1.  Statement of The Honorable James B. Lockhart III, Director - Federal Housing Finance Agency - Before the House Committee on Financial Services on the Conservatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac 

2.  FHFA Releases New Mortgage Metrics Report - Washington, DC – The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) released its first Mortgage Metrics Report today. The report presents key performance data on 30.4 million first lien residential mortgages with outstanding balances totaling $4.4 trillion serviced on behalf of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from 2007 through the first quarter of 2008. The report focuses on the delinquencies, loss mitigation actions, and foreclosure data reported by more than 3,000 approved servicers.  - Link to FHFA  Mortgage Metrics Report.- 30 pages  

————

Research Roundup: Paulson-Bernanke Plan - has summaries of 12 economists and prominent bloggers -   Research Recap
————

Call Their Bluff - David Merkel - … So, I’m not sure we need any bailout.  As Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism notes, the calls from average people to Capitol Hill are having an impact.  Keep making them.  Call the Treasury’s bluff.  If we prove wrong, well, the next administration will craft its own measures, rather than a bunch of unaccountable lame ducks who are unaccountable even when not lame ducks.   … - The Aleph Blog

————

Bernanke warns against suspending accounting rules - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said suspending mark-to-market, or fair-value, accounting rules would lead to a further deterioration of investor confidence. - Reuters
————

GMAC to sell part of ResCap to Brookfield Asset Management  - … Struggling home and auto lender GMAC will sell part of its Residential Capital unit to Brookfield Asset Management Inc. of Canada as it expands efforts to raise cash, the companies said Tuesday.  The deal is for three GMAC Home Services’ business units: GMAC Global Relocation Services, GMAC Real Estate and GMAC Home Services Mortgage. About 100 Philadelphia-area workers will leave GMAC for Brookfield. … - Bizjournals.com 

————

Wall Street Workers Find New Niches, or Move On - Louise Story - … For every Porsche-driving trader, two to three people at these companies answer the phones, keep the computers running and shine the floors. Their pay was not in the same league as the traders’ and investment bankers’, but they were paid more than they would have been paid for similar work in a different industry. And they shared in the reflected glow. … - NY Times

————

Paper:  The Great Credit Squeeze: How It Happened, How to Prevent Another - The current financial crisis in the United States poses two separate challenges for economic policy: one, to resolve the immediate problems; the other, to reduce the likelihood that these problems recur. - thanks Susan Kulakowski - Brookongs

————

From Securitization.net:
1.  Proposed Changes to Securitization Accounting - Mayer Brown LLP 

2.  FASB releases exposure draft on amendment to FAS 140 - Ernst & Young LLP

————

The federal government is now guaranteeing money market mutual funds-and the banking industry loses another piece of its franchise. Vernon Hill explains at bankstocks.com 
————

Who Bails Out Uncle Sam? - Vitaliy N. Katsenelson - U.S. taxpayers will feel plenty of pain if the bailouts and then the printing presses don’t do the trick. - Forbes 

————

major article - it is long - Bringing Down Wall Street as Ratings Let Loose Subprime Scourge - Elliot Blair Smith -  Frank Raiter says his former employer, Standard & Poor’s, placed a “For Sale” sign on its reputation on March 20, 2001. That day, a member of an S&P executive committee ordered him, the company’s top mortgage official, to grade a real estate investment he’d never reviewed. -  Bloomberg

————

OPEN LETTER TO HENRY PAULSON, U.S. TREASURY DEPARTMENT: Enhancing The Paulson Plan Through the Creation of a Federal Bond Insurance Corporation - Chris Riccardi, chairman, Cohen and Company - thanks Marty Rosenblatt 

————-

Paulson: Treasury Will Force Loan Modifications - Paul Jackson - Starting off his remarks to a key (and often contentious) hearing with members of the House Financial Services Committee by offering a concession on executive pay, Treasury secretary Henry Paulson clearly wanted to get off on the right foot with key legislators that have become increasingly critical of the Bush administration’s proposal to bail out key financial institutions. Paulson signaled… - housingwire

————

REQUIRED READING: A Risk Management Primer - Ann Fulmer - has lots of thoughts including … . But increased volumes and the pressure to do more in less time, AUS use evolved into a final decisioning tool. This unintended use of AUSs created a new risk: decision atrophy.  … - Mortgage Orb

————

WALL STREET WHIZZES LOOK TO HEAD WEST - SELIM ALGAR - NY Post

————

GMAC’s Future May Hinge on Inclusion in US Government Rescue - Ari Levy - Bloomberg

————

String ‘Em Up - As Wall St. burns, regulators seek culprits - Beth Healy  - Boston Globe