Talk:Subprime mortgage crisis

Useful article

This press report from 1999 may be of help: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE7DB153EF933A0575AC0A96F958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1 Martin Baldwin-Edwards 08:52, 6 October 2008 (CDT)

I also found this (pdf download) a good source too. The growth of the mortgage bond market in the 80s is described in Michael Lewis' "Liar's Poker" (Chapter 5 et seq). J. Noel Chiappa 13:57, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Article title

Most coverage I have seen uses the term Subprime mortgage crisis (i.e. singular) - should this be there? J. Noel Chiappa 13:59, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't understand this question. Nick Gardner 15:00, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Should the article be named Subprime mortgage crisis (singular) rather than Subprime mortgages crisis (plural)? Most news coverage I have seen uses the former (singular). J. Noel Chiappa 16:35, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Noel. This article should be written in U.S. English and in U.S. English "subprime mortgage crisis" is correct. --Larry Sanger 12:48, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

I have no objection. Nick Gardner 14:02, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

According to CZ rules, this article is written in British English. I do not understand why you think it should be in US English, Larry. The use of singular or plural in the title is a matter of convention, and there is no problem with conforming to popular usage if it is the dominant one. Martin Baldwin-Edwards 14:54, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Text clarification

At one the article says:

Bank mortgages came to account for a substantial proportion of a market that had previously been dominated by the government-sponsored agencies (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac)

But I'm a little unclear on exactly what's meant here. Does it mean that banks were turning mortgages they held into securities without going through FNMA/FHLMC (either directly themselves, or by selling them to investment banks which did the repackaging), whereas prior to that most such securitization had been performed by FNMA/FHLMC? J. Noel Chiappa 13:57, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid that I know no more than is contained in the references. Nick Gardner 14:40, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

What I was saying was that I didn't understand what you meant by the sentence fragment I quoted. Could you rephrase it to make it a little clearer? J. Noel Chiappa 16:35, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

I do not have up-to-date figures, but the October report of the Senate Joint Economic Committee [1] Part 3 says - in the paragraph headed "Most subprime loans are securitized via non-agency conduits" - that in 2004 the two Government-sponsored enterprise were responsible for 28% of issues in the lower-priced part of the market and a negligible proportion elsewhere. That is what the paragraph was intended to convey. If you know of later figures, please let me know. Nick Gardner 14:49, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Confession and invitation

I have been mainly preccupied with the "Crash of 2008" etc, and I may not have consulted some ot the important sources of material for this article. I will try to get round to doing another search, but in the meantime I should welcome a contribution from someone else Nick Gardner 14:57, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure if you consider the New York Times a good source, but I've found a number of their articles to be pretty enlightening. If you'd like, I can look some up and list them here. J. Noel Chiappa 16:35, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes please! Nick Gardner 18:08, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I trawled through my clippings file, looking for US mortgage-mess-related stories, and this is a good chunk of what I have on a first pass from the last couple of months:

February:

• Mortgage Crisis Spreads Past Subprime Loans

March:

• What Created This Monster?

July:

• Mortgage Fears Depress Shares at Two Agencies
• Loan Pains Turned Site Into a Hit
• About Those Loans - Editorial
• Loan-Agency Woes Swell From a Trickle to a Torrent
• Protected by Washington, Companies Ballooned
• Fannie, Freddie and You, by Paul Krugman
• The Future of Fannie and Freddie
• Too Big to Fail?

August:

• Housing Lenders Fear Bigger Wave of Loan Defaults
• Calculating Where Home Prices Will Land
• Home Equity Frenzy Was a Bank Ad Come True
• In the Central Valley, the Ruins of the Housing Bust
• Agency's Head Expects Banking's Crisis to Worsen

September:

• Mortgage Giant Overstated the Size of Its Capital Base
• In Rescue to Stabilize Lending, U.S. Takes Over Mortgage Finance Titans
• As Crisis Grew, a Few Options Shrank to One
• Few Stand to Gain on This Bailout, and Many Lose
• The Power of De, by Paul Krugman
• The Dilemma of Fannie and Freddie
• Reinventing Mortgage Giants: A Big Rebuild or a Teardown?
• Big Payments Are Expected in Credit Default Swaps
• Federal Mortgage Success Stories
• U.S. Holds the Whip Hand in Modifying Mortgages
• All Grown Up and, Some Say, Unneeded
• Some Seek Agency to Buy Bad Debt as Long-Term Answer
• Perhaps, It's Time to Play Offense

October:

• Home Prices Seem Far From Bottom

This isn't all of them (there are parts of my collection I haven't had time to check yet) but I wanted to put what I had online as I have to go off for the rest of the day. Note: There are no stories about individual banks which failed, because I don't generally clip/keep stories about individual institutions.

There's also this which contains all their mortgage-related stuff, but it's pretty voluminous; however, for looking further back in time, it might be useful.

Sorry it's all from the NYT - I read other things (e.g. News International Pakistan) but my economic-related stuff mostly comes from the NYT. J. Noel Chiappa 19:10, 26 October 2008 (UTC)