Treasury’s New Solution: “Greenies” – Bruce Krasting – Treasury is faced with a difficult task. They have to sell several trillion in debt. … Rumor has it that there is a plan to address this dilemma. I was not invited to this big party so this info comes third hand. A draft proposal:  … This would be a new security for Treasury. There is no maturity. It never pays back. It is also unusual in that it is a re-set floater. It will be priced at a spread over the two-year note. The amount of that spread is being hotly contested.  This deal is the brainchild of Mr. Geithner. … – Zero Hedge

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Saving homes with a ‘right to rent’ – By Dean Baker  – The plan would help owners facing foreclosure and preserve neighborhoods. – LA Times Opinion
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Report: Economists Say Recession Over, Want Bernanke to Stay – Economists date the start of the recession to December 2007 — defining much of Ben Bernanke’s term as Federal Reserve chairman — and a majority in a Wall Street Journal survey agree that the recession is coming to an end. – FOXNews.com 

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In The Fed We Trust – But should we? Is Ben Bernanke the right man for the job?  – By Daniel Gross – Newsweek Web Exclusive

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Stratfor’s Friedman: ‘Probability of Bernanke Being Reappointed to the Fed is Near Zero’ – Private intelligence agency CEO gives Fed Chair no chance of second term, despite wishes of Wall Street. -  By Jeff Poor – Business & Media Institute 

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PPIP Managers Hit With One-Month Setback – Asset Backed Alert – The U.S. Treasury Department has quietly notified the nine asset-management groups chosen to set up funds under its Public-Private Investment Program that the effort’s timetable has been pushed back by at least a month. -Securitization.net

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Derivatives Legislation – from American Securitization Forum:
1.  — A summary of the proposed derivatives legislation is available here:
2.  — The full text is available here:
3.  — Other proposed regulatory reform legislation, as well as the Administration’s white paper, is available here:
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About 60,000 Refinance Mortgages Under U.S. Government Program – By Renae Merle – A government program that allows borrowers with little or no equity in their home to refinance has helped about 60,000 homeowners so far, according to government data released Thursday. The refinancing program is part of the Obama administration’s massive housing program, known as Making Home Affordable, which has a goal of helping 5 million borrowers over three years. It is aimed at borrowers who could not qualify for traditional refinancing because they had less than 20 percent equity in their home …  – Washington
Post

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Ginnie Mae President Murin Said to Resign Tomorrow – By Dawn Kopecki – … Murin, who joined Ginnie Mae on July 1, 2008, plans to pursue private business opportunities, according to the people … “Many if not most of the new Ginnie Mae loans are very likely to default,” said Julian Mann, who helps manage $5.5 billion in fixed income securities at First Pacific Advisors LLC in Los Angeles. “You have to be out of your mind to be at the top of one of these GSEs now. Who in their right mind would wants to be in the position of managing these toxic assets?” … – Bloomberg

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Expand CRA & Government: Reversing the Damage – JOHN TAYLOR  -  What will it take to resume credit flows to low- and moderate-income neighborhoods?  – … One immediate remedy is the CRA Modernization Act of 2009. This proposed law would strengthen the existing Community Reinvestment Act to make it more effective and expand CRA’s purview to financial institutions other than banks. … – The American Prospect

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TALF leverage overview – A number of Sober Look readers have asked to see the leverage levels the Fed is providing via TALF. The leverage varies by maturity and by asset class. There are several ways to show leverage – here we show it as “assets to equity” ratio. That is if you invest a dollar, how many dollars worth of assets you would control. – Sober Look Blog

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A Dark-Horse Prospect to Replace Bernanke? – By Steven Sloan, American Banker – While Lawrence Summers, the director of the National Economic Council, is the most visible potential successor to Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke, observers are increasingly looking west and finding a dark-horse candidate in Janet Yellen. – Bank
Investment Consultant

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Loophole in government program to buy toxic securities could cost taxpayers – By Ralph Vartabedian – Without safeguards, traders in the $40-billion program could use inside information to profit — and any losses would be largely borne by taxpayers. – LA Times

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Plan:  Super Clunkers – How Congress Can Double US Vehicle Sales – By Bill Zielinski -  Mortgaged Future

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On Fed Intervention and the Blogs – A week ago a great debate was stirred in the financial blog world. As is often the case Zero Hedge was in the middle of the fracas. Mr. Durden penned a piece that suggested that the Fed was manipulating the auctions in such a way as to benefit the primary dealers…. This is timed intervention. That is a polite way to say manipulation.  …  – Bruce Krasting Blog 

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ACORN Targets HAMP Noncompliance - By AUSTIN KILGORE – The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) announced it’s targeting servicers it says aren’t complying with the guidelines of the Making Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) in its latest protest campaign.  In the first phase of ACORN’s “Home Wrecker” campaign, it used demonstrations in cities nationwide to protest servicers who hadn’t signed on to HAMP, targeting what it called the “Home Wrecker Four” – housingwire

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The free market did not cause the mortgage crisis - Charlotte Libertarian Examiner – Kris Wampler – … In other words, normal market conditions – the kind that would exist if we lived in a free market – would never have allowed the sort of risky loans that exploded in the subprime crisis.  … But, as usual, government won’t take the blame for the disaster it caused.  It never does.  Similar policies created and exacerbated the Great Depression, but most people mistakenly blame capitalism.  The story always plays out the same way: government meddling creates the problem, and the only solution politicians can ever come up with is more meddling. … Examiner Indianapolis

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How Gov’t. Turned American Dream Into Nightmare – Mark Perry – … Bottom Line: More support for the high likelihood that the global financial crisis, mortgage tsunami, and housing bubble can all be traced to federal government intervention to create affordable housing … – Carpe Diem Blog