What We're Hearing

We understand there are plenty of willing sellers of mortgage servicing rights these days but mortgage bankers will not unload their receivables because the "bid/ask" is too wide. In other words: the prices being offered are so underwhelming that mortgage bankers would rather hold onto what they have rather than sell at a possible loss. However, now that we're in the fourth quarter some deals could get done. Meanwhile former Treasury Department Assistant Secretary Neel Kashkari was on CNBC this morning discussing TARP and the $700 billion bailout of our credit markets. He hinted that without the money, the U.S. unemployment rate would be much worse than today's 9.8% figure but declined to speculate on whether it might be close to the Depression-era rate of 25%. He admitted that the government "underestimated" the length and depth of the crisis but one of Treasury's biggest problems was explaining this "complicated" mess to members of Congress. In other words, our federally elected officials are intellectually challenged...