The Housing Bubble

Anyone think that Bank of America’s move was made to buy Countrywide more time, so that Congress can get busy opening up the lending flood gates again (i.e., raising or eliminating the cap on conforming loans, or maybe the Fed dropping rates)?

Interesting that B of A probably will be a passive investor in Countrywide, so it won’t get stuck with liability for Countrywide’s huge, and growing by the day, portfolio of non-performing loans - not to mention the lawsuits just filed against Countrywide.

Buy low, sell high. Easy to say, hard to do.

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2007/08/23/6793/ken-fisher-ballyhoo-and-the-return-of-greed/

and the other side

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2007/08/23/6797/ubs-report-on-the-fallout-not-everyone-thinks-its-all-over/

Nothing has blown up in 24 hours. I’m bored.

Mozillo to be on CNBC at 11:30. I have no respect for this leatherette gut sack, and it will be interesting to hear him spin the PPT arranged $2 billion cash infusion by BOA. I hope they ask him why CFC needed more cash after drawing down their $11 billion credit line last week.

Here’s a little excerpt from the National Intelligence Director’s interview regarding the administration’s wiretapping program:

“McConnell confirmed for the first time that the private sector assisted with President Bush ’s warrantless surveillance program. AT&T, Verizon and other telecommunications companies are being sued for their cooperation. “Now if you play out the suits at the value they’re claimed, it would bankrupt these companies,” McConnell said, arguing that they deserve immunity for their help.”

We desperately need separation of business and state, like yesterday. Maybe lenders can argue they deserve immunity somehow.

Good news! CNY is different sez the local media. Home sales and prices keeping up with last year.

Please help!
Last year, The JBG Companies has purchased an Arlington, VA, building where I rent with the goal of demolishing it and building a high-rise. The intent is to create an expensive mix of commercial tenants, condominiums and high-end rentals.

I am hoping that with the recent over-supply and loan issues they may put their plans on hold. I like living here exactly as it is

How can I find out in what financial state JBG are? Is there a way to check on their current plans?

I noticed that people here get remarkable data on housing, e.g., who owned what, for how long, at what price, with what kind of a loan, etc. Perhaps, somebody can point me in a right direction.

I would rather use my computer than go to the local housing authorities

Thanks a million!

TXChic,

I hear Wall Street is on fire and expects the FED to cut rates. What do you think the FED does?

If they don’t cut, does the market tank? Is there a good exit near for those that went long on a few thing (like AAPL).

Tom

Re: the Orwellian doublespeak society we actually live in these days…

The military has often suffered with inflation in their performance rating system. That is, nearly everyone is rated “best of the best.” This year, the Air Force just revised their rating system for all active duty personnel. One of the categories is “average.” Here’s the comment by one of the generals in charge of the personnel system:

“We have many outstanding Airmen [all Air Force personnel are called 'Airmen']. We don’t want ‘average’ to be the rating norm.”

So sorry, I thought “average” and “norm” were synonyms. My first thought when I saw that was Orwell:

War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
(and then, just to show you the influence this blog has had on me, I couldn’t remember Orwell’s last phrase…all I could think of was):

Debt is Wealth

CNBC is saying that jobless claims are down 2,000 last week. How many layoffs in the mortgage industry alone last week? Something is amiss.

Supposedly it’s different here too (Upstate SC/Greenville) as the media says we are not having the problems of the bubble markets. Then why are so many of our neighbors getting into MLM schemes? One woman tried to demonstrate a vacuum cleaner system, one is selling some $39.00 juice, and now one has invited my wife to a naughty toy slumber party…we are also having a HUGE crime wave of robberies and muggings…a cold wind seems to be blowing our way too.

It appears that even of the homeowner doesn’t default, the mortgage bondholder doesn’t get paid. Instead, per an FBI bust, the escrow company steals the money.

http://www.amny.com/news/local/am-mort0823,0,4248145.story

We’ve got a new player in the scam of the millenium — the escrow holder. Joining the appraisers, bond rates, mortgage brokers, real estate brokers, shilling economists, MSM, monetary and regulatory authorities, flippers, living-large HELOCers, etc.

The Billy Joel song “I’ve Loved These Days” comes to mind.

