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That means that 91% of homeowners with a mortgage were caught up and still paying on time. Add to that the fact that 25% or so of total American homes have no mortgage at all.

Exactly. Add the renter/savers with good credit to that list while you are at it.

Can someone explain to me why the rest of us are getting hit with a multi-trillion dollar tax bill to bail out speculators? Whom are probably tax cheats as well as mortgage fraudsters?

"Can someone explain to me why the rest of us are getting hit with a multi-trillion dollar tax bill to bail out speculators"

Don't think for a second that it's genuinely for homeowners

Thanks TOB!

Unfortunately, we are still looking at a coming food crisis. I would be very surprised if WW3 does not break out within 10 years.

Maine Lobster is selling for 3.69 a pound (retail), down from $15 last year as consumer demand drops.

The rescue of AIG is a scam. The point is that it appears more palatable for the pubic to rescue an "insurance company" than "wall st investment banks". Hence the troubles of wall st are transferred to AIG, which will be rescued by the taxpayers. Clever, is it not?

Bail-Outrage: Misuse of Funds, Lack of Transparency a National Disgrace

Many Americans are understandably outraged by the bailout fever that has gripped Washington this year. But even those who believe the bailouts are a "necessary evil" would have a hard time defending some of the bailout-related items that have come to light in recent days, including:
Financial institutions using TARP bailout money to pay executive bonuses. The firms, of course, say it's "different" money and bonuses are key to retaining top employees. But if you need to come to the government for a handout, shouldn't your executives forgo a bonus? Or shouldn't the government make canceling bonuses a condition of getting aid, as is the case in Europe?

The Fed refusing to reveal who received almost $2 trillion in non-TARP loans, or what collateral it has accepted from "emergency" loans made to struggling firms, as Bloomberg reports.

The Treasury Department providing a tax break to banks involved in acquisitions that could amount to $140 billion. The Washington Post reveals the change to the tax code was issued on Sept. 30, while Congress was debating the $700 billion TARP bill.

The bailouts are bad enough. But this kind of chicanery and lack of transparency makes me recall a line from another time when fear and deceit dominated Washington: Have they no shame, at long last?

Trump Files Suit Against Lenders
Donald Trump filed suit against the lenders on his unfinished Chicago skyscraper, plunging the project into legal turmoil and highlighting the credit crunch's pervasive effects on real estate.

Mr. Trump is suing to extend a $640 million senior construction loan on the 92-story Trump International Hotel & Tower from a group of lenders led by Deutsche Bank AG and including a unit of Merrill Lynch & Co., Union Labor Life Insurance Co., iStar Financial Inc., a publicly traded real-estate investment trust, and Highland Funds, a unit of Highland Capital Management LP.

The tower, which contains 339 hotel rooms and 486 condominiums, will be the second-tallest building in the U.S. behind Chicago's Sears Tower and is expected to be completed in mid-2009. The hotel, on the lower floors, opened earlier this year. But sales of both the hotel rooms and the condominiums have come in below original estimates and the project's current projected revenue remains short by nearly $100 million needed to pay off the senior lenders.

The lawsuit, filed in New York State supreme court in Queens, is a further indication of the dysfunction in the real-estate lending markets as borrowers and lenders struggle to resolve troubled projects. People familiar with the matter say the lender group, which is made up of more than a dozen institutions, was unable to agree on the extension.

Bonuses for Wall Street Should Go to Zero, U.S. Taxpayers Say
U.S. taxpayers, who feel they own a stake in Wall Street after funding a $700 billion bailout for the industry, don't want executives' bonuses reduced. They want them eliminated.

``I may not understand everything, but I do understand common sense, and when you lend money to someone, you don't want to see them at a new-car dealer the next day,'' said Ken Karlson, a 61-year-old Vietnam veteran and freelance marketer in Wheaton, Illinois. ``The bailout money shouldn't have been given to them in the first place.''

Compensation at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley, Citigroup Inc. and the six other banks that received the first $125 billion of the federal funds is under scrutiny by lawmakers, including Rep. Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, and New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, also a Democrat. President-elect Barack Obama cited the program at his first news conference on Nov. 7, saying it will be reviewed to make sure it's ``not unduly rewarding the management of financial firms receiving government assistance.''

While year-end rewards are likely to decline with a drop in revenue this year, industry veterans say that eliminating them risks driving away the firms' most productive workers.

``There are instances where bonuses are justified, deserved, and in the best interests of the investment bank involved,'' said Dan Lufkin, a co-founder of Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette Inc., the investment bank acquired by Credit Suisse Group AG in 2000. ``Your very best people are people you want to hold, and your very best people will have opportunities even in this environment to transfer allegiance.''

Unfortunately, we are still looking at a coming food crisis. I would be very surprised if WW3 does not break out within 10 years.

Dude, we have to pay farmers not to farm in order to keep commodity prices from falling through the floor. Food is not a problem.

Plus have you seen how effin' *FAT* most Americans are? A famine would do us good.

Another day, another bailout: This time homeowners get to benefit from mortgage-modification programs, designed to stem the tide of foreclosures by making it easier for borrowers to stay current on their loans.

But the latest plans from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, joining banks such as J.P. Morgan Chase and Citigroup, hold plenty of risks.

Take investors in mortgage-backed securities. Modifications to mortgage holders' interest rates could leave some MBS holders with reduced interest payments. Forgiveness of principal, meanwhile, could lead to capital losses.

A bigger worry could be that these modification programs are too effective. In that case, "many current borrowers will wave the white flag of surrender and also try to get a modification," Rod Dubitsky, a senior strategist for asset-backed securities at Credit Suisse, wrote in a recent report.

The danger is that loan holders who otherwise could meet their payments would decide to fall behind to get their cut of the bailout. That could unleash a chain reaction that drives default rates even higher.

That means another dose of moral hazard. Federal officials stopped worrying months ago about that for companies, as they piled up bailout upon bailout to keep the financial system from collapsing. Now officials risk injecting warped incentives into the behavior of individuals.

If the programs take pressure off house prices, MBS holders and borrowers could both make out better than if there weren't any modifications.

But the financial crisis has shown time and again that it is tough to anticipate the unintended consequences resulting from attempts to quell the turmoil.