< Countrywide Financial was a chain of 200 or 300 saving and loan companies, sometime called thrift institutions, located in California and Nevada. Countrywide was one of the first mortgage companies to get in trouble writing risky mortgages, including ARMs, (eg adjustable rate mortgages), which provided options where the borrower could elect to make payments on the principal only or even make payments that didn't even cover the monthly principle, but with a provision that would reset the mortgage at least once every five year to the going interest rate and a payment that would amortize the debt. When the interest rate time bombs started going off, Countrywide found itself facing bankruptcy, but was eventually merge with Bank of America, who probably held most of Countrywide's credit default swaps, so the big banks that were heavy into derivatives like CDS ended up holding the bag. Now its just a matter of getting people into the houses so the big banks can retire the old mortgages in default with new mortgages that are performing on the underlying real estate collateral.>
All this was predicated upon the fannie mae and Freddie mac debacle. It is my understanding that the dems pushed through legislation that forced lending institutions to make loans to people (particularly minorities) who could not afford them. I fault the dems for that, and for not reigning in fannie and Freddie. The repubs had majorities in both houses, but decided to fatten themselves, instead of taking care of business, so they get a piece of blame on this too. Bush and the congress have grown the size of government and the cost. In Bush's defense, he did have a war that drove the cost up, but he never said much about what congress was doing either. There's enough blame to go around. The big issue is what is Obama going to do about it. All indications are that he is going to continue to grow government and spending will increase even more. It doesn't look good. Maybe gold is the best thing to invest in, given the dismal outlook.... John Harvey _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[EMAIL PROTECTED]@shelbynet.com ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