It occurs to me that one byproduct of the last couple of weeks is that we can finally put the PPT argument — does it exist or is it a myth? — to rest.

After what we’ve seen from the Fed and the IBs over the last several days, is there anyone left who doesn’t believe there are plenty of behind-the-scenes shenanigans perpetrated on a fairly regular basis?

Remember, they’re publicizing the Fed’s actions and discount window deals and the like because they’re trying to pump confidence back in the market. But that doesn’t mean they ALWAYS tell us everything they’re doing. You better believe there are routine inventions that occur when confidence doesn’t necessarily need boosting, but the market does.

I would say the mystery is over. The PPT is real — no matter who it’s actually called — and sometimes its actions are benign — maybe a couple of phone calls from on high to the IBs and — presto — the Dow inexplicably rallies. This explains a lot of the strange moves we’ve seen over the past several years.

– Judge Smales
“You’ll get nothing and like it”

Apologies if this has already been posted:
http://clipsyndicate.com/publish/video/376129?cpt=3&wpid=99

We’re shorting a few spys here in the premarket and going out for a bagel. LOL

I just got back from a week in the Carolinas. I flew into Charlette and drove to Columbia and Charleston. It was interesting to see housing from the air when landing. Just parts of the forest cleared and boxes inserted in very close proximity. It looked ugly from the air. Later I drove out to a restaurant (sonny’s) in Concord and saw some of the housing in that area. They were nothing but two story big boxes that were ugly. Nothing but dying grass around them (no flowers, shrubs, etc) and one was an exact copy of the next. In Columbia the older areas had some nice looking houses but in the Irmo area I was not impressed. The traffic in the Irmo area on Saturday aped that of LA or SF only it was not equipped to handle the flow. The mall was packed with back to school shoppers in the kiddie stores and the food courts but the other stores weren’t selling much. I loved the housing in the city proper of Charleston but the downtown area sucked. Perhaps my biggest disappointment was the food. For someone who loves quality eating I didn’t find anything to write home about; on the other hand the locals were friendly and the first thing you notice when landing is the laid back atmosphere of the local culture, which was quickly lost in the area of Concord and Irmo.

As mortgage industry retrenches, industry job cuts surpass 40,000
By Ieva M. Augstums
ASSOCIATED PRESS
2:28 p.m. August 22, 2007

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – At the North Carolina offices of mortgage lender HomeBanc Corp., Archie Clark is the only employee left. But in a few days, he’ll be gone, too.

“It’s pretty much a ghost town over there,” Clark said. “Somebody went in and took the furniture from the lobby. I don’t know who did that. I put some of the other stuff in the back and locked it up.”

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/business/20070822-1428-mortgagemess-jobs.html

Would someone check my logic please?

If the credit markets went haywire because nobody wanted to buy MBS that isn’t backed by Fannie Mae and Fannie Mae cancelled their upcoming auction because there wasn’t enough interest in MBS that was backed by Fannie Mae, why would removing caps on Fannie Mae purchases do anything useful in the markets?

Accredited cutting 1,600 jobs
S.D. lender also says no to new mortgages until market improves
By Mike Freeman
STAFF WRITER
August 23, 2007

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20070823/news_1b23lenders.html

I posted this last night, I happen to know and enjoy being with Mr. Gross. I personally think this is ludicrous. I have to wonder whether it is Mr. Gross writing or if it is his positions.

