World-News

By Mike Whitney

8 million homeowners are behind on their payments! And, that's not all; mortgage applications dropped 9.6 per cent last week while the Refinance Index (refis) fell 9 per cent in the same period. So, mortgage apps are down even though the Firsttime Homebuyer Tax Credit is still in effect (it ends in two weeks) and, even though this is the "peak season" for home sales.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25230.htm

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Short the delusion

Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Doug French

04/20/10

Ask the average guy on the street — Main or Wall — about what caused the meltdown on Wall Street in 2008, and you might get ‘greed,’ or ‘arrogance,’ or ‘too much leverage,’ or ‘too little regulation,’ or a blank stare. After all, the arcane world of mortgage securities was new. After the dot-com bust, Wall Street needed products to make money on. And with middle Americans figuring they could collectively get rich just by taking title to a home with no money down and watching the value climb to the heavens (extracting money to maintain their lifestyles along the way), well, that’s what Wall Street’s all about: something for nothing...

http://mises.org/daily/4283


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



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