subprime

Politico’s Jonathan Martin nails the headline:
We’re All Socialists Now
Time to take a step back: A Republican president just sent out his Treasury secretary to announce the federal government will spend “hundreds of billions of dollars” to takeover a not-insignificant chunk of the economy.
From USA Today:

As Ari Melber and Matt DeLong have reported on our site, both presidential candidates are keeping up their war of words over Wall Street’s financial crisis and the state of the nation’s economy. You might think that things have changed a lot since last week, when I pointed out that both candidates had been ignoring [...]

With the bankruptcy of Lehman Bros. and the Bank of America takeover of Merrill Lynch roiling Wall Street, Sen. John McCain attempted to reassure voters about the economy at a rally this morning in Jacksonville, Fla.
Before an audience of about 3,000, McCain repeated his assertion that “the fundamentals of the of our economy are strong,” [...]

In Michigan today, Sen. Joe Biden, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, seized on Sen. John McCain’s odd claim that the fundamentals of the American economy remain strong.
After Fannie, Freddie, Lehman and a market dive to start the week, few would describe the economy as strong. Biden hit this point to depict McCain as weirdly out of [...]

To keep the markets from melting down today in the wake of the Lehman Bros. bankruptcy filing and the sale of Merrill Lynch, ten of the world’s largest banks have created a $70 billion pool of money, the Financial Times says.
Banks can borrow from the fund, using the kind of collateral the Fed doesn’t usually [...]

It’s an entirely new financial world out there today — in a single weekend, Wall Street has turned upside down.
As The Washington Post explained, two of the world’s biggest investment banks are basically about to disappear, with Lehman Bros. filing for bankruptcy and Merrill Lynch being bought by Bank of America. Once the shock of [...]

Now that the government has nationalized Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, it should step in and modify the mortgage loans of troubled borrowers on a massive scale, consumer advocates say.
Housing Wire reports that advocates are pushing the two mortgage giants to follow the lead of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which is attempting an en [...]

Housing Wire weighs in today with a cautionary note on the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, making the same point we did in our pieces this week on loan workouts – There’s no quick fix here.
From Housing Wire:
Most analysts we spoke with suggested that the move to take over Fannie and Freddie would [...]

The FDIC’s attempt at mass restructurings of mortgages comes with risks — and insiders are divided on the wisdom of the plan.

Maybe we’re whiners for a reason. Bankruptcy filings climbed again in August, providing more proof that people are feeling the strains of a softening economy, creditslips reports.
The August figures show bankruptcy filings have reached a post-2005 high of 4,476 filings per day, notes credit expert Robert Lawless, a University of Illinois law professor. That milestone [...]