PIMCO

“…The ultimate solution, it seems to me, must not emanate from the bowels of Fed headquarters on Constitution Avenue, but from the West Wing of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Fiscal, not monetary policy should be the preferred remedy, one scaling Rooseveltian proportions emblematic of the RFC, or perhaps to be more current, the RTC in the early 1990s when the government absorbed the bad debts of the failing savings and loan industry. Why is it possible to rescue corrupt S&L buccaneers in the early 1990s and provide guidance to levered Wall Street investment bankers during the 1998 LTCM crisis, yet throw 2,000,000 homeowners to the wolves in 2007? If we can bail out Chrysler, why can’t we support the American homeowner? The time has come to acknowledge that there are precedents aplenty in the long and even recent history of American policy making. This rescue, which admittedly might bail out speculators who deserve much worse, would support millions of hard working Americans whose recent hours have become ones of frantic desperation. And for those who would still have them eat some Wall Street cake as opposed to Midwest meat & potatoes (The Wall Street Journal editorial page suggested they should get darn good and used to renting once again) look at it this way: your stocks and risk-oriented levered investments will spring to life like the wild flowers in Death Valley after a flash flood. And if you’re a Republican office holder, you’d win a new constituency of voters – “almost homeless homeowners” – for generations to come. Get with it Mr. President and Mr. Treasury Secretary. This is your moment to one-up Barney Frank and the Democrats. Reestablish not the RFC or the RTC, but create an RMC –Reconstruction Mortgage Corporation. If not, make some modifications in the existing FHA program, long discarded as ineffective. Write some checks, bail ‘em out, prevent a destructive housing deflation that Ben Bernanke is unable to do. After all “W”, you’re “the Decider,” aren’t you?”

William H. Gross

Managing Director

http://tinyurl.com/ytyfpf

Past-due mortgages swamp banks, thrifts
Biggest increase in late loans since ‘90
By Alison Vekshin
BLOOMBERG NEWS

August 23, 2007

U.S. banks and thrifts suffered the biggest increase in late loan payments in 17 years as more homeowners fell behind on mortgages, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said yesterday.

Loans more than 90 days past due rose 10.6 percent to $66.9 billion in the period ending June 30, the largest quarterly increase since 1990, the FDIC said in its Quarterly Banking Profile.

“The bottom line for banks is that the credit environment continues to be more challenging now than it has been in recent years,” FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair said during a news briefing at the agency’s Washington headquarters.

The report reflects the growing strain lenders are facing as the collapse of the subprime mortgage market roils the banking industry. At least 90 U.S. mortgage companies have halted operations or sought buyers since the start of 2006, according to Bloomberg data.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20070823/news_1b23late.html

“…To be sure, more evidence is needed to make an open-and-shut case that the Fed has changed its spots. If weakness start to show up in the real economy, the Fed could revert to the laxity of the Greenspan years in a flash. Bernanke is no Paul Volcker, whose anti-inflation bias led him to hike rates to recession-causing levels in the 1980s. However, Northern Trust’s Kasriel does think the Fed would tolerate some economic sluggishness if it brings some stability back into the economy. “I don’t think the Fed would welcome a recession, but I think it would be okay with some below potential growth,” he says.

After nearly 20 years at the helm of the Fed, Greenspan left the U.S. economy more vulnerable to credit shocks than it has ever been. It will take Bernanke 20 years to undo that mess…”

Fortune CNN Money
http://tinyurl.com/yuaovm

Wall Street bungee jumping…

http://www.marketwatch.com/Quotes/?symb=comp

Since the stock market climbs a wall of worry, there ought to be a massive rally today…

DAVID CALLAWAY
Four little piggies went to market
Commentary: Money banks aren’t fooling anybody
By David Callaway, MarketWatch
Last Update: 4:51 PM ET Aug 22, 2007

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — The decision by four money center banks to tap the Federal Reserve for $2 billion to pry open the lending spigots of the U.S. financial system was seen in some quarters Wednesday as a turning point in the four-week old credit crisis.
It was. But unfortunately the point turned from denial to full-fledged fear.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/four-little-piggies-went-market/story.aspx?guid=%7B272C65C4%2D63D8%2D4B2E%2D8094%2DD593B23BF1EB%7D

Soaring number of student loans leads to fears of market collapse

“WASHINGTON (Map, News) - The number of Maryland college students taking out private loans has ballooned more than 600 percent between fiscal year 2000 and 2005, creating fears among financial experts that student loans could collapse in the same way as the subprime mortgage market.”

http://preview.tinyurl.com/2ctetw

Yet another downside to the housing bubble - might this be in some FBs’ futures?

http://tinyurl.com/3yj9mx

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A woman set fire to her ex-husband’s penis as he sat naked watching television and drinking vodka, Moscow police said Wednesday.

Asked if the man would make a full recovery, a police spokeswoman said it was “difficult to predict.”

The attack climaxed three years of acrimonious enforced co-habitation. The couple divorced three years ago but continued to share a small flat, something common in Russia where property costs are very high.

