This study is offensive. It provides no useful or actionable information. What are we supposed to do, start giving borrowers math tests? It was clearly undertaken to support an agenda and disguise the truth — the opposite of what academic pursuits are supposed to do. Everyone involved should be embarrassed.

Ignorance and stupidity is no excuse for losing a trillion dollars. The truth is that the CEO’s of all the Wall Street banks encouraged a casino culture of greed and gambling. The generation of fees became the sole driving incentive for every firm. It started with collateralizing subprime mortgages into packages of mortgage backed securities. Then they created Credit Default Swaps as insurance on these mortgages. When they ran out of chumps to put into houses, they created side bets with Credit Default Obligations that didn’t require an actual homeowner.

This article originally appear on the Irvine Housing Blog The ARM Problem has not gone away. Today we examine an updated ARM reset schedule and consider its impact on our local housing market. it’s time for me to get away from here just thought you oughta know the end is near did you honestly think it would’ve worked [...]

A press release from Nielson Wire has an interesting map of home equity that also reads as a map of the housing bubble’s deflation. Today’s featured property is riding the updraft of FED interest air and overtopping its peak value. The boys from North Dakota They drink whisky for their fun And the cowboys down in Texas [...]

HS found a great video showing clips from Ben Bernanke and a bunch of other financial and media folks talking about how strong the economy was and how there was no housing bubble. I watched this video a couple of times and this chilling thought struck me: These same people are still running the show. [...]