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Spellbound

05/18/09 8:58 PM

#4176 RE: Spellbound #4175

My Personal Credit Crisis

Ref - http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/magazine/17foreclosure-t.html

Something important to note at the end of the article: the guy hasn't paid his mortgage (from Chase) in over eight months and he's still waiting for them to call to "drop the axe" as he says. Many people in the economic doom-o-sphere have suspected that there are huge swaths of the population that, like the author of the Times piece, are essentially living "rent free" at this point. The banks, naturally, don't want to admit this for two reasons: first, it could spook their investors. Second, if people got word that at least a few of their neighbors are living in their homes 6, 9, or even 12 months without paying, they would probably just say "f--k it" and stop paying as well. It will be interesting to track the aggregate reaction to this part of the article as it's what you might call a "highly actionable" piece of financial intel.