An official “watch list” of potentially troubled US banks has lengthened from 90 to 117 as the credit crunch wreaks havoc throughout the financial industry.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which guarantees customers’ money held in US banks, said the quarterly list was the longest since mid-2003 and is asking its members to increase contributions to a dwindling bail-out fund…
So far this year, nine US banks have collapsed including California’s IndyMac Bancorp, the third largest failure of a high-street bank since the FDIC was created 75 years ago.
The FDIC does not disclose the identity of institutions on its watch list. But it said the aggregate total of assets held by troubled banks had risen from $26bn to $78bn, partly because the FDIC seized control of $32bn at IndyMac…
The FDIC has increased the number of staff handling banking failures by 60% as it faces the most challenging environment since the savings and loan crisis of the late 1980s which drove hundreds of small financial institutions out of business.
Starting with sleazy storefront mortgages – unregulated and unlicensed – the majority of the banking industry, nationally and throughout the Western world, climbed on board the downbound train to get a piece of the action.
Congress and White House bought in. Of course.
Just another disaster on Bush’s watch that nobody seems to care an more. Is there any accountability left or was there? have things been in a perpetual open loop? (You may not get open open loop unless you’re an engineer).
In the mean time, Bush rates 30% approval. Astoundingly high considering everything is in the crapper. I’m convinced 30% approval is the lowest you can be when sheep are allowed to vote.
I’m convinced 30% approval is the lowest you can be when sheep are allowed to vote.
You would be incorrect. Gallup puts the Congressional Approval Ratings at under half of that (14% as of a 7/10-7/13 poll). CNN polling has them at 20% for later in June…which is the highest I’ve seen for Congress since April.
Still, I have no idea what Bush or Congress has to do with the mortgage problem. People bitched and moaned that banks weren’t loaning to poor and disadvantaged. So now they do…and we have what we have.
#2
You would be incorrect. Gallup puts the Congressional Approval Ratings at under half of that (14% as of a 7/10-7/13 poll).
Good point. On an individual basis (insteadof a broad group like ‘congress’, I suspect that number is closer to 30%. Bush/GOP is seen like a football team. They can lose every game and they get wild applause.
Still, I have no idea what Bush or Congress has to do with the mortgage problem.
I like to think government is like business. The guy on the top is where the buck stops. In business, Bush would have been fired after one year on the job. I know, presidents can hide behind the curtain but I just don;t think that way. Maybe you shouldn’t either.
Nearly 80% of Americans believe in miracles… so I’m sure money will fall from the sky any day now….
“People bitched and moaned that banks weren’t loaning to poor” === in the main, that wasn’t people, it was Investment Bankers looking for the next bubble to ride and the stooges in Congress going along with the neo-con BushCo’s removing long standing regulatory prohibitions against such manipulations.
A lot of dipwads promote darwinian capitalism as the mark of Freedom, but everyone knows that a regulated capitalism is necessary to curb its excuses.
Its a lesson we refuse to learn, or that is unconscionably ignored in the constant search for disproportionate wealth concentration in the top one percent.
Silly Hoomans==vote all incumbents out of office.
#3 Dallas
I like to think government is like business. The guy on the top is where the buck stops. In business, Bush would have been fired after one year on the job. I know, presidents can hide behind the curtain but I just don;t think that way. Maybe you shouldn’t either.
Nice “Bush-is-an-A_hole” rant. But answer the question. What does he have to do with some idiot who takes on a mortgage that he cannot possibly pay. My heart goes out to the folks who have a house, lost a job and are on the ropes but that is not the bulk of the problem.
The problem is people who had no business getting a mortgage were buying houses beyond their reach. Add that to the frenzy of buying and flipping and the whole thing blew up. Tghis didn’t start on Bushes watch. This started in the mid to late ’90’s when housing cost rose logrithmically for no reason other than speculation.
There is an interesting chart here:
http://tinyurl.com/25zdkq
I would like to see and updated version to see if the prices are back at a reasonable level.
#6–Bill==it “started” when BushCo relaxed the rules that prevented investment banks from getting into the real estate market AND it started when the Fannies opened up the taxpayers wallet by approving sub-prime mortgages.
Think of a bank. Now have the Feds guarantee all deposits. Now have the Feds issue a rule saying that locks on money makes it too difficult to get to. So the banks take the doors off the vaults then look to the Feds for reimbursement when thieves walk in and take the money.
Yes, its only an analogy. But who do you “blame?” The borrower who is uneducated and in the market for the first time==or the banker who is a professional doing this 1000’s of times BUT has a FINANCIAL MOTIVE to make such loans==or the government who is supposed to monitor and prevent ill-advised lending standards.
The blame can be spread far and wide, at the merely stupid or at those charged with preventing it.
You made your choice at the wrong end of the continuum. Good Bushie.
So, you are saying it is the governments job to protect people from their own stupidity?
Good to know.
#6 Only a small amount of blame goes to the loanees, this is fraud on a massive scale. Mortgage companies made these loans with low payments for 2 to 5 years, followed by high payments for 25 to 30 years, and did not inform the customer very well about these long term hefty fees (these were investments to sell before then anyways).
Then they defrauded again, selling off these loans as “premium” investments.
Many experts say we are not even close to the end of this, it may continue through at least 2010.
Who cares if some banks go bankrupt? It’s their fault for lending the money. And they still have the houses, so they’re not totally broke.
