posted by Bill Coppedge

Government’s Role in the Housing Problem - Mark J. Perry - Carpe Diem

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Buy Bank Stocks for Your Kids - Jeffrey McLarty - seeking alpha

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1.  Lifting Fannie, Freddie Mortgage Limits Could Help Investors Most - CNNMoney.com 
2.  ‘Jumbo Conforming’ Won’t Be Part of TBA Trades: SIFMA -  housingwire

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Latest Mortgage Bailout Plan Misses the Mark - … Loan servicing operations are almost completely automated and not set up to handle calls from thousands … Cecala explains. He estimates servicers would have to handle roughly 8,000 calls a day in order to help all borrowers who need it. “You can’t hire enough people to do it and you’re not motivated to hire people to do it because you’re not getting paid,” he says. -  SmartMoney.com 

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Housing and Monetary Policy - has charts and link to John Taylor’s paper - … Incidentally, if you recognize the name Taylor — as in Taylor rule — they are one and the same  person. …  The Big Picture

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Freddie Mac Makes Changes in Bid to Boost Mortgage Insurers - housingwire

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From BANKSTOCKS.COM: You won’t believe this. Some subprime mortgage loans are actually current. - If you look at the credit performance of the MBS that underly the subprime ABX indices, you won’t see the across-the-board gloom and doom you might have expected. - Tom Brown -  bankstocks.com

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New Trouble in Auction-Rate Securities - Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and other banks have been telling investors the market for these securities is frozen — and so is their cash. -  NY Times

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Fed trying to solve the riddle of Wall Street vs. Main Street - Must falling prices for fixed-income securities, now roiling global credit markets, stabilize before prices in the U.S. housing market, matching would-be buyers and sellers of homes, find a bottom? - Chicago Tribune
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Ignore the Obituaries, The U.S. Reign Will Endure - Mark J. Perry - Carpe Diem

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VIDEO: Jim Rogers: Price Controls on Interests Rates and Commodities Make it Worse - thanks to Vigilant Investor
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You’re Invited . . . To Pay Your Mortgage - Lenders Get Creative to Reach Borrowers in Default - …  Wells Fargo is disguising its letters in different colored envelopes, including some resembling wedding invitations.  …  - Washington Post

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1.  Behind Buffett’s Bond Gambit -  The Berkshire Hathaway chief’s offer to reinsure $800 billion in munis may signal a move to dominate the bond insurance biz -  BusinessWeek

2.  What Would Warren Do? - John Mauldin’s Weekly E-Letter 

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Paulson Foreshadows Proposals to Tighten Loan Rules - Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said U.S. regulators plan to alter rules for packaging loans into bonds in the aftermath of the subprime-credit collapse. … Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, who testify before Congress today, first want markets to stabilize … - Bloomberg