“It was monstrously painful,” the wounded ex-husband told Tvoi Den newspaper. “I was burning like a torch. I don’t know what I did to deserve this.”

(bold emphasis mine)

How many of you are going to Burning Man?

Central Bank Impotence and Market LiquidityBy Henry C.K. Liu, August 22, 2007
————–
In depth discussion of discount window lending and the liquidity crunch.

“Interbank payments are processed over Fedwire, the large-value payment system owned and operated by the Fed. The value of aggregate Fedwire payments increased from roughly $1.3 trillion a day in 1992 to roughly $3 trillion a day in early 2004. These payments are funded from an aggregate reserve balance that, as of the first quarter of 2004, averaged only $11.5 billion.“

Go team! Yeah!

http://www.minyanville.com/articles/BAC-CFC-GS-JPM-C-WB/index/a/13838

http://www.readexpress.com/pollcenter.php

poll question at Washington Post’s free daily on whether or not there should be a bailout of the mortgage industry… i’m not one to spam polls but this one’s screaming for attention.

On Minyanville, Succo says that BAC is precluded from shorting CFC stock for 18 months.

Like that will stop anything

Lousy construction in the bubble adding to housing crisis.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20393984/

In a housing market class in city planning school in the mid-1980s, I was given a table of housing completions by year going back to the turn of the century, and warned not to buy a house built in a boom year. I was also told about housing cost/income ratios and cycles. Thanks Prof. Jim Hughes of Rutgers.

This was in the Morning Journal in Columbiana County in NE Ohio

9 indicted in mortgage fraud scheme
COLUMBUS - Nine people have been accused in a $25 million mortgage fraud scheme in which the value of more than 500 real estate properties in central Ohio was exaggerated to mortgage lenders and to prospective buyers. The nine recruited inexperienced buyers, counting on their relative ignorance with real estate to hide the scheme, according to the indictment by the federal grand jury. The defendents are accused of using faudulent documents to misrepresent the buyers’ credit to lending institutions and then obtaining mortgages secured by the inflated value of the properties. Potential buyers were told they could buy property with no money down and that they wouldn’t be responsible for monthly payments or repairs, according to prosecutors. The nine would then take the money and leave the buyer owing more than the property was worth.

Ohio is cracking down big time. I hope other states follow suit. This kind of fraud deserves jail time. Also this tells all of us why some people are not qualified to be home owners. They had to have some pretty dumb people to pull this one off.

I am not in front of a TV, can someone give us a play-by-play of what the Tan Man is saying??

http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=481763309&play=1

Tan Man video

Apparently, this organization is providing fixed financing at 5.75% for 30 years for those who have credit scores below 600 and have been “victimized” by subprime lenders.

Nice to know that people who have a proven track record of being irresponsible with paying their bills get a far lower interest rate than those who have proven fiscally sound.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/08/23/real_estate/subprime_help/index.htm?postversion=2007082311

Some stuff I sent out to my investment contacts this morning. Hope you find it useful:
—————–
This article give us some idea of the scale of contraction here. In the week from 8/15 to yesterday, $90 billion of commercial paper disappeared. Looks like it matured and couldn’t get refunded. Now, some of that will be made up with bank loans but there is no way that they can extend an additional $90 billion at this time. Nor should they, especially when a good chunk of the ABS CP was buying risky assets.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aEIjZBgPR2ZI&refer=home

H&R Block walked away from the CP markets yesterday since they “have become increasingly constrained and unstable.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aFyTHOPzomDA

When I hear the talking heads saying the credit crunch is easing, I wonder if they have any clue what they are talking about. The ECB just went to 90 day emergency loans and the Fed to 30 day loans. Large segments of the CP market have virtually shut down and banks can’t make up the difference ($90 billion and counting). Don’t forget that they are still on the hook for $300 billion in buyout funding they’ve committed to. Junk bonds look to have stablized for now but that’s largely because there’s been no new supply for weeks. Let’s see what happens if any of the banks try to place some big M&A loans in the form of either junk issuance of loan syndication.

