Word: loaned
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...trace your thinking on subprime loans and lending standards, starting when you were at Treasury and first looking at this issue and winding up with IndyMac, where you're now doing mass loan modifications? I came to it as a consumer issue. In 2001 [Senator] Paul Sarbanes asked me to read this HUD/Treasury report on predatory lending. I was pretty appalled. I was convinced that there was a real problem, but we thought it was more from a micro-consumer standpoint. Something national and systemic - I don't think that ever entered any of our thoughts. We put together...
...When you came back in 2006 what was your reaction to what you saw going on in securitized loans? The consumer groups were vocal about what was going on out there and some of our own staff had some concerns, so we bought a loan-performance database of mortgage-backed securities. We saw some pretty astonishing things. The starter rates were very high, between 7% and 9%, and within a couple of years they could jump by 600 basis points. No one could handle that level of payment shock. In fact nobody was - they were just refinancing...
Could you translate that into your concern for the banks that you insure? We have to get the housing market stabilized, and these loan modifications do need to be done systematically. It's difficult, I'm not going to say it's not difficult. We're seeing this at IndyMac. For a lot of these nontraditional mortgages, income was never verified so as part of the modification process you have to go back and verify income to know how to give them what their affordable payment will be. But it needs to be done. The FDIC did massive loan work...
...best way to tackle this is to tell people to have confidence in the system. We're asking Main Street depositors to have confidence in the banking system, and banks should have confidence in each other, too. Look at the numbers. Most banks still have strong capital and loan loss reserves. They have the capability to withstand this if we all keep our heads and maintain confidence in each other. That's the best way to approach...
...Last month, when the government took control of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and pledged to inject $200 billion in capital into the home loan guarantors, administration officials said the moves would make it easier and cheaper for people to get home loans. Unfortunately, it hasn't worked that way. Mortgage rates fell sharply after the move, but soon reversed quickly, and are now higher than they were before the Fannie/Freddie rescue plan was launched...