I'll take that - for now

Apparently the Big Banks are fallible. Who knew?

I'd put a smiley at the end of that, except it wouldn't be taken (by some) for the dark humor it would be.

Perhaps, as Karl E. Case, an economist notes, it's the wake-up call the economy the banks needed? Mind you, an entity that's intent on pushing to get as many "assets" (houses, with families in them) onto the market as quickly as possible is not going to notice the idiocy of doing just that.

This isn't the man who made for widgets for $5 and sold them for $4.95 saying he'll make it up in volume. This is the man who repossesses those same widgets, with their $5 price tags still attached - and sells them for $2.19. And he still thinks he'll make a profit. Even though he has no idea how much each one cost him, because it wasn't actually $5 - that was the number he recorded, but it's not the real number. No one knows the real number. Hmm... This reminds me of something... Oh, yeah, I remember - a global economic collapse that happened not too long ago. :-)

(Now I can put the darkly humorous smiley... )

This whole "robo-signer" thing was bound to bite back - you simply can't get away with it for an extended period before someone either develops a conscience getting to them, or someone figuring out the pattern. (Yeah, it would suck to be part of the pattern.)

Stopping the foreclosures will help all concerned - the homeowners, the bankers, the real estate market. Some breathing room was required. Goodness knows, Larry Summers was intent on breaking ribs, resuscitating "his patient" (a paraphrase). Tim, good ol' Tim, wasn't sure if he could persuade Larry the sky was blue on a sunny day; he was right - Larry would dispute it because a cloud showed up in Outer Mongolia. So some uncertainty in the mortgage backed market is bound to happen. All of that debt is now bad, except for the bits that are known to be good, but like good Austrian dimwits economists would conclude, that which is good now surely needs an injection of cash and hence must be bad. I'm getting dizzy...

The chaos is probably for the best. (Go away, Pangloss, your services are not required at this moment! Go away!)

Bankers are paid like as if they are the masters of the universe. This seems to be the especial case when they act like clods. The greater the clod-ness, the higher last year's bonus was.

You know what - it is the wake up call the banks need. Get lending you clods - you could end this recession within about 5 weeks, you sods. (Which wouldn't suite their anger at Mr Obama, would it?)

Carolyn Ann