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: the following two years—though the data were thin and preliminary.

Tony Sanders of Arizona State University points to another worry. If Alt-A defaults are indeed the next credit meltdown, then extending teaser rates might simply postpone the pain for a few years. “We do not know enough about subprime and Alt-A default tendencies to undertake such a monumental and potentially unfair reallocation of payments,” he says.

Claims of unfairness are likely to crop up a lot in coming months. The one certainty about mass modification is that it will benefit some who do not need help and others for whom assistance is just a postponement of the inevitable. However, more and more market-watchers think that is a price worth paying if it helps avert an avalanche of defaults.