Re: DOW Up 416.66 : Financial Groups' Correction?

On Wed, 12 Mar 2008 10:12:34 -0500, "John Galt"
<whoisjohngalt@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

>
>"Doobie Keebler" <kooper.db@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
>news:5db55618-3ac5-4c8b-b672-10da7d5aeafc@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> On Mar 11, 7:52 pm, "John Galt" <whoisjohng...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>
>>> The risk to the taxpayers through the window is 200B max.
>>>
>>> Where's the immolation?
>>>
>>> JG
>>
>>
>> UBS' and Merrill Lynch's total expected writedown estimates are around
>> $600bn, still a long way to go from the $180bn currently acknowledged
>> by major banks.
>>
>> How 'bout I meet you half-way on that number?
>
>Not until I get a citation from a source that's not grinding an axe.


Did you the memo from Fannie Mae today?  Want to reevaluate?

"It's only one man's opinion, but Freddie Mac Chief Executive Office
Richard Syron had some rather astounding comments to analysts today:

    - HOME PRICE DROPS "ONLY" ONE THIRD DONE
    - WE'RE IN A 100-YEAR STORM IN HOUSING
    - US IS IN WORST HOUSING MARKET IN A CENTURY
    - APARTMENT'S ROLE IN HOUSING TO BE "MUCH BIGGER"

The most controversial thing Syron was picked up in a Bloomberg
re****t: Federal Rules Let Too Many Poor People Buy Houses, Syron Says.

That is rather inartfully expressed. What I think (or at least hope)
he meant was that too many people -- Home owners formerly known as
renters -- bought houses they simply could not afford.

Here's the excerpt:

    "Freddie Mac Chief Executive Office Richard Syron said he's urging
changes in federal rules that enabled too many low- and
moderate-income Americans to buy houses they can't afford.

    It's "perverse'' that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the two biggest
providers of money for U.S. home loans, have been encouraged "to put
people into homes that they end up losing,'' Syron said at a meeting
with analysts and investors in New York.

    Syron said in an interview that officials at the Department of
Housing and Urban Development seem receptive to his suggestions that
they change the affordable-housing goals for his McLean,
Virginia-based company and Wa****ngton-based Fannie Mae.

    The goals, which were last updated in 2005, require that a certain
amount of the housing units that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac finance
through their overall business and certain sub- segments meet
affordable-housing needs."

"Hmmm, maybe he and I are referring to different things after all!"