wrote in message
...
On Wed, 30 Jan 2008 09:30:17 -0500, JimH wrote:


He promptly blamed the lender as he said he did not know what an ARM
was. Doh!

Summary of sub-prime write-downs in Q4
UBS $13.7 bln
Citigroup $13.7 bln
Morgan Stanley $10.3 bln
Merrill Lynch $8.4 bln
HSBC $3.4 bln
Bank of America $3.3 bln
Deutsche Bank $3.1 bln
Barclays $2.7 bln
Royal Bank of Scotland $2.6 bln
Credit Agricole $2.3 bln
Bear Stearns $1.9 bln
Credit Suisse $1.9 bln
JP Morgan Chase $1.6 bln
Goldman Sachs $1.5 bln
Wachovia Bank $1.1 bln
Lehman Brothers $0.8 bln
SunTrust Bank $0.6 bln
Total: $72,900,000,000 and counting!

I guess the lender didn't know what an ARM was either.

Yep, the lenders screwed up big time. How in hell they thought the loan
recipients were going to be able make the payments when the ARM kicked in is
beyond me.

60 Minutes had a piece on the debacle last Sunday. Simply put is was greed.
All along the food chain people/institutions were getting there commission.
It some respects it was kind of like a Ponzi scheme.

The 60 Minutes story reported that it was extremely easy to get a loan and
figures on applications were not even verified.