Time is running out on the credibility of Meredith Whitney, who has yet to acknowledge that her eight-month-old prediction of widespread defaults this year in the market for state and local government debt is proving unfounded. Defaults fell 60 percent in the first half of 2011 compared with the same period last year, including a $12.5 million Austin, Texas, apartment project that made a late payment in June, according to Distressed Debt Securities Newsletter. Whitney, the analyst who rose to prominence by predicting Citigroup Inc.’s 2008 dividend cut, predicted “hundreds of billions of dollars” of municipal defaults ... (full story)