Time To Stop Blaming The Lenders

Below is a recent excerpt I read regarding loan modifications and the increase in foreclosure activity among prime borrowers. "Despite helping 244,000 at-risk homeowners with loan modifications and repayment plans in February, the Hope Now alliance says the number of foreclosures continues to rise and foreclosures involving prime loans topped subprime by a significant margin."

The regulators need to stop putting 100% of the blame on the lenders and borrowers need to stop feeling as if they were the victim of this mortgage debacle. Instead of blaming each other for the negative actions, everyone just needs to accept and move forward. As soon as this can happen, the quicker we are going to see stability within the capital markets.
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Commercial Values Heading South

Wall Street data shows that commercial property loans are going bad at an alarming rate, threatening to cause billions of dollars in additional losses to banks. Since September, the delinquency rate on nearly $700 billion in securitized loans backed by commercial real estate has more than doubled to 1.8 percent. Foresight Analytics projects that America's banking sector could suffer as much as $250 billion in commercial property losses in this downturn, with more than 700 banks at risk of failure because of their exposure to the sector
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Mortgage Delinquencies Continue To Rise

Delinquencies have increased 53 percent from the same period last year.

According to a new analysis of trends in the mortgage industry for the fourth quarter of 2008 and the associated impact on the U.S. consumer from Trans Union, mortgage loan delinquency (ratio of borrowers 60 or more days past due) increased for the eighth straight quarter, hitting a national average high of 4.58 percent for the fourth quarter of 2008. Traditionally seen as a precursor to foreclosures, this statistic is up almost 16 percent from the previous quarter's 3.96 percent average and up approximately 53 percent from the same period last year (2.99 percent).
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Does This Sound Familiar?

"Owners of capital will stimulate the working class to buy more and more expensive goods, houses and technology, pushing them to take more and more expensive credits, until their debt becomes unbearable.  The unpaid debt will lead to bankruptcy of banks, which will have to be saved by the government and nationalized; the State will have to take the road which will eventually lead to communism." Karl Marx, 1867
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