U.S. Dollar Weaker as Fed Mulls Quantitative Easing

[Soul Crusher]

The WSJ has a great piece today called "Why I am not hiring" which explains what I have been saying forever on these boards - that being - the government on all levels is the enemy of success, progress, and getting out of this mess. 

 

[Straw Man]

LOL if you dont understand why the failure of the mortgage mkt played a role in the financial crises then you should understand why bringing it up isnt going to bring us out of the shitter...

LMAO arent you a finance guy?

you think that if more ppl refi they will spend that money? LMAO wtf are you smoking...they arent going to spend it they are going to put it in the bank...the bank isnt going to invest b/c the economy is shit and they have to raise more capital to meet new requirements...

The reasons the banks arent lending and investing are the same reasons alot of americans arent...you need to provide incentives to lend and the govt is providing incentives to not lend...

the systemic problems in the mortgage market were due in large part to deregulation of the commodities market, unregulated credit default swaps, and eventually to investment bankers creating pools of risk that were designed to fail.  This has almost nothing to do with the current environment (all financed by Fannie, Freddie and HUD).   

I don't disagree with you that there are many other areas of lending where credit is too tight but residential mortgage lending is now virtually a government operation (and this was not the case just a few years ago).   This is why the government has a greater ability to incentivize lending.
Virtually the entire residential mortgage market is now run by the government

[Soul Crusher]

the systemic problems in the mortgage market were due in large part to deregulation of the commodities market, unregulated credit default swaps, and eventually to investment bankers creating pools of risk that were designed to fail.  This has almost nothing to do with the current environment (all financed by Fannie, Freddie and HUD).   

I don't disagree with you that there are many other areas of lending where credit is too tight but residential mortgage lending is now virtually a government operation (and this was not the case just a few years ago).   This is why the government has a greater ability to incentivize lending.
Virtually the entire residential mortgage market is now run by the government

You are beyond blind Straw.  Your ignorance is embarassing.  The implicit Govt. Guranty of mortgages via Fanny/Freddy buying up all those crap loans was one on the mani reasons the ratings agencies was able to put "A" rating on a lot of the bundled securities holding those mortgages. 

Are you seriously this dumb Straw?   I knew you were deluded, but you are a lib so that is to be expected.  But to claim Fanny Freddy was not one of the main causes of the RE sp[eculation and collapse is beyond laughable.   

[Soul Crusher]

Straw - check this out. 

Neither Greenspan, Bernake, Geithner, Krugman, Stiglitz were even remotely close as accurate as Peter in this speech.  Not even close.   

[Straw Man]

You are beyond blind Straw.  Your ignorance is embarassing.  The implicit Govt. Guranty of mortgages via Fanny/Freddy buying up all those crap loans was one on the mani reasons the ratings agencies was able to put "A" rating on a lot of the bundled securities holding those mortgages. 

Are you seriously this dumb Straw?   I knew you were deluded, but you are a lib so that is to be expected.  But to claim Fanny Freddy was not one of the main causes of the RE sp[eculation and collapse is beyond laughable.   

333 - you're close but still completey missed the mark

MBS issued by Fannie/Freddie had implicit govt guarantee (that's a large part of the reason for the current rally in MBS)

The scam with the rating agencies was with non-govt MBS (think about AIG and their huge, unsecured credit default swaps).  Those are loans that started going bad first and became an avalanche that eventually sucked in even A paper loans (when asset values started to crumble)

[tonymctones]

the systemic problems in the mortgage market were due in large part to deregulation of the commodities market, unregulated credit default swaps, and eventually to investment bankers creating pools of risk that were designed to fail.  This has almost nothing to do with the current environment (all financed by Fannie, Freddie and HUD).   

I don't disagree with you that there are many other areas of lending where credit is too tight but residential mortgage lending is now virtually a government operation (and this was not the case just a few years ago).   This is why the government has a greater ability to incentivize lending.
Virtually the entire residential mortgage market is now run by the government

I agree about the current crises but technically there was plenty of regulation and oversight to prevent the melt down...ppl being asleep at the switch, not understanding how individual actions when coupled together created big problems that could have been prevented...nothing that lead to this current shit hole we were in wasnt preventable and preventable by the legislation that was already in place at the time.

