“All of the old-timers knew that subprime mortgages were what we called neutron loans — they killed the people and left the houses,” said Louis S. Barnes, 58, a partner at Boulder West, a mortgage banking firm in Lafayette, Colo. “The deals made in 2005 and 2006 were going to run into trouble because the credit pendulum at the time was stuck at easy.”
“I’m one guy in a research department, but many people in our mortgage team have been suggesting that there was froth within the market,” said Jack Malvey, the chief global fixed income strategist for Lehman Brothers. “This has really been progressing for quite some time.” …
“We’ve contended for a while that there was an issue in subprime debt,” said Neal Shear, global head of trading at Morgan Stanley. “A year ago, we were aware that delinquencies were going to rise.”
Meanwhile, since everybody who has followed this issue knows that the incestuous action of ratings agencies like Moody’s, touting subprime derivatives on which they stood to profit, is a fair part of the problem, the European Union is planning to investigate possible conflicts of interest. Where’s the SEC, on our side of the pond?
And, the anti-Cassandras also bear blame for being in denial still, primarily through their claim that this is a just a problem with subprime mortgages.
No, it also has affected a number of Alt-A mortgages, the next class above subprimes. Therefore, it has affected more collateralized debt obligations. It’s also caused other classes of mortgage to hike their interest rates.
And, with the peak in number of adjustable rate mortgages due to reset nearly a year off, we’re still not at the bottom of this.
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