Good primer on what CDS’s are, along with an overview of what the risks are here. (click through, then click through and read the NYTimes article).

This is a somewhat technical post, but take a look at the volume of jumbo mortgages in CA along with what kind they are. It’s not a good situation.

While I had a seemingly good guy as a mortgage broker, I remember being shocked at the fact that I didn’t need to have the big down payment of my parent’s era. We put far less than the traditional 20% and used the cash saved for improvements on the house. I did have to document everything, though. I wonder how I would’ve reacted if given the option of just filling out a form or two and getting a loan without all of that effort. I know going into the process, as Barry Ritholtz suggests, I leaned on the mortgage broker to be an honest intermediary and guide to the process.

Cowen’s article (blurb, really) is short on details, just reporting a statistical result from a repot without explaining how they arrived at those numbers. Issuing a blanket accusation that many of these people committed fraud seems a bit ridiculous.

This looks to be a must read if you want to understand the mortgage crisis. I haven’t read it yet, so this is just a reminder for me to give it a look later. Leave a comment and let me know if it was worth reading.

Looks like Connecticut’s state run short term investment firm, which municipalities use to park funds that need to spent over the year (e.g. teacher/civil salaries, etc.) has also invested in some of the crappy mortgage-backed securities. See what happened in Florida for what might be coming to CT. Hopefully our exposure isn’t as bad, but I don’t have time to look this up now. I wonder how much money West Hartford keeps in that fund and whether any restrictions on withdrawals will affect the towns (cherished and protected) bond rating.