#10–Calin==I think you are responding to my post, excuse my egotism otherwise.
Just as blame can be spread or focused at the wrong end of the continuum, so can the taget of “protectionism.”
I’ll give you a big hint at who the biggest victim here is and who best warrants governments protection: the Taxpayer. Silly Sheeple. You allow Big Biz to pick your pockets and blame poor folk at the same time. Wonderful.
#3 Bobbo – I finally agree with something you said.
Also: “Congress and White House bought in.”
Get serious. Congress and the White House were bought again and again as usual.
If they are in office – vote them out. Once and done.
and now the people who can’t earn a decent return on their savings are going to get stuck with the bill.
Think of a room full of people who get paid commissions on every mortgage they sell. Think of managers and executives whose bonuses depend strictly on the same thing. Think of the investors and bankers who then take these mortgages and package them as “Mortgage-backed securities,” for a long time a term that meant one of the safest investments around. Think of what the salesmen (and women) will say to get prospective clients to sign on. (“Interest rates are headed nowhere but down — your payments will be easy!” for example.) Think of all this going on with no one to watch out for any but the most glaring fraud. Think of this going on day in, day out at tens of thousands of hot little mortgage shops opened by all kinds of people and organizations all over the country. It’s amazing we have any kind of financial system left. This is going to be biting us all in our collective asses for years, if not decades.
Who could have known? I mean, the whole Savings & Loan thing turned out so well, didn’t it? (We’re not even half done paying for that one yet.) What will be the next giant multi-trillion dollar scam sucking up what little is left of our wealth?
I’m beginning to think Bobbo has the right idea: “vote all incumbents out of office.”
All the bash the banks and mortgage lenders is true enough, but they are not the major reason for the mortgage crises.
Too many people have seen their well paying manufacturing jobs move overseas. Once those jobs left, with them went the health insurance. Now people are trying to make payments with money they no longer have. Is it their fault they lost their job? No, but that is life.
They can’t sell their house simply because all the other people that lost their jobs also are trying to sell theirs. There doesn’t need to be many to have a severe impact on the housing prices.
Then it isn’t just those who lost their jobs. Sudden and overwhelming health costs force many to sell their homes in this already fragile market.
Yes, the massive exodus of jobs to China and the continuing health-care problem are happening on Bushes watch. The blame does stop at his door.
I bought a house a couple years ago and can attest to the lenders trying to loan more money than the borrower could truly afford. When I ran the numbers for my budget on how much house I could afford, it came out $300k under what they were trying to loan me.
Their “reason” for such a high number was they were pushing their ARM, and I could simply refinance for a fixed rate mortgage once the end of the initial low rate was over. Anybody paying attention to their budget and the financial advisers knew better…
Personally I think people who went for it were basically the same as the people who fall for the Nigerian scams… scammed trying to scam someone else. People who borrowed more than they could really afford are morons and I have no sympathy for them.
#18, Daniel,
People who borrowed more than they could really afford are morons and I have no sympathy for them.
You just spent the majority of your post telling us how they tried to sell you more house than you could afford. BUT, you were smart enough to know your limit. Yet, if innocent people got snookered into signing something they did not understand and had explained to them as “ya this is good for you”, somehow this becomes all their fault.
Hey, I went through the same deal when I bought our house. They tried to sell me much more than I knew I could afford. And I said no thank you. And it was only my diligence that stopped them from slipping in bullshit into the purchase. BTW, Title Companies don’t like it when you spend four hours going over every piece of paper and ask for the original when handed a bad photocopy. I can see how many people got taken advantage of though.
Having said that though, the major cause of the mortgage problem has more to do with the economic downturn. Too many houses on the market depressed prices. Normal defaults haven’t changed but because the houses are worth less, the banks are losing money. If prices remained nearly the same and there were some buyers out there then none of this would be happening.
#19
I’m not saying the salesweasels aren’t culpable but we’re not talking about simple purchases here.. if you buy more than you can afford, that is your fault. You signed the paperwork and committed to it. You may be “innocent” but you are also not qualified to be making such purchases if you can’t be bothered to understand the details of the single largest transaction you may ever make in your life.
#20, Daniel,
Buying anything is simple. If you bought a house recently you should understand just how simple that is. I read every single piece of paper and balked at several. Explanations were duly noted on the paper before I signed it.
This was so complicated in fact that I think a lawyer should have been involved for me. The purchaser has a real estate agent and the mortgage broker working for them. Only they don’t; they are only in this for themselves. Once they have their money they are gone.
Over the past few months there were several stories about how naive purchaser were told to lie on the forms and shown crazy math about how they can afford it. That doesn’t make them morons. It just points out what happens when industries can shed oversight and regulations.
as Duke would say… What’s the score… .. what’s next?
as Duke would say… What’s the score… .. what comes next?
Hi All TOP MANAGEMENT
Bad Control and Planning has lead to this stage,
Instead of Sacking, Allow all the guys to work like one Family,
Cut 40 % Pay for Top Management and 30 % to all the employees this way find out the novel way to retain, instead of making them Exit,
One day it will be tough and more costlier to hire guys when you need and people would not come to your Doors since they know many are burnt,
I know recession every where, Inflation every where , they are not the Mantra, Keep everyone in good terms and retain them during all the bad days, defintely everyone will agree to this
Goodwill Vijay