The Worst Is Far from Over (Meredith Whitney)

This FT.com interview with Oppenheimer's analyst is well worth listening to. Some of Whitney's observations follow:



"For a bank to sell into the Tarp, they are going to have to write down their assets differently from how they are currently carrying it and the capital implement will cause them to gobble up the existing money...so some banks see it as too dear.  I don't think a lot of people will use the Tarp because the terms and consequences are going to be too disruptive over the near term."

"If you're draining liquidity from the system, you know the losses are going to be worse and that's why it's so significant that the aggregate mortgage market is going to show actual contraction for the first time as you are choking off more and more consumers.  The next shoe to drop is the credit card industry."

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