Back to basics: Chicken Game

Playing it.

“A Discovery Bay man who asked not to be identified said he is ‘upside down’ on his house by about $260,000. Instead of bemoaning the situation, he plans to capitalize on it.”

“‘I refinanced a couple of years ago and pulled out $100,000 and put in a fabulous pool,’ he said. ‘Now I’ve got this fabulous pool and fabulous house, but it’s not worth anything. Why shouldn’t I be building equity over the next four to five years instead of playing catch-up?’”

“The man said he has not made a mortgage payment for five months.”

“‘I’m playing the bank game,’ he said. ‘I’m playing chicken with them. I already got them to agree to put (the unpaid) payments on the tail end of the loan. What I’m really pushing them to do is to (adjust my mortgage) for the current market value and write off the rest. I’d love (to have it) lopped down to a $450,000 basis rather than $710,000.’”

“If the bank won’t negotiate, he’ll walk away, the man said.”

Elites

Alan Greenspan goes for another round of "IT'S NOT MY FAULT WAHHH." And, of course, in our current corrupt and depraved system, nobody "serious" will try to hold him or anyone else accountable. Poor Uncle Alan, he couldn't have known and he couldn't have done anything if he did.

I was thinking about the housing bubble and why most of the "experts" failed to see that there was a problem, and I realized it's because they're all rich. There was one unavoidable and obvious fact that was apparent to anyone who isn't especially rich, and that's that there was no possible way that many households in this country had large enough incomes to be able to afford the monthly mortgage payments they were supposed to be paying, even without ridiculous interest rate resets. There just aren't enough people who make enough money to support that many $00,000 homes.

Looking back3

Holy crap:

Bear Stearns Cos. reached an agreement to sell itself to J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., as worries grew that failing to find a buyer for the beleaguered investment bank could cause the crisis of confidence gripping Wall Street to worsen.

The deal calls for J.P. Morgan to pay $2 a share in a stock-swap transaction, with J.P. Morgan Chase exchanging 0.05473 share of its common stock for each Bear Stearns share. Both companies' boards have approved the transaction, which values Bear Stearns at just $236 million based on the number of shares outstanding as of Feb. 16. At Friday's close, Bear Stearns's stock-market value was about $3.54 billion. It finished at $30 a share in 4 p.m. New York Stock Exchange composite trading Friday.

On Dec. 31 Bear Stearns closed at $88.25/share.


...and the Fed's in for another $30 billion.

In addition to the financing the Federal Reserve ordinarily provides through its Discount Window, the Fed will provide special financing in connection with this transaction. The Fed has agreed to fund up to $30 billion of Bear Stearns’ less liquid assets.

Capitalism rawks!


...misty watercolored...

Buy Bear Stearns (BSC - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) despite all the toxic hedge fund handwringing, Jim Cramer said Friday on CNBC's "Stop Trading!" segment.

Cramer said that on June 22, 2007, when Bear closed at $143.75/share.


They bought it for $270 million.

Looking back2

Helicopter Ben to the rescue.

March 16 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve reduced the rate on direct loans to commercial banks by a quarter-point and said it will allow primary dealers to borrow at the rate in exchange for a ``broad range'' of investment-grade collateral.

The central bank, in a statement today in Washington, also extended the maximum term of discount-window loans to 90 days from 30 days. The Fed approved the financing arrangement announced by JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bear Stearns Cos. JPMorgan separately agreed to buy Bear Stearns for about $2 a share.

Looking back:JPM To The Rescue

Interesting.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bear Stearns Cos Inc is hoping to announce a deal to sell itself to JPMorgan Chase & Co before Asian markets open on Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, as the investment bank struggles to save itself.

Bear Stearns, the fifth-largest U.S. investment bank, could sell itself for around $2.2 billion, the newspaper reported. That would amount to less than $20 a share.

The low sale price, equal to about two-thirds the company's $30.85 closing share price on Friday, signals just how dire the situation is for the 85-year-old investment bank.

Radical Action

Nouriel Roubini's financial meltdown:

So the question is: if Bear Stearns screwed up big time - as it did - with huge leverage, reckless investments, lousy risk management and massive underestimation of liquidity risk why should the US taxpayer bail out this firm and its shareholders? First fully wipe out those shareholders, then fire all the senior management and have the government take over such a bankrupt institution before a penny of public money is wasted in bailing it out. Instead now the use of public money to bail out financial institutions is spreading from banking ones to non banking ones. The Fed should at least give a clear and public explanation of why such extremely exceptional - and almost never used - intervention was justified.

Unless public money is used on a very temporary basis to achieve an orderly wind-down or merger of Bear Stearns this is another case where profits are privatized and losses are socialized. By having thrown down the drain the decades old doctrine and rule that the Fed should not lend or bail out non-bank financial institutions the Fed has created an extremely dangerous precedent that seriously aggravates the moral hazard of its lender of last resort support role. If the Fed starts on the slippery slope of providing massive liquidity support to non-bank financial institutions that have recklessly managed their risks it enters into uncharted territory that radically changes its mandate and formal role. Breaking decades-old rules and practices is a radical action that seriously requires a clear public explanation and justification.