Two months after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, there has still been no broad-based action to help restructure delinquent mortgages and slow down the flood of foreclosures; the Fannie/Freddie plan announced earlier this week is a very small first step, because it is limited to a small portion of the mortgages outstanding – those controlled by Fannie and Freddie, which tend to have relatively low default rates anyway.

Sheila Bair, head of the FDIC, said that that plan “falls short of what is needed to achieve wide-scale modifications of distressed mortgages.” Apparently frustrated by the failure of negotiations with the Treasury Department, yesterday the FDIC posted its mortgage modification proposal to its web site (Washington Post summary), basically breaking with the rest of the administration and hoping the Congressional Democrats can make it happen.

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