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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> >This presupposes that most jobs will disappear and people can't pay  
> their house payments. Do you think most businesses will fail?

No.  That's an old pre-burst NAR and Greenspan line.

A very large number of the mortgages were taken on with this assumption:

You get a low teaser initial ARM (or worse) rate for two or three years.  
But, what? You worry? (Alfred E. Lereah).  Houses are appreciating at around 
20% 
per year and we all know that's going to go on forever, after all, they ain't 
making any more land!  So in three years when your ARM adjusts and your 
payment would go beyond what you could pay, just refinance based on the 
increased 
equity!  Get another ARM and in three more years do the same thing. 

But housing "values" didn't continue to rise, in fact they've fallen 
precipitously.  Now several million home-debtors (home owner would be a 
misnomer) 
still have the income they've always had, the ARMs are adjusting, and no 
refinancing is avalable. 

So in the present debacle, it isn't necessary for jobs to disappear for vast 
numbers of mortgages to be foreclosed.   </HTML>