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Wednesday, April 09, 2008

A Billion Here & A Billion There . .

. . . and pretty soon you're talking about real money. As in a trillion smackeroos.

That is the amount the International Monetary Fund predicts that loses stemming from the U.S. mortgage crisis may approach in citing a "collective failure"’ to predict the breadth of the crisis.

Falling U.S. house prices and rising delinquencies may lead to $565 billion in mortgage-market losses, the also IMF said in its annual Global Financial Stability report. Total losses, including the securities tied to commercial real estate and loans to consumers and companies, may reach $945 billion, the fund said.

More here.

Cartoon by Signe Wilkinson/Philadelphia Daily News
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1 comment:

  1. cognitorex10:07 AM

    "Leverage" An off off Wall Steet Drama

    .

    "Who's knocking on our door ?" the CFO of a huge investment bank asked.
    "Why it's the government Banking Auditor. It's his day of the week to ask us to mark our assets to market."
    "Are we in shape for his visit?"
    "Uhm, Yes and no. Sorta good news, bad news."
    "What's the good news?"
    "We've done the math and we figure our remaining mortgages on the books, good and bad, are worth $43 billion, so we're okay."
    "What's the bad news?"
    "Uhm, well, nobody will buy any mortgage paper at the moment and some righteous auditors have been saying, no valid quotes, no value."
    "That's absurd. That would mean we have negative equity."
    "Shhh! He's leaving. Bernanke's got him on the phone."

    ReplyDelete