Underwater and Unsolvable -- A Lifetime of Homeowner Mortgage Debt - Mandelman Matters

``The bottom-line is that the banks cannot take the loss that would result from writing down the seconds. The retiree pension plans and mutual funds cannot take the losses that would result from writing down the securitized first mortgages. Only the U.S. taxpayers can take losses of that magnitude, and politically there's no way that can happen either.  I'm afraid we are in for a long, increasingly unmanageable downward slide.''