FLASH: And then right on schedule the layoffs started at could-go-bankrupt Countrywide Mortgage

Yup, still short CFC...

Hope Angelo can unload a few hundred more million dollars of shares QUICK!!

Report: Countrywide laying off loan originatorsMonday August 20, 12:36 pm ET

Countrywide Financial Corp. has started laying off loan originators, according to a report in Monday's Wall Street Journal, as the credit crunch continues to impact the nation's largest mortgage lender.

The layoffs hit the company's Full Spectrum unit, which handles "Alt-A" loans, which fall between the prime and subprime categories and often are for those applying for loans that don't document their income.

The number of employees laid off was not disclosed. Full Spectrum employed a sales force of about 6,800, with Countrywide as a whole sporting a loan-origination sales force of about 18,000

We knew what was going to happen. And now it's here. This liquidity crush is simply "revulsion" and "discredit". Housing panic is here.

It's panic folks, and it is here. Panic. In all your lives, you'll never see such a thing again. After the biggest financial bubble in the history of humanity, the biggest crash follows. It hath been foretold.

It's time to head to the cellar. Right on schedule, housing panic is now here.

Again, from the textbook:

Ultimately, the markets stop rising and people who have borrowed heavily find themselves overstretched. This is 'distress', which generates unexpected failures, followed by 'revulsion' or 'discredit'.

The final phase is a self-feeding panic, where the bubble bursts. People of wealth and credit scramble to unload whatever they have bought at greater and greater losses, and cash becomes king.

And just one of the headlines from reality today:

ECB injects €98bn but markets are gripped by panic

The European Central Bank released nearly €100bn (£68bn) in emergency funds into the banking system yesterday in an effort to kick-start the crippled credit markets, but its move only sparked panic selling on stock markets across the world.

The sudden cash injection was the largest since 12 September 2001, when the central bank released billions to stabilise the market after the terrorist attacks in New York.

The trigger for the €98bn package was a major overnight spike in inter-bank lending rates that if unremedied threatened to disrupt the normal functioning and stability of Europe's financial system.

As with the other market upheavals in the last month, the root cause was traced to America where the fallout from the meltdown of the market for risky, or sub-prime, loans continues to widen.

HP recommends the brutally honest "Blown Mortgage" blog

Longtime readers know that even though HP is HATED by most REIC (who stupidly blame the messenger), there are actually some real estate clerks and mortgage brokers out there who actually have ethics, morals and open minds (and are hurting big time - thank you housing crash).

Remember this open letter to HP from Danilo, an honest realtor who was fed up with the lies and corruption of his peers?

Remember Boulder realtor Osman, who shockingly called for The Corrupt David Lereah to be fired?

Well, I've found us an honest, ethical and humane mortgage broker to look up to - Morgan Brown who writes "Blown Mortgage".

Here's a guy who owns his own mortgage broker practice, and from what I read, is a guy who wants to do the right thing for his clients, who'll turn down business if it's not ethical to take the deal, and who is disgusted by the absolute scum in his industry.

Check out his blog, especially the "Why I hate my industry sometimes" series. I think professionals like Morgan Brown are going the right direction. The only real estate clerks and mortgage brokers who will survive these next few years will be the ones with honesty, with morals and with ethics, and who understand that truth-tellers like HP aren't going away anytime soon.

Or they can stick to the unprofessionalism, personal attacks, deception and lies like some of their peers, and go the way of the dinosaur.

HousingPANIC Stupid Question of the Day

Isn't it amazing (and really fricking odd) that the past few years it was easier to get a $500,000 mortgage and "buy" a house than it was to rent an apartment? Fog a mirror, you get a McMansion and enough cash back at close to buy a Hummer.

But you might not be able to rent a $1000 a month apartment.

Man, that's bizarre.

Faster homedebtors! Faster!

Spend more.

Try to make more.

Take out more debt.

Save less.

Spend more.

Buy a bigger house.

Spend more.

Try to make more.

Take out more debt.

Drive farther.

Work more.

Spend more.

Die.