credit crisis

The Atlanta Federal Home Loan Bank loaned $51.5 billion to Countrywide — a mortgage lender at the heart of the subprime crisis — in 2007. Washington Mutual, which went on to become the largest failed bank in American history, received $31 billion in loans from the San Francisco FHLB. IndyMac, which was seized by the [...]

Thousands of layoffs announced Monday illustrate the pain caused by the credit crisis here in the United States. But as the Financial Times reports, a credit crisis hits less prosperous nations much harder. From Malaysia to Morocco, the crisis, combined with high food prices, has forced some countries to revert to the old practice of [...]

As our story pointed out Thursday, investors are worried about a lot of banks lately — including the Federal Home Loan Banks, the 12 regional institutions that are a crucial source of low-cost mortgage money to many other banks.
For years, the obscure banks had a reputation for poor risk controls and sloppy accounting, as regulators [...]

President-elect Barack Obama’s choices for top positions in his new administration, such as his chief of staff, are drawing all the attention lately. But in the financial world, there’s a growing call for him to do more than just pick new personnel. There’s also a belief that the credit crisis is at such a perilous [...]

LEESBURG, Va. — As the Palin campaign rolled through this exurban neighborhood, members of the traveling press were surprised when the bus lurched to a stop.
We were in a neighborhood of spacious two-story homes with two- and three-car garages. While built in the past five to 10 years, the architecture of the houses was reminiscent [...]

The stock-market crashes around the world are not symptoms of the disease but the cure. The “disease” is the excessive debt and leverage in the global financial system — especially in the United States, Britain, Spain and Australia. The “cure” is the reduction of the level of debt.

Mortgage Insider tallies up the carnage among subprime lenders since the foreclosure crisis began — and it’s grim:
The list of major subprime lenders for 2006 and 2007 resembles the casualty roster from the Battle of Verdun in World War I. Only difference: way fewer walking wounded this time.
Of the 30 biggest subprime home lenders in [...]

If you feel like you’re trying to muddle through absorbing and understanding what happened on Wall Street, and why we are in the mess we’re in, this short video from the Financial Times might help clear things up.
Investment editor John Authers traces many of today’s problems back to the rescue of Long Term Capital Management [...]