Bank Accused of Pushing Mortgage Deals on Blacks: "They referred to subprime loans made in minority communities as ghetto loans and minority customers as 'those people have bad credit', 'those people don't pay their bills' and 'mud people,' " [a Wells Fargo subprime loan officer] said in his affidavit, filed in the NAACP's lawsuit (pdf) against 13 mortgage lenders. "The company put 'bounties' on minority borrowers. By this I mean that loan officers received cash incentives to aggressively market subprime loans in minority communities."
posted by hayvac on Jun 8, 2009 - 40 comments

My Manhattan Project: How I helped build the bomb that blew up Wall Street. [print version]
posted by blasdelf on Mar 30, 2009 - 34 comments

The Giant Pool of Money. This American Life teams up with NPR News to explain the Housing Crisis. [more inside]
posted by empath on May 11, 2008 - 53 comments

As is the custom these days, GMAC Bank is suing mortgage broker HTFC for selling them improperly secured loans. The deposition of HTFC's CEO Aron Wider reads like a Joe Pesci role with 73 creative uses of the f-word over twelve hours of testimony. A federal judge fined Mr. Wider and his attorney $29K for Mr. Wider's constant use of bad language, insults, refusals to answer questions, and his lawyer's failure to control his client.
posted by uaudio on Mar 20, 2008 - 53 comments

The Subprime Primer. [via] An entertaining, lo-fi, comic-book style explanation of the complex Subprime Mortgage mess.
posted by afx114 on Feb 17, 2008 - 77 comments

Yes, the Subprime Mortgage Crisis was 2007's top national business news story for the second year in a row (and odds on favorite to Threepeat), #2 news story overall (TIME put Pakistan at #1, for AP, it was the Virginia State Massacre). But then I saw that it was the #1 local news story in my town. [more inside]
posted by wendell on Jan 4, 2008 - 14 comments

Minsky Meltdown ahead? Named after Hyman Minsky, an economist who was known for his research concerning financial crises, specifically asset bubbles based on credit cycles. [much more inside]
posted by umop-apisdn on Aug 29, 2007 - 75 comments

What's the link between:
1) the quickly-growing number of American homeowners becoming unable to pay their mortgages after their ARM's reset (a trend nicknamed "ARMageddon" -- applicable in the UK too), which is translating into soaring foreclosure rates, and in turn forcing at least 60 US semi-shady mortgage brokers to go belly-up in the past year (i.e. the "subprime meltdown"), and...
2) the recent implosion and impending financial bailout -- which may become the biggest since the Long Term Capital Management fiasco of 1998 -- of two Bear Stearns hedge funds which dealt in mortgage securities? [more inside]
posted by Asparagirl on Jul 11, 2007 - 123 comments