Mr. GARY GORDON (Portales Partners): While Washington Mutual certainly does not have a pristine loan portfolio, it's a lot better looking than IndyMac's was.

NPR: IndyMac Collapse Fuels Fears About WaMu

Gary Gordon a stock analyst at Portales Partners, an independent research firm, says there are three big differences between WaMu and the California bank taken over by federal regulators.

NPR: IndyMac Collapse Fuels Fears About WaMu

"Most people are really attached to their lifestyles, " says Esteban Calvo, co-author of the Boston College study that looked at home equity and now an associate professor at Diego Portales University in Santiago, Chile.

WSJ: Why Downsizing Your House May Not Solve Your Retirement Problems

But Dino Kos, a former head of markets at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (and now a strategist for Portales Partners, a broker), says the new requirement almost guarantees that an auction will not fail.

ECONOMIST: Sovereign-debt managers

Typical townhouses in Havana were fitted with grand colonnaded portales (porches) to provide shade and shelter from the tropical weather, and rejas, metal bars, were secured over open window panes to protect against burglaries and allow for a freer circulation of air.

BBC: Cuba��s eclectic architecture

But Dino Kos, a former chief of markets at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York who now works for Portales Partners, a research firm, notes that the yuan does not meet one of the most basic requirements of a reserve currency: other countries cannot use it to intervene in foreign-exchange markets because it is not freely convertible.

ECONOMIST: America��s debt crisis will be chronic, not acute