Sunday reading plus comments. Yes, from the NYT Business Section.

Here are two great articles from today's New York Times' Business section. Gretchen Morgenson wrote the first, titled Was There a Loan It Didn't Like? about a senior mortgage underwriter's experiences at WaMu. As you might expect from the title, the underwriter, Ms. Cooper, was pressured by higher-ups to approve any and all loans, regardless of what the loan applications and packages looked like.

I take issue, though, with a couple of statements in the article. First, mid-way through the article and Ms. Cooper's story: "Although Ms. Cooper couldn't see it, the wheels were already coming off the subprime bus." C'mon. Everybody who thought about this process at all figured out in advance that many people would eventually not be able to pay back their huge debts. This is why usury laws have existed throughout history. Also, "Hidden fees meant brokers could easily make between $20,000 and $40,000 on a $500,000 loan." Huh? How hidden could fees be when they're thoroughly itemized at closing? And all states require complete itemization as part of their consumer protections. And $20k to $40k? The standard origination fee is 1%, and that would be $5,000. Yes, there are garbage fees like processing, document fees, etc., but I've never, ever heard of them amounting to more than 2% of the loan. But whatever; it's a great article anyway.

The second article is by my new favorite economic columnist next to Ben Stein, Robert J. Shiller. Titled Challenging the Crowd in Whispers, Not Shouts, and it's about the group-think that led the Fed, prominent economists and other major financing institutions to ignore the mortgage market meltdown until it was too late. The article's tag says, "A taxi driver seemed to sense what economists didn't." Uh, yeah.

Lenders aren't listening. What a surprise.

For your Sunday morning reading pleasure, here's an article from the New York Times' Business section. No, it's not about Fannie, Freddie or IndyMac. It's about how impossible it is to get in touch with your lender to arrange a work-out on your mortgage. The article is long, but it contains lots of anecdotes, and I've heard stories like this from several people here. I've already blogged about how long it's taking to arrange a short sale, especially with Countrywide -- same thing here. The lenders are just not equipped to deal with what's going on.

Also for your reading pleasure, here's today's NYT Ben Stein's column. It's about applying investing advice to your love life. Why didn't I get this guy before?

Sunday Morning Reading from the New York Times

Our favorite Republican business columnist, Ben Stein, has another great article in today's New York Times (the title should link, but if it doesn't, here's another link here.) For those of us who have wondered exactly how this credit crisis could happen, Ben spells it out by quoting investor David Einhorn extensively. One of Ben's quotes about Wall Street: "It looks to me as if the inmates are running the asylum. One truth, that deregulation is sometimes a good thing, has been followed down so long and winding a road that it has led to an immense lie: that deregulation carried to an extreme will not lead to calamity." You tell them, Ben.

Good Articles from Sunday's New York Times

Here are links to a couple of good real estate articles in today's (April 13) New York Times Business Section. The first, by columnist Gretchen Morgenson, is entitled "So You Thought You Had an Equity Line" and is about the increasing bank freezes of home equity lines of credit . Yikes. The second is from sometime-tv-star Ben Stein (see my post on him from February), and is yet another call -- from a Republican, no less -- for more regulation of the financial markets.