Housing Affordability Reaches All-Time High -  by Mark J. Perry - Carpe Diem 

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High Yield Credit Spreads Out of Control - Bespoke Investment Group 

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The 4.5% Mortgage Myth -  also comments on FN and FRE. - Click Broker

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What Would Keynes Do? - Bruce Bartlett  - The government should spend on stuff, not on bad assets. - Forbes 

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Kashkari Says TARP Working, Banks Obligated to Lend - John Brinsley and Robert Schmidt - Bloomberg 

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Crisis Makes High-Risk Mortgages Obsolete - Jack Guttentag - … The data show that the price of a mortgage to very low-risk borrowers for loans smaller than the conforming loan limit of $417,000 was not significantly different at the end of the period than it was at the beginning. (At the beginning of the period, $417,000 was the largest loan eligible for purchase by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.) But on riskier transactions or loans larger than $417,000, borrowers paid increasingly higher prices over the period. In many cases, lenders stopped quoting prices on high-risk loans altogether. … - Washington Post

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The Easiest Way To An AARP Endorsement? Royalty Fees - John Yedinak - Bloomberg journalist Gary Cohn writes an eye opening story about AARP’s influence in Washington and how the company collects hundreds of millions of dollars from insurers who pay for AARP’s endorsement of their policies.  Over the years, AARP has built a brand behind the belief that it offers its members discounts and services to … - Reverse Mortgage Daily 

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Moody’s says Mortgage Loan Modifications Positive for RMBS -  Moody’s takes a more positive view of mortgage loan modifications than Standard and Poor’s in an assessment of the impact of FDIC and FHA programs.  The FDIC’s new loan modification program has the potential to have positive implications for a large number of distressed homeowners and, if successfully and widely utilized, may eventually reduce cumulative losses for mortgage loans underlying U.S. RMBS. - Research Recap

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1.  On Velocity of Money and Deflation:  The Velocity Factor - by John Mauldin - Thoughts from the Frontline Weekly Newsletter 
2.  Eyeing Opportunities in the Global Financial Crisis - John Mauldin’s Outside the Box Special Edition - By George Friedman - Editor’s Note: This article is part of a series on the geopolitics of the global financial crisis. Here we examine how the global financial crisis will affect the Persian Gulf states

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Guidelines for Systemically Significant Failing Institutions Program - The United States Department of the Treasury will determine eligibility of participants and allocation of resources under the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (EESA) pursuant to the Systemically Significant Failing Institutions (SSFI) Program.  Unlike the broad-based Capital Purchase Program, Financial Institutions (as defined in EESA) will be considered for participation in the SSFI Program on a case-by-case basis.  

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Unretired: Retirees are Back, Looking for Work -  They saved. They planned. Then housing tanked and the markets melted. Now they need jobs, and there aren’t any -  BusinessWeek