The Subprime Wolves Are Back -  The new game is FHA-backed loans, and it could cost taxpayers billions more -  BusinessWeek

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Congratulations – Laurie Goodman has a new home. – Top UBS Bond Analyst Moves On – By PAUL JACKSON – housingwire
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FDIC Announces Availability of IndyMac Loan Modification Model – “Mod in a Box” Road Map Now Available to Institutions -…The Program is designed to achieve affordable and sustainable mortgage payments for borrowers and increase the value of distressed mortgages by rehabilitating them into performing loans. Under the terms of the Program, borrowers receive a loan modification with a maximum 38% down to 31% housing-to-income ratio through the use of interest rate reduction, amortization term extension, and in some cases, principal deferment.  …

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has a fun map – Degrees of Hank Paulson – by Jennifer LaFleur, Dan Nguyen and Lisa Schwartz – thanks Susan Kulakowski – ProPublica 
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New Tack in Default Battle: Cutting Mortgage Principal – By RUTH SIMON – thanks Susan Kulakowsik  – Wall street Journal
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bearish but quite interesting – lots of charts – eLetter Update – GMR Newsletter – 20 Nov 2008 – R. Buss – Randolph Buss’ – Global Macro Roundtable Letter 
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1.  A Tax Raise? You Bet -  Susan Lee – Forbes 

2.  US FED: Lacker – Recovery in 2009 Plausible, Shocks Dampening – Forbes

3.  Mass Production Vs. McMansions – Maurna Desmond – When U.S. housing recovers, the leading homebuilders may not be the ones to benefit. – Forbes

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1.  Fed May Lean Toward Quantitative Easing, Bullard Says – Steve Matthews – The Federal Reserve has limited room to cut its target interest rate and may shift the focus of monetary policy more to increasing liquidity, said James Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.  – Bloomberg

2.  Fed’s Evans Sees `Substantial’ Slump Into 2009 -  Bloomberg

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Futures exchanges close to getting OK to handle credit default swaps – By Josh Boak – Federal regulators are readying approvals for futures exchanges such as the CME Group and the IntercontinentalExchange to enter the $50 trillion credit default swaps market by mid-December, according to testimony before a congressional committee Thursday. – Chicago Tribune

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Major Bank Failure Could Spur Losses of Over $1,500 Billion -  The failure of a single major financial institution could result in losses to the OTC derivatives market of $300-$400 billion, a new working paper* finds. What’s more, since such a failure would likely cause cascading failures of other institutions, the total global financial system losses could exceed $1,500 billion, according to the paper by International Monetary Fund staff. The paper does not represent the IMF’s official view. – Research Recap

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Revised Fair-Value Rule Is Weaker: Moody’s – Marie Leone -  It’s harder for investors to compare banks’ financial statements now that IAS 39 lets them decide whether to reclassify “held for sale” assets as “held to maturity,” the rating agency says. – CFO.com 
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Counterparty Risk and Potential Losses from OTC Derivatives – Zubin Jelveh – In February, Barlcays estimated that if one major institution went down, there would most likely be between $36-$47 billion in losses due to counterparty risk in the credit default swap market as risk was repriced. A similar CDS study by BNP Paribas put the figure at $150 billion in potential losses. – portfolio.com 

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Krugman and El-Erian in the Valley of FUD – In his excellent book, “When Markets Collide”, PIMCO chief Mohammed El-Erian writes about the journey and the destination that the global economy and markets are undergoing … describes a world that will be but is clear to note that the process of getting there may be “bumpy”.   Nobel laureate Paul Krugman points to the same concept in his blog posting yesterday (“After the Stimulus”) in which he lists the components of the US economy for 2007 and their averages from 1979 to 2007. – Vinny Catalano
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It’s FICO’s Fault:  The Smoking Gun – By 2004, the FICO system was gamed. – The Financial Road to Socialism

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3 good charts – O.C. HOUSING MARKET: SALES BOOMING, PRICES NOT  -  The Orange County residential real estate market—which we semi-obsess over around here because it’s so close to ground zero of the real estate crunch,…  -   Matt Stichnoth  – bankstocks.com
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PIMCO’s November 2008 Global Central Bank Focus, “The Paradox of Deleveraging Will Be Broken” by Paul McCulley, is now available at PIMCO

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Real Price of Gas Continues to Drop = $300B Savings  – by Mark J. Perry – Carpe Diem