Calculated Risk

From the WSJ: U.S. House Panel Approves Mortgage Measure (hat tip Ken) A measure to allow judges to reduce the principal amounts of mortgag...

This was from about 10 days ago, but I missed it. Starting Jan 1, 2010, all loans purchased by Freddie and Fannie are required to have loan-...

From the NY Times: Obama Plans Fast Action to Tighten Financial Rules Officials say they will make wide-ranging changes, including stricter...

From Reuters: Lawmakers set new mortgage bankruptcy bill Legislation designed to stem foreclosures by allowing bankruptcy judges to erase s...

The WaPo has an article reviewing how the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) failed to properly regulate lenders: Banking Regulator Played A...

"Suspending mark-to-market accounting, in essence, suspends reality." Beth Brooke, global vice chair at Ernst & Young LLP, WSJ...

From Bloomberg: SEC, FASB Said to Issue Guidance on Fair-Value Accounting Rules The SEC may say companies can rely more on assumptions ...i...

Update to make this clear: I never focused on Section 8 (oversight) of the Paulson Proposal because I felt this was obviously going to be ch...

Here's an article featuring regulators reacting to 3 to 5 year-old news. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601068&sid=aBDDcYv...

Paulson interview starts at about 1 min 30 secs and runs to about 28 minutes. Brokaw ask him what happened to "containment" and a...

From the NY Times: Congress Sends Housing Relief Bill to Bush Here is the WSJ version: Congress Passes Housing Bill First, I think the impac...

Note: Down Payment Assistance Programs (DAPs). Tanta and I have written extensively (and negatively) about DAPs for years. From the WaPo: C...

We had so much fun--I use this word advisedly--with IndyMac and moral hazard yesterday that I have to return to the well. It's a nice de...

I would be remiss if in the excitement today of the banking system apparently going to hell in a handbasket, I neglected to take notice of t...

I hate prepayment penalties and always have. In theory, they work just like an early withdrawal penalty on a certificate of deposit: you are...

The whole essay is worth reading, if only as a refreshing change from the overheated rhetoric of the last few days. Note that Pearlstein w...

From the WSJ: Bernanke, Paulson Push For New Regulatory Powers Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson ... made a point to address the issue of Fa...

From Bloomberg: SEC Probe of Raters Reveals Conflicts in Grading Debt (hat tip DD49) A U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigati...

From the LA Times Money & Co: Regulators to Schumer on IndyMac: Please shut up From a letter to Schumer today, John M. Reich, director ...

From the WSJ: Schumer Asks Regulators For Greater IndyMac Scrutiny (Thanks to all!) Sen. Charles Schumer sent letters to federal regulators...