- Markets Bounce as Bernanke Bolsters Banks
- WPP Makes Hostile $2.1 Billion TNS Takeover Bid
- Macau's SJM Delays IPO Debut Amid Legal Challenge
- European Shares Set to Join Global Bounce
- South Korea to Ease FX Borrowing in Fresh Flip-Flop
- Australia Consumer Confidence Hits 16-Year Low
- LG Display Slides Ahead of Earnings, Outlook Dims
- Japan Machinery Orders Stronger than Expected
- Australia's IAG to Scale Back UK Operations
- Lightning Round: Energy, Big Media and Farm Equipment
- Financial Collapse: Banks Going Quietly Into the Night?
- Cramer: Fashionably Healthy
- Tuesday's Web Extra
- Fast & Furious: Oil, Nascar, Ruby Tuesday...
- Fast Message - We Answer Your Questions
- Best Of Breed: King Of Your Castle
- Pops & Drops: RIMM, Office Depot...
- The Real Green Trades
U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said the number of potential U.S. home-loan defaults "will be significantly bigger" in 2008 than in 2007, the Wall Street Journal's online edition
![]() |
AP Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson |
reported.
"The nature of the problem will be significantly bigger next year because 2006 (mortgages) had lower underwriting standards, no amortization, and no down payments," Paulson said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, according to an excerpt on the newspaper's Web site.
"We'll watch carefully mortgages that will be reset," Paulson was quoted as saying.
The newspaper said Paulson was pressing the mortgage-service industry to help a broad range of borrowers become eligible for better loans instead of dealing with mortgage problems on a case-by-case basis.
Currency traders in Tokyo cited Paulson's comments as a factor in the dollar's fall to a two-year low of 108.89 yen on electronic trading platform EBS on Wednesday, the lowest since September 2005.




