The four largest commercial banks in the country -- Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Wells Fargo -- booked $2.5 billion in second-quarter charges to cope with requests for mortgage repurchases.
Most of the requests came from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The banks have faced soaring costs as mortgage buyers and insurers search borrowers' files for issues.
How in this wide world does the Government expect co-operation from the banking community in solving the mortgage crisis this way?
They force the banking community to sit on huge excess reserves, and prudent bankers now reserve a large portion of these excess reserves to give back to the Government via Fannie and Freddie mortgage repurchases!!
To make matters even worse, the uncertainty over the fate of said GSE's and the present panicked desperation surfacing in the form of clawbacks from the banks on any pretext, cannot make these "prudent" bankers enthusiastic about taking on any more risk with new mortgages or Heaven Forbid refinancing on terms favourable to the borrowers!
And now, to add misery to these woes the new Finance Reform contains provisions that mandate lending quotas....a major contributing factor in this mortgage mess in the first place!! ...the eggs of the next financial crisis have been laid and will soon hatch!
Imagine that your Government is here to help: you have made more loans to white borrowers than black and hispanics.
So in order to correct this unacceptable statistical anomaly you are ordered to make more loans the other way or face sanctions that will force you out of business!
It matters not a whit to the politicians that statistically, financially and in every other sane and rational deployment of centuries old criteria for lending that this population of borrowers is less credit worthy by any standard. Incomes are lower, collateral is poorer quality, credit histories are far worse, delinquencies are rife... but we are to ignore these inconvenient truths.
Rational business people dont make suicidal investment decisions guranteed to lead to their business demise.
The Federal Government does just that. It's sending more billions to 12 states that it deems most in need of mortgage help so that distressed borrowers can be forgiven parts of their loans. Of course, the new rules will apply. So how can this not again lead to lower lending standards just to meet quotas?
This morass is too difficult for lenders to negotiate. Better they make no loans to anyone except the Government which still allows them to borrow money at effectively no interest and lend it right back at a 2%-3% positive interest carry. And all this is risk free!
OF COURSE ALL THIS IS IRRELEVANT IF BUSINESS ACTIVITY IS SO DEPRESSED THAT NO-ONE WANTS TO BORROW ANY MONEY.
Marie Antoinette could not have said it better. They're hungry for bread? Let em eat cake. Sheesch!
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