, a research firm said on Thursday. Sellers of apartments in Japan's major metropolitan areas have been hiking prices to offset the higher cost of land and construction materials, but with wages stagnant and the economy shaky demand has tailed off."

"The research firm's data showed that the number of new apartments put up for sale in the Tokyo metropolitan area came to 3,460 units in February, down 28 percent from a year earlier and the sixth straight monthly decline."

"It was also the lowest level for that month since 1993, after Japan's economic bubble popped."

"Irish Life & Permanent's bank permanent tsb will no longer offer 100 percent mortgages to home buyers due to a slowdown in Ireland's housing market, a permanent tsb spokesman said on Thursday."

"An end to Ireland's decade-old property boom, when prices quadrupled, has put the brakes on years of rapid economic and jobs growth."

"A permanent tsb spokesman said it will cut the maximum amount it will offer for residential mortgages to 92 percent from 100 percent from the end of March. It began to offer the service over two years ago, spurred by a booming market and competition from rivals."

"'We think this is a prudent approach to the current market circumstances,' he said. 'The era of significant (house) price increases has come to an end.'"

"The spokesman said permanent tsb would also cut the maximum loan it will offer to investors looking to buy homes to rent, to 80 percent from 90 percent. 'It is reflecting a changing mortgage market place in Ireland,' he said."

The Globe and Mail. "The effects of the U.S. subprime crisis are showing up on the fringe of the Canadian mortgage business. The result is a slow retrenchment in a sector that held about 5 per cent of the Canadian mortgage market before the credit crunch spread from the United States in August."

"Some offices have been closed, employees have been let go, and fewer so-called alternative products are being offered to borrowers who do not qualify for regular loans."

"Toronto-based Xceed Mortgage Corp. yesterday suspended its line of uninsured mortgage products, effective immediately. Mississauga-based lender MoneyConnect Inc., meanwhile, told brokers last week that it's liquidating a portfolio of mortgages."

"Lenders in this sector that rely on securitization can't access financing to take on new mortgages, noted Jim Murphy, president of the Canadian Association of Accredited Mortgage Professionals."

"HSBC Financial Corp. Ltd. shut down its mortgage services operation here, closing dozens of locations and cutting about 300 jobs as it exited the subprime mortgage business in North America. GMAC Residential Funding of Canada cut about 70 employees."

"And Accredited Home Lenders, which could not be reached for comment, appears to have chopped its Canadian work force and stopped accepting new loan applications at its Toronto and Vancouver offices because it could not securitize the loans in Canada."

"The decrease of uninsured mortgages has caused an increase in business for alternative lender Home Capital Group Inc., whose mortgages are insured by Canada Deposit Insurance Corp. and cover no more than 80 per cent of a home's value, CEO Gerald Soloway said."

"The entry of higher-risk mortgage providers into the conservative Canadian market was an anomaly, and he's happy to see things returning to the way they were."

"'I personally think ... this is a good thing for the economy long term, because we've seen the devastating effect it's had on the United States with mass foreclosures, mass evictions, great disruption. They thought they were doing a great gift for people letting them into a house with no money down,' he said. 'But I think in reality the disruption to society as a whole far outweighs that benefit.'"

The Associated Press. "Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Thursday that a presidential working group wants stronger regulatory oversight of mortgage lenders to avert the kind of credit crisis that is dragging the economy down."

"One recommendation calls for federal and state regulators to strengthen oversight of mortgage lenders and another urges state financial regulators to implement strong nationwide licensing standards for mortgage brokers, according to the group's report, released Thursday."

"'The objective here is to get the balance right — regulation needs to catch up with innovation and help restore investor confidence but not go so far as to create new problems, make our markets less efficient or cut off credit to those who need it,' said Paulson, who heads the working group."

"It includes Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and the heads of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission."

"Bernanke said the group's recommendations 'constitute an appropriate and effective response to the deficiencies in our financial framework that contributed to the current turmoil in financial markets.'"

"'The turmoil in financial markets clearly was triggered by a dramatic weakening of underwriting standards for U.S. subprime mortgages, beginning in late 2004 and extending into early 2007,' the president's working group concluded. 'But the loosening of credit standards and terms in the subprime market was symptomatic of a much broader erosion of market discipline on the standards and terms of loans to households and businesses.'"

"'There is no single, simple solution to the problems that have emerged ... yet we have determined that market participants' behavior must change,' Paulson added."

The Philadelphia Inquirer. "For all the Federal Reserve's efforts to get the nation's capital markets back on track, what is needed most of all might be time, Kenneth D. Lewis, CEO of Bank of America Corp., said in Philadelphia."

"'I think everybody is frustrated at not being able to come up with a solution,' Lewis said on a visit to the National Constitution Center."

"'One wonders if the answer is not just some more time and some more pain before we can set this right,' the head of the nation's second-largest bank said."

"Bank of America...is contending with subprime-mortgage-related losses even though it did not make such loans. The losses are coming from complicated mortgage-related securities held by the company's investment-banking division and from home-equity loans, Lewis said."

"The losses on home-equity loans are occurring because many borrowers...now owe more than their houses are worth, so they abandon them, Lewis said."

"'It's actually a sociological factor that we've never seen before, because people in the past have always protected their homes above all else,' Lewis said. 'Now they are paying their credit card and their automobile loan, but walking away from their house.'"