What We're Hearing

Are you an optimist or a pessimist? For now, all eyes are on Europe and the bailout of Greece and those other teetering 'PIIGS' nations. Mortgage bankers should be closely following the story because what happens overseas will affect mortgage rates at home. (That's what happens when you have a 'global economy.') Banking analyst Karen Shaw Petrou wrote this morning that the initial signs from the European Union's $1 trillion-plus aid package are "encouraging, but far from dispositive: to know for sure that panic has been allayed, we want to see inter-bank funding markets thaw and rates return to reasonable ranges. But, even if that happens – as we devoutly hope – it won't take the global banking system back to a semblance of normalcy because of the exposures at giant banks to sovereign debt." In other words, keep those helmets and seat buckles on...