Then there is THE DEADLINE. We have very little information on the total redemptions sought from hedge funds overall but we do know that there have been big requests from some troubled high-profile funds. Goldman’s big kahuna hedge fund apparently has been hit with nearly $2 billion in redemptions, payable on September 30. Repeated many times across the industry (though on a smaller scale) and have a massive wave of mandatory asset sales coming. Add some additional sales as the funds (and prop trading desks) delever their remaining capital in the higher risk environment. This is the real reason that every rally will be sold for the next month.

Timing and market pressures are now setting up perfectly for a classic Fall beatdown in risk assets.

“Man has such a predilection for systems and abstract deductions that he is ready to distort the truth intentionally, he is ready to deny the evidence of his senses only to justify his logic”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I have a firm belief that the stock market will always do the most damage to the most amount of people.

Why the banks look good because they do not have to Mark to Market.

LBO deals on hold until 2008 as crunch worsens
“We’re in the midst of a major, major credit crunch,” said an investment banker at a large commercial bank that arranges and finances private equity deals.

“No LBOs as we’ve come to know them will be financed for the remainder of the year,” added the banker, who requested anonymity….

…The so-called commercial banks, which include competitors Bank of America (BAC.N: Quote, Profile, Research), Citigroup (C.N: Quote, Profile, Research), Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan (JPM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and UBS AG (UBSN.VX: Quote, Profile, Research), are not under the same type of pressure. Their larger balance sheets give them more breathing room to hold onto the loans and wait for better market conditions.

They also have accounting rules in their favor, as commercial banks can account for their loans either as “available for sale” or “held to maturity,” under generally accepted accounting principles. Loans that are “available for sale” must be marked to market daily, but those under “held to maturity” do not….
Reuters
http://tinyurl.com/2y5xvf

Sorry if this was posted party people. OCR.

BNC shuts down; Impac cuts jobs
Two lenders in Irvine are rocked by credit turmoil. BNC Mortgage is closing, and Impac laying off workers.

http://tinyurl.com/yse9ao

From the OCR Mortgage Insider.

IndyMac makes jumbo loans again, will hold them on its books
August 23rd, 2007
In all the craziness during black Wednesday, I missed this: Indymac Bancorp in Pasadena said it will resume making big prime loans, known as jumbo, after halting them amid a lack of investor appetite for the loans.

“Given our strong financial position, we are fully committed to the market for prime jumbo home loans,” said CEO Michael Perry, in a statement. “Until the secondary market recovers, we plan to retain this product in our investment portfolio at what we believe will be attractive returns.”

As a thrift, IndyMac can hold some jumbo loans on its books, but if the secondary market doesn’t return within a few months, I imagine IndyMac could begin bumping against its reserves.

The jumbo loans for more than $417,000 will only be offered to borrowers who fully verify their income. The loans will be fixed for five, seven, 15, or 30 years.

Japan’s economy: still just as crazy as ever
Financial Times, 23.08.2007
“…But last week, the view from Tokyo was still distinctly odd. Part of the reason is that, while the rest of the world has been intoxicated with the sort of “sophisticated” investment vehicles that are now imploding, Japan’s conservative financial market has remained a risk-averse backwater. A benefit of not attending the party is not having to clear up afterwards.

It is true that did not prevent a spectacular slide in share prices. The Nikkei 225 plunged nearly 10 per cent last week as investors dumped liquid assets and export stocks that could be damaged by a rising yen. But one needed to look beyond equities to see just how much of an outlier Japan remains.

For example, while the Federal Reserve and European Central Bank were frantically pumping liquidity into their seized-up money markets, the Bank of Japan felt moved to siphon off Y2,000bn ($17.5bn, €13bn, L8.7bn) from a system still awash with funds. The bank had previously followed other central banks’ lead by making overnight liquidity available. But the result was a collapse of the call rate to 0.235 per cent, well below the BoJ’s 0.5 per cent target.

Consider also that, in the world outside Japan, bond analysts were slack-jawed at the sight of three-month US Treasury rates falling to just 3 per cent. In out-of-step Tokyo that is still exorbitant. Last week, the government was borrowing one-year money at just over 0.6 per cent….

…More broadly, it sees one of its functions as preventing the formation of bubbles of any sort. It still bears the psychological scars for failing to prevent the wild property speculation of the 1980s that proved so ruinous in the long run.