I agree with the residential market but again that is supply side...the demand side needs the money and motive to buy a home...that wont happen b/c of what the govt does with fannie or freddie...

[Straw Man]

I agree about the current crises but technically there was plenty of regulation and oversight to prevent the melt down...ppl being asleep at the switch, not understanding how individual actions when coupled together created big problems that could have been prevented...nothing that lead to this current shit hole we were in wasnt preventable and preventable by the legislation that was already in place at the time.

I agree with the residential market but again that is supply side...the demand side needs the money and motive to buy a home...that wont happen b/c of what the govt does with fannie or freddie...

credit default swaps were completey unregulated and were at the heart of the creation of the asset bubble.

There was actually a very good article at freerepublic.com (conservative site).  If I can find it I'll post it.  I thought it gave a great summary of this entire mess

[Bindare_Dundat]

I hate it when i spend a bunch of time typinf soemthing only to find I accidentally erased a bunch of it. Im too lazy to repeat it but theres some good posts here, lets just try to cut out some of the sarcasm.

[tonymctones]

No one mentioned the Fed's trillion + dollar purchases of MBS as well. It seems that the purchases may  just swing back and forth from Fannie andd Freddie and then back to the Fed.

LOL no doubt that will undoubtedly sit on the feds books for some time...inflation is headed our way

[tonymctones]

credit default swaps were completey unregulated and were at the heart of the creation of the asset bubble.

There was actually a very good article at freerepublic.com (conservative site).  If I can find it I'll post it.  I thought it gave a great summary of this entire mess

agreed but you see first you had to have the ability to make loans that didnt need to be made and then group them together...

it wasnt just that one step...it was multiple steps that lead to it...if you stop one then you prevent the melt down...

again plenty of regulation and oversight in place that could have stopped it...another thing is you had the same ppl rating the bonds selling them...does that seem like conflict of interest to anyone? LMAO

[Bindare_Dundat]

LOL no doubt that will undoubtedly sit on the feds books for some time...inflation is headed our way

yeah, I had more to it but erased it. oooops. maybe I'll have the patience to make my point on what i started later.

[Bindare_Dundat]

WASHINGTON — Government-controlled mortgage buyer Freddie Mac is asking for $1.8 billion in additional federal aid after posting a larger loss in the second quarter.

Freddie Mac said Monday it lost $6 billion, or $1.85 per share, in the April-to-June period. The company is required to pay a 10 percent annual dividend to the Treasury Department on money it has received from the government. That made up $1.3 billion of the company's second-quarter losses.

The company lost $840 million, or 26 cents a share, in the same quarter last year.

The government rescued McLean, Va.-based Freddie Mac and sibling company Fannie Mae from the brink of failure nearly two years ago. The new request means they have needed $148.2 billion to stay afloat, about $63.1 billion of which is being used by Freddie Mac.

Freddie Mac is losing money from bad loans it backed, many of them before the housing market went bust. It had $118 billion in bad loans at the end of June, up from $103.4 billion at the end of last year. It owned more than 62,000 foreclosed properties in June, up from about 35,000 a year earlier.

Both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have both lost tens of billions of dollars during the past two years and both are asking the government to prop them up. Last week, Fannie Mae requested $1.5 billion after posting a loss of $3.13 billion, or 55 cents per share, in the second quarter.

Still, the two companies are taking different approaches to their situations. Fannie Mae sounded optimistic about its future. Freddie Mac offered a more tempered view.

"We recognize that high unemployment and other factors still pose very real challenges for the housing market," CEO Charles Haldeman said in a statement. "With that in mind, we continue to focus on the quality of the new business we are adding to our book to be responsible stewards of taxpayer funds."

Fannie and Freddie own or guarantee about half of all U.S. mortgages, or nearly 31 million home loans worth more than $5 trillion. They buy home loans from lenders, package them into bonds with a guarantee against default and sell them to investors.

[Straw Man]

a nice succinct explanation of how the financial markets all appeared to meltdown at the same time: 

http://www.moneyweek.com/news-and-charts/economics/how-aigs-failure-was-fundamental-to-the-banking-collapse-13796.aspx