If there's such a thing as too big to fail, no one qualifies more clearly than Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Unfortunately, splitting them up won't get government out of the loan guarantee business. Smaller companies in the subprime industry...
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Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
An anti-foreclosure demonstration outside Fannie Mae headquarters.
Fannie and Freddie, the $5 Trillion Gorillas the U.S. Just Can’t Kill
Photographer: Laura Segall/Bloomberg
In Phoenix, competition among investors has driven home prices up 35 percent, but it's now sending rents downward.
So What Happened to All the People?
There seems to be no shortage of folks willing to provide money to invest in a housing upturn. Only one thing is missing here: individual home buyers. Fewer people are taking out residential purchase loans now than at any time...
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Photographer: David Calvert/Bloomberg
The tracks in the Nevada snow? Underwater homeowners walking away from their homes.
Five Years Late, Walkaways Get a $133 Break
Under new rules, Fannie and Freddie won't try to collect "deficiency judgement," pursuing home owners for the remaining debt on houses they've walked away from. Sounds like a generous move. It's not.
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The Power Ranch community in Gilbert, Arizona Thursday January 12, 2012. (For Bloomberg News/ Laura Segall)
The Recovery Gap, Phoenix Edition
Two stories from Phoenix neatly sum up the mixed economy. Investors and homeowners have benefitted from low interest rates and the Fed's efforts to jump-start the housing market. Investor gains haven't been matched by middle-class income.
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Photographer: Chip Chipman/Bloomberg
Like some of Wall Street's clients, salmon return to their spawning grounds, where they are caught and smoked.
Where Bad Ideas Return to Spawn
A perfect study in Wall Street 's Law of Eternal Return: as Fed buying ends and mortgages slip, property-backed CDOs -- pools of sliced and diced mortgage loans -- are suddenly back.
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Photographer Will Wintercross/Bloomberg News
Dangerous as they can be, prop traders weren't the gorillas who beat up Wall Street.
Prop Trading, the Bogeyman That Didn’t Take Down Wall Street
Is prop trading really the problem with Wall Street? Before you answer, try to recall what caused the collapse of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers Holdings during the financial crisis.
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Photographer: Alessia Pierdomenico/Bloomberg
There's no bucket in the world big enough to fill the sea of mortgage losses.
Billions of Dollars Paid, Still a Drop in the Mortgage Bust Ocean
Is Bank of America's settlement with Fannie Mae fair? Depends on how you count the cost of the mortgage bust. The press concentrates on liar's loans, subprime teaser rates, and sleazy fees. But the whole is more than the sum...
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Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg
John Stucker, a Purdue University student must pay back $80,000 he borrowed.
Out of the Mortgage Frying Pan, Into the Student Loan Fire
What’s going to be the bigger drag on the economy over the next years: the overhang of unpaid mortgages or the burden of student loans? At Bloomberg today, some unexpected answers. First, the mortgage front. Yesterday Bloomberg’s Dan Levy reported...
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