The BoJ’s desire to head off inflation well before it lumbers into sight is an implicit criticism of the Fed’s apparent tolerance for asset bubbles….”

The great circular ponzi scheme is closing. Did they really think risk dispersion dispersed the risk?

Aug. 23 (Bloomberg) — Banks worldwide have $891 billion at risk in asset-backed commercial paper facilities because of credit agreements that ensure investors are paid back when the short-term debt matures, Fitch Ratings said.

The investment vehicles, which carry top credit ratings, sell debt that matures in one to 270 days and invest in longer-term securities with higher yields, Fitch said in a report. Some of those securities are subprime mortgage bonds, which have been losing value as default rise to the highest in 10 years….

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=akAl5IKh8kwQ

Maybe they should have actually hedged their risk instead of going balls out into subprime?

Turmoil throws hedge fund strategies awry
By Anuj Gangahar in New York
Published: August 23 2007 20:53 | Last updated: August 23 2007 20:53

Turmoil in financial markets has inflicted significant damage on the investment performance of some of the biggest names in the hedge fund sector, with data showing DE Shaw and Goldman Sachs continuing to suffer losses.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/750b10f0-51ae-11dc-8779-0000779fd2ac.html

Trouble brewing at Barclays according to the FT:

A senior official in charge of a structured finance team at Barclays Capital has resigned this week in the midst of turmoil triggered by the meltdown in the US subprime mortgage market.

Edward Cahill, a banker who ran the collateralised debt obligation division, which creates complex debt vehicles linked to assets such as subprime loans, left on Monday after returning from holiday….

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3cd48296-51b5-11dc-8779-0000779fd2ac.html

Bernanke is getting plenty of unsolicited advice these days on the proper conduct of monetary policy.

Do not cut rates
Published: August 21 2007 19:20 | Last updated: August 21 2007 19:20

Credit fuels the modern economy, and if the dislocation in the money markets lasts another month or two, investment, consumption and growth in the real economy will suffer. Central banks must restore confidence, but rather than cut interest rates they should extend liquidity operations to longer matur­ities, more collateral and possibly even different counterparties.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4d626b36-5012-11dc-a6b0-0000779fd2ac.html

Amazingly, as of just last week, some really smart people (and some not so smart ones — e.g. Corcoran) were still quite mystified about the bubble. I wonder if they will have changed their tune by next summer, when the pop of the credit bubble and its impact on the housing market is clearly visible through the rear view mirror?

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/08/15/freakonomics-quorum-is-it-time-to-believe-in-the-housing-bubble/

“What has passed is already finished with. What I find more interesting is what is still to come.”

Emil Zatopek

anecdote from a Corcoran broker in NYC. June was a disaster, July was dead, 1st half of August slow, but things maybe picking up a bit, rentals and sales. However, things are up for cash only deals, not mortgages.

“According to placement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas 40,000 workers have lost jobs at mortgage lending firms and another 20,000 jobs have been lost at construction companies.”

That’s a pretty unfortunate firm-name, relative to the times and heading into the Fall holiday buying season. No-ho-ho.

The Unreported Wall Street Bailout
…
It is not the Fed’s job to protect the financial industry from its own mistakes. As Greenspan and Bernanke said repeatedly in response to questions raised about first the stock bubble and now the housing bubble, the Fed can deal with the consequences of the collapse of financial bubbles. I’m skeptical about how well it will be able to deal with the consequences of the collapse of the housing bubble, but the Fed certainly has no business deliberately propping up financial bubbles so that more informed investors can recover from their mistakes. (In this respect, the Fed’s decision to encourage the use of mortgage backed securities as collateral on loans was completely improper. It should not have been giving its seal of approval to bad debt – I take back my earlier more benign view of this action.)

After having largely neglected to report on the growth of the housing bubble over the last five years, the media should start reporting on the losers in this bailout story. If the Fed can give the big Wall Street boys the opportunity to save themselves by unloading bad debt, then it just means that others will be the ones to eventually pay the price. The media should make it clear that bailing out Wall Street is not win-win; it is a win for Wall Street where some sucker down the road takes the hit.

–Dean Baker–

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/beat_the_press_archive?month=08&year=2007&base_name=the_unreported_wall_street_bai