Via Felix, we discover Joe Nocera at the NYT reporting that securitization professionals are not as stupid as they would have had us believe: What [the FDIC] has discovered, said [Michael H. Krimminger, the F.D.I.C.’s special adviser to the chairman for policy], is that the contracts are rarely as constricting as investors and servicers have […]

Was the Great Depression really THE Great One? Apparently not, according to Scott Reynolds Neslon, 19th century historian. The Real Great Depression was the Panic of 1873 [fixed]. The parallels to present day, he says, are unnerving and uncanny. I include practically the entire piece. It is well worth the read. That crash came in […]

Via Dr. Black, Alpha Bank and Trust of Alpharetta is now FDIC-owned. In related news, PNC is paying about $5.6 billion for midwest-based National City, which was a major player in subprime until everyone realized they weren’t any good at it. As noted previously, the claim was that monies given to “regional leaders” such as […]

The leadership at Wells Fargo must be royally peeved at this point: Stable national players like Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo are already digesting acquisitions. A second group of so-called super-regional banks are well positioned to take over their competitors, officials said, but have been reluctant to undertake or unable to complete […]

Right now, Hank Paulson has two choices. or Right now, he claims to be pushing toward the second, but isn’t getting out of the cab.

by Tom Bozzo From my inbox this morning, Nouriel Roubini says, “The world is at severe risk of a global systemic financial meltdown and a severe global depression.” (Tell me something I don’t know.) Go and read the whole article, but here’s Roubini’s plan for immediate action. Is this ‘listen to the guy who’s basically […]

By Divorced one like Bush ”From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,” said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ”If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out […]