It looks as though we will learn in the next quarter or two how accurate the "worst case" bank loss forecasts really were. If history is a guide, they will be wrong again and the banks will need to raise even more capital. Just because the banks and their apologists say it's over doesn't mean that it's over. Overstating and distorting the truth is what they've been doing since the bubble burst. None of them can live with the truth because they might have to face the fact that they're not as clever as they think they are. Either that or those in the government would have to admit that they've been duped over and over and over. NY Times:
From November to February, the number of prime mortgages that were delinquent at least 90 days, were in foreclosure or had deteriorated to the point that the lender took possession of the home increased more than 473,000, exceeding 1.5 million, according to a New York Times analysis of data provided by First American CoreLogic, a real estate research group. Those loans totaled more than $224 billion.
During the same period, subprime mortgages in those three categories increased by fewer than 14,000, reaching 1.65 million. The number of similarly troubled Alt-A loans — those given to people with slightly tainted credit — rose 159,000, to 836,000.
Over all, more than four million loans worth $717 billion were in the three distressed categories in February, a jump of more than 60 percent in dollar terms compared with a year earlier.
