Subtitle: The banking implosion. And somehow, I don’t think this news indicates that the rate of bank failure is going to slow anytime soon:
NEW DATA SHOWS NEARLY ONE‐THIRD OF ALL MORTGAGES UNDERWATER
More than $3 Trillion Worth of Property at Risk of Default.
More than 15.2 million U.S. mortgages, or 32.2 percent of all mortgaged properties, were in negative equity position as of June 30, 2009 according to newly released data from First American CoreLogic.
One interesting thing is that the estimated losses to the FDIC are greater now than they were during the S&L crisis of 1989-1992 that took down the FSLIC. According to the Wall Street Journal, bad assets averaged 24 percent then, but appear to be running at a rate of 34 percent now.