Where oh where oh where is our mortgage?

As much as I joke that I might not have a mortgage anymore--although I did just attempt to log in to "My Mortgage" at Indymac's website and it is gone, gone, gone--at the most we will probably have some discomfort if and when the company is successfully purchased within the next 90 days, although the prospects of that happening may be slim. Best case scenario, we just scored ourselves a "free" house. (insert emoticon of unfounded hope) Most probable scenario, I will notice the absence of such website and feel incredibly uncomfortable about "just sending in my payment as usual" per the FDIC's direction.

All of this pales next to the plight of those who have lost substantial amounts of their savings in this collapse. It gravely concerns me that I turned on every news network on TV last night after I heard about Indymac's collapse and did not find one person talking about what this means, the ramifications of our growing economic crisis in this country. Alex reassured me that it was all over the airport this morning when he got off work.

I am by no means an economist...I just know that, when my government sends me a stimulus check and wants me to spend it on fun stuff like big screen TVs, there is a problem! Even worse is the fact that, if I could afford to "blow it" on stuff, I totally would! But we paid off some bigger bills and are pretty much in the same place we were beforehand, checking the calendar and getting excited about October coming with our permanent fund dividend checks.

I anticipate, in my utterly "lay-economist" way, that this situation will result in yet more opportunities for people who have the money to buy the many foreclosed houses that will result from the FDIC clearing out the products of Indymac's loan portfolio. There will be many ripples as people withdraw their money at the slightest hint of a problem from their trusted institutions. And one must wonder just where our big government is going to get the money to bail out these banks, and whether they even should.

We were those very people who should never have gotten a home loan--at least on paper. We tried renting at the time but, due to challenging income documentation and a small ding on our credit report, all the landlords turned us down in favor of a more "sure thing." Indymac said "No problem!" What trust! I'm very pensive about what has been and will be a very painful process for so many people to the point way out there where our economy stabilizes. In the meantime, we will think frugal thoughts and batten down the hatches.

Optimistic blogs I've been reading lately:

The Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter

The Automatic Earth (thanks to Stewart King for this Dante reenactment)

And here's something funny, in that bittersweet kind of way: the most recent Indymac corporate blogs.