Winners and Losers 2008

Here is a list of winners and losers for 2008.

As befits a year in which the economy collapsed and wars dragged on, the list of losers is longer than the list of winners.

Feel free to add or subtract names and to add commentary.

The year isn’t over, so the list may change.

Winners

Barack Obama
Michelle Obama
Hillary Clinton
Rachel Maddow
Pixar
Bankruptcy lawyers
Facebook
Robert Gates
Jonas Brothers
Bill Ayers
Heather Mills
Sarah Palin
Rick Warren
Democrats
Beyoncé
Harrison Ford
Joe Biden
Robert Downey, Jr.
The Taliban
Mexican drug cartels
Prisons
AIG
Lawrence Summers
David Axelrod
Rahm Emanuel
Paul Volker
Vladimir Putin
Tom Daschle
John Podesta
Britney Spears
Keith Olbermann
C.C. Sabbathia
Philadelphia Phillies
Brett Farve
will.i.am
Eli Manning
Bank of America
Christopher Buckley
Walmart
Mark Begich
Muntadhar al-Zaidi
Somali pirates
Guy Ritchie
Emo vampires
Carla Bruni
Google
Tom Udall
Mark Udall
John Kerry
Al Gore
Kay Hagan
Mickey Rourke
Mike Huckabee
Jeff Merkley
Michael Phelps
Jason Lezak
Heath Ledger
Rafael Nadal
Repo Men
Global warming
Handguns

Losers

OJ Simpson
Bernard L. Madoff
Anthony Pellicano
George W. Bush
John McCain
Republicans
Alan Greenspan
Realtors
Iraq
Paul McCartney
Newspapers
Local television
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
William J. Jefferson
Circuit City
Lehman Brothers
Detroit
John Edwards
Myspace
Steve Schmidt
Chinese milk
Star Wars
Yahoo
Wachovia Corp.
Washington Mutual
Karl Rove
Sam Zell
Richard H. Davis
U.S. Automakers
The South
Mortgage brokers
Ben Bernanke
Henry Paulson
Same Sex Marriage
Merrill Lynch
Book publishers
Airlines
Homeland Security
Rush Limbaugh
The Fed
Britney Spears
Rod Blagojevich
Scooter Libby
Bill Clinton
Jeremiah Wright
Mitt Romney
Jesse Jackson
Jesse Jackson, Jr.
Las Vegas
California
Arnold Schwartzeneggar
Eliot Spitzer
Gordon Smith
Raffaello Follieri
Workers
Ted Stevens
Washington Mutual
Yeshiva University
Africa
India
Bill O’Reilly
New York Mets
Plaxico Burress
Broadway
Phil Gramm
Museum of Modern Art (MOCA) Los Angeles
Mikheil Saakashvili
Christopher Cox
Joe Lieberman
Jewish charities
Public schools
Community colleges
John E. Sununu
Elizabeth Dole
Miley Cyrus
Countrywide
Angelo Mozilo
Max Mosley
Kwame Kilpatrick
Heath Ledger
Roger Clemens
Baytown, Texas
Galveston Island, Texas
Missouri
The Bill of Rights

Freddie Mac to Buy $10-15 Billion in Jumbo Loans — Move Hopes to Jump-Start Liquidity in Home Loan Market

Some relief may be in store for the battered residential real estate markets in California, New York, and other high cost states, as Freddie Mac announced on Thursday that it will buy jumbo mortgages in areas with high real estate prices from four of the largest U.S. mortgage lenders.

Freddie Mac’s purchase of conforming jumbo mortgages is restricted to 224 high cost markets where median home prices exceed Freddie Mac’s $417,000 loan limit.

Qualified borrowers in these states can now apply for an array of fixed-rate or adjustable rate conforming jumbo mortgages that will be less expensive than non-conforming jumbo loans in high cost markets.

Borrowers can use Freddie Mac conforming jumbo mortgages to finance up to 90% of a property’s value.

Freddie Mac said in a press release that it will purchase conforming jumbo loans from Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, and Washington Mutual. 

It expects to finance between $10 and $15 billion in new jumbo mortgages in 2008.

The press release called the decison Freddie Mac’s “first large-scale effort to jump-start the stalled jumbo mortgage market under the Economic Stimulus Act.” 

The Economic Stimulus Act temporarily raised Freddie Mac’s conforming loan limit from $417,000 to as much as $729,750 through December 31, 2008.

The move is another is a series of federal actions that are meant to increase liquidity in the housing finance market.

Congress tried to ease jumbo loan rates in February, when it allowed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to guarantee bigger mortgages of up to almost $730,000 dollars.

But, so far, the banks has failed to respond to these new government guarantees by lowering interest rates or increasing liquidty in the home loan market.

The reason, accoprding to the banks, is that they need to sell their loans to investors, but investors aren’t buying.  Freddie Mac’s move is intended to free up the lenders’ balance sheets and allow them to concentrate their efforts on originating these loans.

“Purchasing conforming jumbo mortgages for our portfolio shows how we can bring new liquidity to markets other investors have all but abandoned and make full use of the new tools Congress gave us to help restore stability during the current housing crisis,” said Freddie Mac Chairman and CEO Richard Syron. “We initially expect conforming jumbo mortgages to have rates that are as much as half a percentage point below the jumbo market rate in many of these high cost markets.”

While specific product availability may vary by lender, Freddie Mac has said it will buy 15-, 20-, 30- and 40-year fixed-rate, fully amortizing conforming jumbo mortgages; 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with 10-year interest-only periods; fully amortizing 5/1 adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) and 5/1 ARMs with 10-year interest-only periods. Qualified borrowers can also obtain cash-out refinance conforming jumbo mortgages that provide a maximum cash-out of $100,000.