credit didn’t tighten because of fear. credit tightened because banks couldn’t maintain their 10-1 ratio. they had to tighten credit access otherwise they’d have exceeded their ratio. what would happen if investors essentially had a margin call on cash? banks would have collapsed… (or what essentially happened to bear sterns). what caused strain on that ratio? mortgage foreclosures.

foreclosures did increase, period. you don’t need realtytrac to follow that. just compare the number of listings for foreclosed homes on the djc from 2002 to 2007. go ahead, open up a djc from any city, and compare.