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The White House said Monday that the federal takeover of troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could have been prevented if Congress had only acted on its recommendations for changing the system, but housing experts say it's more complicated than that.
Three corporate executives called in for a shaming by Democratic lawmakers Friday defended raking in hundreds of millions of dollars despite contributing to the subprime mortgage crisis that has their companies reeling from losses and the nation on the edge of recession.
After a slow and stumbling start, official Washington is scrambling to try to prevent the unfolding mortgage crisis from pushing the country into recession during an election year. There is a strong feeling, though, that the government will need to do more to avert a financial disaster.
President Bush on Thursday signed a measure to provide financial relief for financially strapped homeowners facing foreclosure or in bankruptcy.
The Senate moved against the worsening mortgage crisis Friday, voting to make it easier for thousands of homeowners with ballooning interest rates to refinance into federally insured loans.
Be ready to wait if you want to get information from a toll-free hot line about freezing the interest rate on your subprime mortgage.
By prodding the mortgage industry to help troubled borrowers, the Bush administration's response to the housing crisis has reshuffled the likely winners and losers — except no one can agree on who they are.
Hundreds of thousands of strapped homeowners could get some relief from a plan negotiated by the Bush administration to freeze interest rates on subprime mortgages that are scheduled to rise in the coming months.
President Bush is not doing enough to help the vast number of homeowners at risk of foreclosure and to fix the mortgage crisis that is roiling financial markets, Democratic White House candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Edwards said Wednesday.
The Bush administration has come up with a plan to help strapped homeowners facing a daunting jump in their monthly mortgage payments. The proposal, reached in negotiations led by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson with the mortgage industry, would freeze introductory "teaser" rates on subprime mortgages, preventing them from resetting to higher rates for five years.
Sunrise to Bank of America: Clean up your actJust ask Mayor Roger Wishner, who helped kill a multimillion-dollar city partnership with Merrill Lynch because parent company Bank of America has been accused of being mean to the little guy.
Wall Street: Betting on our deathsWith the home mortgage crisis dragging along, consumer borrowing still lagging, and crises looming in other sectors like commercial real estate, Wall Street is desperate for a new product to kick-start securities markets.
Moore Vs. HannitySean Hannity is @!$%#ing nuts. Period. He blames Carter for starting the economic collapse, and then Clinton for perpetuating it. Where the hell are the almost twenty years of Republican leadership mentioned? They aren't...
A Poisonous Cocktail. Expanding the Community Reinvestment Act.As we try to shake off the financial crisis, here's a bright idea. Take a law that has led to the writing of an enormous amount of bad mortgages and expand it. Then take enforcement away from bank examiners and give it to housing activists.
None of the Obama administration's banking reforms help middle-class AmericansThe Obama administration, which has spent much of the past year bailing out banks and protecting the markets, has done shockingly little to help the middle class that has borne the brunt of the financial meltdown. Two acts are particularly revealing.
Obama warns Wall Street not to block tighter regsNEW YORK (AP) - Lecturing Wall Street on its own turf, President Barack Obama warned financial leaders not to use the recovering economy to race back into "reckless behavior" that could cause a new meltdown. He declared that a bailout-weary public will not break their fall again.
Poverty Rate Rose in 2008, Census Finds In the recession last year, the nation's poverty rate climbed to 13.2 percent, up from 12.5 percent in 2007, according to an annual report released Thursday by the Census Bureau.
Bail-Out Bonuses at Banks that Got the Most $ from U.s. - $1 Million a Head...Hundreds and Hundreds of HeadsThousands of top traders and bankers on Wall Street were awarded huge bonuses and pay packages last year, even as their employers were battered by the financial crisis. More Articles
Have the Banks Gone Crazy? Wells Fargo Sues ItselfThe world of mortgage foreclosures just spun out of orbit. Wells Fargo is suing itself. To make matters worst Wells Fargo hired a lawyer to defend itself against itself.
In a recent news article, it was announced that the Senate defeated a bill that would allow bankruptcy judges to adjust the terms of mortgages. What are they trying to do?
Housing Discrimination Complaints Are Up, Says HUDDespite the mortgage crisis, new data shows that people continue to be denied fair housing. Which underrepresented group filed the highest number of complaints?
U.S. Program to Help Banks Sell Bad Assets Is Halted...some analysts said the banks' reluctance to clean up their balance sheets meant they were merely postponing their day of reckoning. Indeed, some analysts said government policies had made it easier for banks to gloss over their bad loans. More Articles
This Memorial Day Weekend: Remember The MarginalizedAn important essay on the importance of recognizing and remembering the often overlooked casualties of economic warfare.
House Price Drops Leave More UnderwaterThe downturn in home prices has left about 20% of U.S. homeowners owing more on a mortgage than their homes are worth, according to one new study, signaling additional challenges to the Obama administration's efforts to stabilize the housing market.
Fannie Loses $23 Billion, Prompting Even Bigger BailoutFannie Mae reported yesterday that it lost $23.2 billion in the first three months of the year as mortgage defaults increasingly spread from risky loans to the far-larger portfolio of loans to borrowers who have been considered safe.
The Subprime 25: The Top 25 Lenders Responsible For Almost $1 Trillion Of Subprime LoansToday, the Center for Public Integrity releases the results of its investigation into the housing crisis, which showed that investment banks, some of which were recipients of billions of taxpayer dollars through the federal bailout, made major investments in subprime lending.
Freddie Mac Official Dead in Apparent Suicide - washingtonpost.comThe acting chief financial officer of troubled mortgage giant Freddie Mac was found dead in his Fairfax County home early this morning after an apparent suicide, according to Fairfax police.
Rahm Emanuel's profitable stint at mortgage giant Fannie MaePerhaps in keeping with the President's war on Capitalism, war on wealth and success, Mr. Emanuel should be required to return his "bonus" to it's rightful owners, The U. S. Treasury.
U.S. to Detail Plan to Rein In Finance WorldThe Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, will outline the broad revamping of the regulatory system, which goes further than expected, in a hearing on Thursday.
US Details Toxic Asset ProgrammeThe US has announced details of a plan to buy up to $1 trillion (£686bn) worth of toxic assets to help repair banks' balance sheets. More Articles
Kansas-based credit union's woes will cost the entire industryU.S. Central's deficit, which exceeds $5 billion, helped trigger a $4.7 billion assessment against the country's 8,400 credit unions, from the billion-dollar giants to the throng of one- and two-employee shops.
Fort Myers area home sales up 100 percent : Real Estate : Naples Daily NewsSales are back up in one of the ground zero areas for the national economic crisis, due to fire sale foreclosure prices.
How Dumb Does Alan Greenspan Think We Are? Very"Don't blame me," argues Alan Greenspan in a piece of historical revisionism that would have embarrassed Kurt Waldheim. Greenspan offered up a Panglossian analysis in today's Wall Street Journal that goes something like this:
No Mortgage Pinch for Obama, Team As mortgage foreclosure rates hit record highs, one small group of homeowners remains relatively immune to the pressures confronting millions of other Americans: those at the highest levels of the Obama administration.
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