To: Ilaine who wrote (116225 ) 8/9/2001 5:25:55 AM From: Wyätt Gwyön Read Replies (2) | Respond to the thing about those net worth numbers is that turning an aggregate figure into a per capita one as you've done hides the ugly imbalance that exists. some people have much more net worth, others have negative net worth. 500K net worth guy and -200K negative net worth guy average out to 150K net worth per capita. but 500K guy is no help to -200K guy (or the creditors) when the latter stops installment payments. i think that's important to look at because it is weakness on the margins that results in massive failures, as hinted at by the WSJ article on subprime lenders posted here a few posts back (1BB writedown by Amex).That subprime has been deteriorating is clear. In May, the latest month for which data are available, the percentage of subprime mortgages nationwide that were seriously delinquent rose to 6.37% from 5.55% at the end of last year, according to Mortgage Information Corp., a San Francisco research and data firm that tracks the majority of all subprime mortgages. That compares with a 4.64% delinquency rate at the end of 1999. A mortgage is defined as seriously delinquent when the borrower is three or more payments late.
