Doris J. Dungey (November 15, 1961 – November 30, 2008) was an American blogger who wrote extensively about the

United States housing bubble The 2000s United States housing bubble or house price boom or 2000s housing cycle was a sharp run up and subsequent collapse of house asset prices affecting over half of the U.S. states. In many regions a Real-estate bubble, real estate bubb ...

for the blog Calculated Risk under the pseudonym ''Tanta''..

Early life and work

Born in

Oxnard, California Oxnard () is a city in Ventura County in the U.S. state of California, United States. On California's Central Coast (California), Central Coast, it is the most populous city in Ventura County and the List of largest California cities by populati ...

to Byron and Eileen Dungey in 1961, she was raised in Bloomington-Normal, Illinois. She earned a master's degree in English from the University of Wisconsin, where she taught until 1989. She then returned to Bloomington, where she wrote the training manual for a local rape crisis center. She worked in the

mortgage A mortgage loan or simply mortgage (), in civil law (legal system), civil law jurisdictions known also as a hypothec loan, is a loan used either by purchasers of real property to raise funds to buy real estate, or by existing property owners t ...

industry for many years, starting at Champion Federal Savings and Loan Association where she was a trainer and

technical writer A technical writer is a professional communicator whose task is to convey complex information in simple terms to an audience of the general public or a very select group of readers. Technical writers research and create information through a vari ...

. Her work for her last employer, Mortgage Dynamics, included

securitization Securitization is the financial practice of pooling various types of contractual debt such as residential mortgages, commercial mortgages, auto loans, or credit card debt obligations (or other non-debt assets which generate receivables) and sellin ...

due diligence, contract review and technical writing.

Writing career

The blog Calculated Risk was started in 2005 by Bill McBride, a former technology executive who believed that the United States housing market was near its peak, and he posted articles and statistics to his blog to support his argument. Dungey started posting to the blog, using the pseudonym ''Tanta'', a family nickname, because she hoped to return to work in the mortgage business. As ''Tanta'', Dungey used her inside knowledge of the mortgage industry and humor to post corrections and analysis of her own about mortgage financing. December 2006 marked her first post to the blog, criticizing a

Citigroup Citigroup Inc. or Citi (Style (visual arts), stylized as citi) is an American multinational investment banking, investment bank and financial services company based in New York City. The company was formed in 1998 by the merger of Citicorp, t ...

report that was confident that the mortgage industry would "rationalize" in 2007. Her work for the blog included ''The Compleat ÜberNerd'', a series of 13 articles that provided an in-depth summary of the mortgage business from origination and servicing, to

mortgage-backed securities A mortgage-backed security (MBS) is a type of asset-backed security (an "Financial instrument, instrument") which is secured by a mortgage loan, mortgage or collection of mortgages. The mortgages are aggregated and sold to a group of individuals ( ...

negative amortization In finance, negative amortization (also known as NegAm, deferred interest or graduated payment mortgage) occurs whenever the loan payment for any period is less than the interest charged over that period so that the outstanding balance of the lo ...

and

foreclosure Foreclosure is a legal process in which a lender attempts to recover the balance of a loan from a borrower who has Default (finance), stopped making payments to the lender by forcing the sale of the asset used as the Collateral (finance), coll ...

, which was called a "definitive word on the subject" by ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

''. She was quoted by ''

CBS News CBS News is the news division of the American television and radio broadcaster CBS. It is headquartered in New York City. CBS News television programs include ''CBS Evening News'', ''CBS Mornings'', news magazine programs ''CBS News Sunday Morn ...

'' in April 2008, emphasizing that the

subprime mortgage crisis The American subprime mortgage crisis was a multinational financial crisis that occurred between 2007 and 2010, contributing to the 2008 financial crisis. It led to a severe economic recession, with millions becoming unemployed and many busines ...

was not the result of the inherent complexity of instruments like

collateralized debt obligation A collateralized debt obligation (CDO) is a type of structured finance, structured asset-backed security (ABS). Originally developed as instruments for the corporate debt markets, after 2002 CDOs became vehicles for refinancing Mortgage-backed se ...

s, but was caused by excessive leverage that was part of efforts to "goose the yield" of mortgage securities to offer higher interest rates to investors by creating "complex cash-flow structures hedged by complex rate swaps". The Federal Reserve cited her in its 2008 paper ''Understanding the Securitization of Subprime Mortgage Credit.''. Her posts influenced a number of economists and journalists through their wit and clarity. In 2007 Felix Salmon, writing for ''Condé Nast Portfolio'', called her "one of the best financial writers in the world". The week after her death, Alyssa Katz wrote for the ''Columbia Journalism Review'' that "journalism aslost its most incisive, stubbornly accurate, and unfailingly hilarious chronicler of the failings of the mortgage industry."Katz, Alyssa
An Readable Mortgage Critic: Alyssa Katz remembers Doris Dungey, aka “Tanta”
The Audit, ''

Columbia Journalism Review The ''Columbia Journalism Review'' (''CJR'') is a biannual magazine for professional journalists that has been published by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism since 1961. Its original purpose was "to assess the performance ...

'', December 10, 2008. Accessed December 12, 2008. One of her final posts to the blog, in September 2008, criticized a proposed aspect of the 2008 bailout plan, which would have had the

United States Department of the Treasury The Department of the Treasury (USDT) is the Treasury, national treasury and finance department of the federal government of the United States. It is one of 15 current United States federal executive departments, U.S. government departments. ...

purchase bad loans directly from banks. As ''Tanta'', she argued that bank executives should be forced to explain why they purchased the asset in the first place, what they learned from seeing the asset go bad and how they will ensure that the same mistake is not made in the future.

Death

Dungey, who had lived in

Upper Marlboro, Maryland Upper Marlboro, officially the Town of Upper Marlboro, is the county seat of Prince George's County, Maryland, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population within the town limits was 652, although Greater Upper ...

, died at age 47 on November 30, 2008, of

ovarian cancer Ovarian cancer is a cancerous tumor of an ovary. It may originate from the ovary itself or more commonly from communicating nearby structures such as fallopian tubes or the inner lining of the abdomen. The ovary is made up of three different ...

.Streitfeld, David
"Doris Dungey, Prescient Finance Blogger, Dies at 47"
''

'', November 30, 2008; accessed December 1, 2008.

References

External links

Compendium of Tanta's Posts
on the Calculated Risk blog {{DEFAULTSORT:Dungey, Doris American women bloggers American bloggers Deaths from ovarian cancer in the United States Deaths from cancer in Maryland Writers from Bloomington, Illinois People from Upper Marlboro, Maryland Illinois State University alumni University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Letters and Science alumni University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty 20th-century American women writers Writers from Maryland United States housing bubble 1961 births 2008 deaths People from Oxnard, California American women academics 21st-century American women