It’s long past due time that Wayne Swan formally adopted the name of his alter ego, Frank Spencer.
From ceiling insulation to school halls to “green” loans to computers in schools to set-top boxes, every “investment” that our Treasurer touches, ends up totally ‘Franked’.
From the SMH:
Arrears on mortgage repayments spiked to a record high in the first three months of 2011, as more Australians struggle with rising costs, Fitch ratings agency says.
Arrears on prime residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) of 30 days or more hit a record high of 1.79 per cent in the first quarter, from 1.37 in the final quarter of 2010, the group said, as Christmas spending and the Queensland floods forced more Australians to struggle in repaying their mortgages.
RMBS are home loans which are bundled together and sold to institutional investors by banks and mortgage lenders. Misrated RMBS were at the heart of the subprime crisis in the US which lingers to today.
As we have seen previously (“How Australia Will Look When The SHTF“), Wayne has “invested” $20 billion of borrowed money into Australian RMBS since the GFC, to prop up our housing bubble.
Including an extra $4 Billion which he approved in April – (ie) after the period of increasing arrears that is mentioned in the SMH article.
This news gets much worse though:
The increase in arrears for the most fragile band of mortgage borrowers, low-doc loans, with payment delays of 30 days or more hit 6.74 per cent in the first quarter, up from 5.7 per cent in the final quarter of 2010, a higher level than December 2008 quarter, when the financial crisis hit and the Reserve Bank began rapidly lowering rates.
Low-doc mortgages are written for riskier borrower than prime mortgages, which are written for customers who have a reasonably safe ability to borrow.
Delinquencies of three months or more on conforming low-doc mortgages, which are used by people who are self-employed for example, soared past 5 per cent in the March quarter, from about 3 per cent the December 2010 quarter.
Would our Wayne have “invested” any of that borrowed $20 Billion in low-doc RMBS? Or, did he stick with “prime” RMBS?
From the AOFM website:
Purchase of RMBS – Program Update
Minimum Eligibility Requirements
Oooooooooo!
Wayne’s ‘franked’ another $20 Billion.
UPDATE:
Another ‘franked’ “stimulus” program from Wayne. Remember the doubled First Home Owners Grant, that also helped to prop up our housing bubble?
The Reserve Bank has warned many first home owners who bought into the market with the help of generous federal government assistance may now be vulnerable to rising interest rates.
RBA deputy governor Ric Battellino said today there were concerns that buyers who bought into the market in 2009, when the federal government grant was increased, may have over-committed themselves.
Are any of those hundreds of thousands of “vulnerable” first home owner mortgages actually “low doc” loans, Wayne?
Are any of them packaged up in the $20 Billion worth of RMBS that you “invested” borrowed money in … Wayne Frank?
Barnaby Is Right 
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