We've seen the unthinkable in just a few short years.
- Housing meltdown
- Financial meltdown
- Stock Market meltdown
- Dollar meltdown
- Massive government bailouts and exorbitant stimulus
- The death of Indymac, Countrywide, Washington Mutual, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Goldman Sachs...
- Humiliated realtors, discredited NAR, destroyed homebuilders
- Inflationary and Deflationary Risks
- Oil at New Highs
- California Disasters
- Massive layoffs across the board
- Fraud
- Poor retail sales.
- Consumer sales and confidence in the toilet.
- High delinquencies and foreclosures...
- Higher credit card defaults.
- Sky-high unemployment
- Hedge Funds Blowing Up...
What's next? How about:
- Hyperinflationary Risks, which will send oil and gold skyrocketing
- Arrests
- More Ponzi schemes uncovered?
- Another $700 billion needed?
- Government failure
- Collapsing Treasuries
- Even more poor retail sales, low consumer sales and confidence
- Higher delinquencies and foreclosures...
- Higher unemployment
- A larger wave of residential housing mortgage failure
- Auto loan failures and repossessions...
- Billions of dollars in credit card defaults...
- Commercial mortgage failures and foreclosures on such things as malls and office buildings...
- Credit default swaps that required no money down will lead to financial chaos...
- And, already there's talk of a 2009 recovery? Not likely... and that's because of Option ARM resets, which could send the S&P 500 to 600 and the Dow to 6,500.
"It shouldn't come as a shock when mountainous Option ARM and Alt-A loans begin resetting and the second leg of the credit crisis begins.
Alt-A loans were given to borrowers with credit scores of between 620 and 700, and included the option of interest-only loans, option ARMs, and no documentation loans that required little if any documentation for loan approval. Ninety percent of those that got an Option ARM in 2006 provided little or no documentation.
Ninety percent!
And it's estimated that only 60% of Option ARM borrowers make only minimum monthly payments. Others estimate that up to 80%.
Say a borrower makes minimum payments on a $600,000 loan. That loan could easily be a $750,000 loan within two years.
And we're supposed to be shocked when this problem ends in the second credit crisis?"
And we're not alone in our thinking... Business Week recently said:
"With the subprime mortgage crisis already crippling the U.S. economy, some experts are warning that the next wave of foreclosures will begin accelerating in April, 2009. What that means is that hundreds of thousands of borrowers who took out so-called option adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) will begin to see their monthly payments skyrocket as they reset. About a million borrowers have option ARMs, but only a fraction have already fallen due.
That was the catch to option ARMs; borrowers were offered low initial payments that would recast higher after several years. Many home buyers thought they could resell their homes before their payments increased. But instead, many of them got trapped. According to Credit Suisse, monthly option recasts are expected to accelerate starting in April, 2009, from $5 billion to a peak of about $10 billion in January, 2010. Some of these loans have already started to recast. About 13% of option ARMs that were issued in 2006 were delinquent by 60 days by the time they were 18 months old, Credit Suisse said.
And there's only one way to profit from the coming chaos - put options.






The only fly in the ointment is the spiraing unemployment now.
The possibility to do this early enough may have slowed the process. A state take over of defaulted loans. People have to live somewhere.
May the force be with you all.
The upcoming defaults on these risky “Toxic Mortgages” will result in an increase in foreclosures. But worse, once these small businesses fail, the resulting loss of jobs will cause millions to add to the ranks of the unemployed. Note that self-employed business owners (16.2 million according to the SBA) employ between 1-10 employees.
So, here we have a major problem… Not only will these small business owners lose their homes, but there will be the resulting JOB LOSSES on their business failure. Note, although President-Elect Obama is stressing the need to create 3 million new jobs, we must understand that “JOB RETENTION IS AS IMPORTANT AS JOB CREATION”.
I would appreciate if you would consider the findings of a National Association for the Self-Employed (NASE) which I authored and was released on 11/21/08. The survey shows that things are going to get worse. But, on the bright side, there is something that we can focus on to help mitigate the tragedy.
The 2nd Wave of Foreclosures has made it to the mainstream Media. On Sunday, 12/14/08, CBS’s 60 Minutes aired a segment on “The Mortgage Meltdown”. But, they overlooked a critical factor that is illustrated by the NASE Survey.
CBS's segment missed the fact that this next wave of Foreclosures of ALT-A and Option ARMs will dwarf the Subprime Mortgage Crisis. IT Will Take Self-Employed and Smaller Businesses who have these TOXIC mortgages. In fact, ALT-A, Option ARMS, Interest-Only, the TOXIC Mortgages were specifically marketed to the self-employed who fell prey to them.
The NASE survey at http://www.nase.org , was the first to provide compelling evidence of small business involvement in the upcoming toxic mortgage crisis. The survey was created by myself and Jung I. Song, CPA of BornsteinSong Consultants in Oakhurst,NJ.
According to this survey, it is estimated that 3,709,800 small business owners hold Alt-A and other toxic mortgages, and 1,279,800 are already delinquent as they have missed one to three or more monthly mortgage payments at mid-November, before the expected Resets that are scheduled to begin in 4th Quarter 2008 through 2012.
The resulting defaults will be the cause of the upcoming second tsunami wave of foreclosures and will take many homeowners, small business owners, and their employees at this critical time when our economy can ill afford it.
I would be happy to work with you to help bring this to light.
Samuel D. Bornstein
Professor of Accounting & Taxation
Kean University, School of Business, Union, NJ
732-493-4799