Livinglies's Weblog

Whether Krugman is right in today’s New York Times, predicting a massive bailout between $450 billion and $3 trillion at taxpayer expenses, or the “free marketers” have their way and let everyone collapse, or some people finally get it and move toward a consensus of policy that forgives everyone their transgressions but keeps them in the game as we have suggested repeatedly in these posts, it is clear that perception of risk, trust, confidence and integrity has been changed. This change will be reflected in world and domestic financial markets rights down to a car loan, credit card, home equity loan or business loan. 

• The recent rise of ankle biting between home equity lenders (many of whom have frozen home equity loan accounts making the credit limit unavailable to borrowers), borrowers and fist mortgage lien holders on short and long sales and refinancing, shows what has happened: Nobody trusts anybody anymore and credit is going to decline not only because of availability of money, not only because of viability of short-term credit instruments and the auction markets that drive them, but because rising borrower distrust of all lenders for all reasons is going to lower demand for credit.
• Just as there isn’t enough money in the world to bailout everyone in this mess, there isn’t enough equity, income or assets to cover the credit that exists, much less putting on more. But more is what we are getting in the form of inflation fueled by the Fed churning out money supply like it was candy from a machine.
• Borrowers seem to have learned that what lenders tell them can’t be trusted. It is a valuable lesson. They are realizing that lenders have a vested interest in keeping borrowers in debt and to maximize the debt of every man, woman and child in the United States. 
• The number of homes going upside down either because of overvaluation of the home for purposes of the purchase money mortgage or over valuation for purposes of home equity loans is increasing daily. Sorry to hit a sore point but the chickens are coming home to roost. The motivation of change lifestyle from home owner to renter has never been greater. It seems likely that people will do just that.
• This might be a paradigm change that could forever change the landscape of the American economy. retail buying sprees of things that nobody needs, and that nobody wants after they make their purchase, are on the decline. They might be on their way out as a way of life. That accounts for 70% of the U.S. economy.
• This new perception of risk and the new distrust, have taken on the same dynamics as the politics of division which was bound to be reflected in the marketplace eventually. Basic assumptions and formulas currently used in economics are now cast under a cloud of doubt, as are the policies based on current assumptions and current measurements of things that might not matter as much in the future as they did in the past.
• Doubt and uncertainty create bad environments for doing business, investing and living. We might be in for some hard times, but it is probably high time for the AMerican economy to “get real.”

Filed under: bubble, CDO, community banks, credit unions, currency, education, Eviction, foreclosure, foreign relations, GTC | Honor, inflation, interest rates, Investor, Mortgage, Obama, politics | Tagged: borrowers, debt, depression, equity, lenders, recession, risk |