Mortgage rates dropped this week in a classic illustration of a phenomenon known as the flight to quality.  The benchmark 30 year fixed rate mortgage fell 9 basis points, to 6.2%, according to the Bankrate.com national survey of large lenders. A basis point is one-hundredth of 1 percentage point.  The mortgages in this week's survey  had a average total of 0.32 discount and origination points. One year ago, the mortgage index was 6.27%, four weeks ago, it was 6.42%. The freakish week began with a prediction from Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, that a recession could hit the U.S. economy this year.  Then there was  a rout in Chinese stock markets, where a prominent index dropped by 9%. After that, the Dow Jones industrialk average fell 3.3%. (Source; Bankrate.com)