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Congress Drops the Ball, and We All Lose

By Jim Cramer

 About this article:
 Commercial real estate mortgage market totally disappeared. The real estate that comes due in 2009 most likely will be starved even if the buildings are fully rented. That's how bad it is. Same with the last of the great 2-28 rollovers that come due this year, the Alt-A rollovers that will not be able to be refinance. According to RealtyTrac (the most definitive organization on the real estate numbers), the steep drop in foreclosures we saw in January was just temporary, mostly the deferred foreclosures from Fannie and Freddie . The real foreclosure rate as represented by the ferocious servicers who work for the CDOs, where some 60% to 70% of the mortgages are contained -- not that the system even knows the percentage -- is still continuing upward. So what does Congress do? It adds $500 to a tax credit for first-time homebuyers. I will simply...

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