Mortgage Buy Sell

HousingWire is reporting Fitch Warns on Option ARMs; â??High Defaults Awaitâ??.

I am going to make a shocking statement. Here it is: Real interest rates are high. Before stating the basis for such a seemingly wild claim it is important to define some terms. In this case "real" means inflation adjusted.

The Guardian is reporting Ospraie fund to close after August hit.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Two former Credit Suisse brokers were charged on Wednesday with fraud and conspiracy over deceptive sales of subprime-related auction-rate debt, government officials said, part of an industrywide probe of the securities.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. economic activity was slow in August amid slack consumer spending, the Federal Reserve said on Wednesday, while one official warned that the credit crunch had offset low Fed interest rates.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Hedge fund manager Ospraie Management LLC will close its flagship fund after it plunged 27 percent in August on losses in energy, mining and natural resources equity holdings, in one of the biggest ever closures of a commodities-focused hedge fund.

So says Jeremy Grantham, co-founder of Boston-based investment firm Grantham, Mayo and Van Otterloo, now known as GMO. Some call him the philosopher king of Wall Street because of his highly insightful views on markets and the economy, usually with a longer-term perspective. In a profession of touts, fast-buck and scam artists, Grantham's commentaries are notably refreshing. They're detailed, scholarly, sober, clear and especially important at a time of unparalleled excesses, great economic uncertainty, voices ranging from gloom and doom to blue skies and all clear ahead, so who knows what to believe. Few people sort things out better than he, and whether right or wrong, he makes consummate sense and should be taken seriously.

He calls his latest commentary "Immoral Hazard" and takes straight aim at the perpetrators. It's not the first time, and with good reason. Bad policy yields bad results with former Fed Chairman Greenspan Exhibit A.

Grantham notes:

"It's not that the former Fed boss...was incompetent that is remarkable. (It's that even now) so many people (still) don't seem to get it." Do they "just believe high-quality, self-justifying blarney?" Or do they think top jobs ipso facto "attract great talent by divine right?"

Often, the most important jobs get "mediocrities" like Greenspan and the current White House occupant. Even worse, Washington is infested with them.

Grantham first learned of Greenspan in the late 1960s when he headed economic consulting firm Townsend-Greenspan & Co. Even then, his assessment was unsparing: "To be brutally honest, he was considered run of the mill by anyone I knew then or have met later who knew" of his work. Consider his "famous" January 1973 call that "it is rare that you can be as unqualifiedly bullish as you now can." It was right at the start of a punishing recession and 60% two-year market decline in real terms, second only at the time to the 1929 crash.

Never one to equivocate, Grantham cuts to the chase and draws blood: Greenspan's call "was one of the first of a long line of terrible prognostications for which he has remarkably 'not' been..

The Debt Slave Act, better known as the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2005 has at long last blown sky high. We will get to "how" in just a moment but first let's review some of the provisions of the bill. Lenders asked for and received everything on their wish list as follows:

HousingWire is reporting S&P Lowers the Boom on 1,326 Alt-A RMBS Classes.

House prices have recorded their largest monthly fall since 1991, says the Nationwide building society.

With a tip of the hat to Michael Masters, it is possible to Quantify Commodities Speculation. Here is the key chart:

Banks and brokers have been scrambling like mad to raise capital in the wake of declining asset prices. In response, some top banks would prefer to pretend that problems do not not exist. For example, please consider Top banks call for relaxed writedown rules.

The debt markets in the US and Europe have begun to flash warning signals yet again, raising fears that the global credit crisis could be entering another turbulent phase.

The fall in UK house prices accelerated this month as a combination of economic uncertainty and disruption in the mortgage markets hit the market.

Here's a new sucker twist on two for the price of one. Please consider Local Developer Offers 2 Homes For Price Of 1.