The Dirt Lawyer's Blog Archive

I am in a obscure quotations mode today, so please excuse me in advance.  No, I am not about to start brushing up on my Shakespeare or start quoting him now. (In fact, I'm not sure I ever even seen Kiss Me Kate all the way through.)  But this weekend I had to think about what I have seen the last few years. I know economists have their own definitions of recession and depression and all that. But I also know that you can cook the books on statistics such as unemployment.  (This is nothing new, by the way .  And thank you, Benjamin Disraeli.) We are seeing more talk of depression-like problems: the so-called 99 weekers (a term I first saw here ), a real unemployment rate that is higher than the statistics indicate as people just plain give up on looking for work and thus are no longer in the stats, companies that refuse to spend the money they are making and declining to hire out of a fear of higher taxes and low demand for products (aside: I don't know a single small busin

Both, probably, but more good than bad in my opinion. Depending on what you read, CMBS delinquency rates are at an all-time high of 8.71%.  This article citing Trepp LLC is the first I came across. And I remember when I said, oh, that 2.1% default rate is not so bad.  And Fitch is telling us that the default rate is 9.48%, even closer to the 11-12% predictions that have been out there.  So that is bad news, yes?  Some call it part of the continuing slo-mo crash .  Yes and no. The good news, if you look at the chart, is that the upward trend is flattening.  Is that a sign of moderation ?  Maybe.  But let's not forget that there is a ton of CMBS debt coming due - a trillion dollars of it over the next five years.  Again, good and bad. But what I find most encouraging is this: loan mods .  According to Trepp we have had more mods in the first half of 2010 than in 2008 and 2009 combined.  So the servicers are getting their acts together, borrowers are coming to the table, and more d