Foreclosuregate Fallout: How Bad Can It Get For Wall Street? [View All]

from AlterNet:




Foreclosuregate Fallout: How Bad Can It Get For Wall Street?
Posted by Zach Carter on @ 12:36 pm


Foreclosure fraud is ruffling a lot of feathers on Wall Street, and while the full scope of losses remains unclear, even major banks are now acknowledging that this is a multi-billion-dollar disaster, not just a set of minor paperwork headaches.

So how bad will it get for Wall Street? There are several disaster scenarios in which the housing market simply shuts down, where the potential losses for Wall Street are simply incalculable. But even situations that do not directly rip apart the basic functioning of the mortgage system could be enough to shut down one or more big banks, creating serious trouble for the financial system, and a major test of the recent Wall Street reform bill.

JPMorgan Chase loves using its research department to push its political agenda, and the bank is currently characterizing the foreclosure fraud outbreak as a set of “process-oriented problems that can be fixed.” That puts them in the rosy optimist camp for this crisis, and they’re projecting a total of $55 billion to $120 billion in losses for the entire industry, spread out over a few years.

But take a look at the analysts’ methodology. The actual scope of losses gets drastically larger if you just change a few arbitrary assumptions. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/10/20/foreclosuregate-fallout-how-bad-can-it-get-for-wall-street/