Category: Subprime

Uh-oh, FHA’s ailing

24 February, 2010 (13:50) | FHA, Finance, HUD, Subprime, TARP, US News | No comments

By: David A. Smith
 
When everyone else gets sick, even the healthy start having symptoms too.
 

Oh, I should never have gorged on those ‘07 and ‘08 loans
 
As one of only three stores left open, still selling single-family and multifamily long-term financing, the Federal Housing Administration – the GSE from the right side of the blanket, as [...]

Proposing the Financial Invention Review Board: Part 2, requirements

9 February, 2010 (11:36) | Homeownership, Markets, Rental, Subprime, US News | No comments

By: David A. Smith
 
[Continued from yesterday's Part 1.]
 
Yesterday, riffing off a thought-provoking Harvard Business Review op-ed by Lawrence Candell from MIT’s Lincoln Laboratories, we envisioned the composition of a Financial Invention Review Board (FIRB), and bestowed upon it hypothetical powers.
 

“That’s a lot of powers!”
 
Creating a new entity and bestowing upon it such far-reaching powers will [...]

Proposing the Financial Invention Review Board: Part 1, powers

8 February, 2010 (10:41) | Homeownership, Markets, Rental, Subprime, US News | No comments

By: David A. Smith

 
Before we unleash a new financial drug on the world, might it require some clinical field trials?   That question lies behind a fascinating Harvard Business Review op-ed by of all people and places, Lawrence Candell from MIT’s Lincoln Laboratories:
 
What can you do in a democracy when you rely on the private sector [...]

The pay puzzle: Part 2, what should happen, company level

29 January, 2010 (11:21) | Banks, Compensation, Regulation, Speculation, Subprime, Theory, US News | No comments

By: David A. Smith
 
[Continued from yesterday's Part 1.]
 
Yesterday’s post opened the topic of compensating investment bankers and a fortiori investment banks as well, taking as initial text Steven Brill’s New York Times profile of TARP paymaster Kenneth Feinberg. 
 

Put up your dukes, Feinberg!
 
Brill is full of admiration for Feinberg’s jawboning down the bankers’ actual paychecks, [...]

The pay puzzle: Part 1, what should happen, executive level

28 January, 2010 (11:29) | Banks, Compensation, Regulation, Speculation, Subprime, Theory, US News | No comments

By: David A. Smith
 
With the economy in the tank and banks (including the Federal Reserve) making record profits, populist ire has settled on the bankers themselves.  
 

Were you paid a great deal of money?
Yes, we … uh …
Guilty!  Until proven innocent!
 
Deservedly so?  That question is implicit in a lengthy Steven Brill piece in the New [...]