BiggerPockets

Looks like no knight in shining armor this time.

Hey James
Thanks for the forward. Apparently, what you followed-up with reminds me of the GREAT Book I read " Dollar Crisis - Causes, Consequences and Cures" . I am quite certain that our GOV is NOT going to kick-off the Bail-Out spree as they know we will become ONE MORE JAPAN!!! Japan had a similar Housing downturn as you might know and the government bailed-out almost every firm. While they did it in Good Faith, they are still DEEP Under Water... According to Richard Duncan (the author of that book I mentioned), Japan is never going to be back up, 'cause the same Japanese organizations are outsourcing their Car manufacturing to China (one example) already and so are some of their other industry related operations...

Your take on Deflation and Depression is something I support Totally. Again, I go by Mr. Duncan (sorry) Sir Duncan's book... ;-). He highlighted the housing price (irrational) appreciation when he wrote this book in 2000 - 2001 which has come true. Also, his next forecast was while everyone is fearing Inflation, he says it is actually going to lead to Disinflation and eventually Deflation... Fact remains that we are looking at one more Great Depression - Scary but True :(

Cheers
Ram

" I don't want to be a fatalist, but a lot of the EXPERT economists are predicting a U.S. DEEP recession and a DEPPRESSION very likely up and coming. This includes former and current government economists. Most outside the FED are screaming LOUDLY!

The writing is on the wall"

Is there ANY indication of when this deep recession/depression is to hit?
2008? Mid 2009?

I REALLY want to sell my house before that, And I was not planning on listing till late Sept.

Hey Jon
I think Lehmann will not be impacted as much as far as I see it. I base this on the fact that Lehmann has business in the European countries and supposedly (Europe) is gonna be the (comparatively) LEAST impacted continents worldwide when we encounter the Great Depression... - Again, my opinion :-)

Cheers
Ram

I did some looking around on the FDIC web site. Indy Mac looks to me like a relatively small player in this industry. Their info is here:
http://www4.fdic.gov/IDASP/confirmation_outside.asp?inCert1=29730
Their assets and liabilities report for March 31, 2008 (latest available) shows loans of 19.59 billion with loss allowances of 350 million. I realize those number, especially the loss allowance are probably totally wrong. But, compare that to the biggest bank (Bank of America)
http://www4.fdic.gov/IDASP/confirmation_outside.asp?inCert1=3510
They show loans of 680.29 billion, or 30 times the size of Indy Mac. B of A shows a loss allowance of 6.59 billion, or a third of Indy Mac's total loan portfolio.

There are a bunch of banks bigger than Indy Mac. Without more research (and simpler access to the FDIC data), I can't calculate what percentage of all loans belong to Indy Mac, but it sure looks like a tiny fraction.

What am I missing?

The Indy Mac implosion was long in coming and I don't think anyone " called" it, those who knew knew it was coming. It was widely known among So Cal mortgage originators that the loans that Countrywide didn't want to do they often passed to IMB. IMB also made the mistake of taking the riskiest of tranches on their debt collateralizations (sp?). - heck I rode their stock down (shorting) from $14, but now I am long at $0.61 (losing a bit of money there ;))

Their deposits are down to $18 bil right now and shrinking. That said, I am still betting on a bailout of some form - the FED has just been so good at bailing everyone out. :)