An Economic Education In Florida
WJXT Jacksonville reports from Florida. “In the latest byproduct of the widening global financial crisis, Citigroup Inc. will acquire the banking operations of Wachovia Corp. — the second largest bank in Florida. As details of its takeover unfolded, Wachovia shares plunged 91 percent to 94 cents. Wachovia’s problems stem largely from its acquisition of mortgage lender Golden West Financial Corp. in 2006 for roughly $25 billion at the height of the nation’s housing boom. With that purchase, Wachovia inherited a deteriorating $122 billion portfolio of Pick-A-Payment loans, Golden West’s specialty, which let borrowers skip some payments.”
From Bloomberg. “On a May 2007 conference call, Wachovia Corp.’s then-CEO Ken Thompson trumpeted the $24 billion acquisition of Golden West Financial Corp., a California lender that specialized in payment-option adjustable-rate mortgages. ‘I think that 12 months or so from now people are going to look at the acquisition of Golden West as one that produced great success for Wachovia,’ Thompson said.”
“‘Golden West was the beginning of the end’ for Wachovia, said Anat Bird, a former Wells Fargo & Co. executive. Golden West ‘had lousy assets, lousy liabilities and they paid a fortune for it.”’
“On his May 2007 conference call, Thompson said that ‘credit quality is not an issue’ and the option ARM product line would ‘hit the ball out of the park.”’
“‘There have been some issues with housing depreciation in California and Florida, where a lot of our loans were made,’ said Wachovia spokesman Don Vecchiarello.”
The Orlando Sentinel. “Slumping home markets in Central Florida and elsewhere across the country had begun to show some signs of bottoming out, but that could change if Congress fails to approve a bailout, said Hank Fishkind of the Orlando-based economic-forecasting company Fishkind and Associates. ‘Housing, along with everything else, is going to get a lot worse,’ Fishkind said. ‘Let’s hope they [lawmakers] reconsider their foolish actions, quickly.’”
“So far, most of the country’s home foreclosures have been because of bad loans, said Sean Snaith, an economics professor at the University of Central Florida. And as the housing market slid further, he said, credit markets began tightening and potential home buyers have had a tougher time getting mortgages approved. But the next wave of foreclosures, he warned, would involve people with ordinary loans who would lose their homes after losing their jobs.”
The Ledger. “‘It’s a challenge to correctly predict with any precision where the bottom is going to be. The bottom is going to occur when we get a better balance of supply and demand,’ Sean Snaith, economist for the University of Central Florida, told The Ledger. “We’re still seeing a glut of housing right now related to the credit crunch.’”
The Miami Herald. “Longtime mortgage broker Javier M. Noriega said lately lenders have been steadily tightening rules even for people with medium to strong credit. They want higher credit scores and larger down payments, which many customers just don’t have. Without the bailout, things could just get worse, he said.”
”’Right now, what I am getting is nothing,’ said Noriega, VP of First Southeast Mortgage in Hollywood. ‘I just don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel at this point. We were hoping that this package would at least alleviate some of the problem.”’
“To understand how the credit crisis is hitting home in South Florida, consider the plight of Teresa and Hoover Encalada. The couple found a two-bedroom condo they loved at the Plaza on Brickell. At $434,000, the price was right. Their credit was good. Friday, they got the bad news: The lender wants 45 percent down on a five-year loan with an initial interest rate of 7.8 percent. Now Encalada, a 39-year-old administrative assistant, and her husband, an Ecuadorean banana grower, are waiting on a second bank offer requiring only 40 percent down before they proceed.”
“The Encaladas thought they’d have no problem. At most they planned to put 30 percent down, leaving enough money to buy new furniture. ‘Now, I can only get the place,’ Teresa Encalada said. ‘Furniture and improvements will just have to wait.”’
“She was only 21 when she decided to become a mortgage broker. A newlywed, Michelle LaPiana felt that her own broker had misled her and her husband during the daunting purchase of their first home in Hialeah. The closing costs were nearly double what the couple previously had been told. By the time they sat with a title agent to sign the loan documents, it was too late to walk away without losing thousands of dollars.”
“In 2001, she joined Fieldstone Mortgage’s subprime division as a wholesale account executive. She would hold the same position at a string of other wholesalers over the next six years, specializing in high-cost and highly profitably subprime mortgages. ‘Subprime loans were the hot commodity of Wall Street. That’s all everybody wanted,’ LaPiana said.”
“In the peak years of the boom, she says she did an average of five deals a day. Sometimes, her biweekly paychecks topped $20,000. ‘I still have the pay stubs,’ LaPiana said ruefully, adding she couldn’t toss them because she hopes to once again earn such a handsome income.”
“Almost as fast as the subprime industry itself, LaPiana’s life went into a tailspin. She went from making great money to collecting unemployment. Her savings were eaten up by an expensive adjustable-rate loan, a car payment and the cost of supporting a family of four.”
“In July, she woke up one morning and found her Jeep Commander missing from the driveway. It had been repossessed. ‘I knew it was going to happen,’ she said. LaPiana made her last mortgage payment in May. The lenders are hounding her out of her half-million-dollar dream. She’s had to borrow money from friends. ‘I feel I was a victim, but I feel government is not going to help people like me,’ LaPiana said.”
The Dayton Daily News. “Look for the U.S. housing market crisis to be deeper, longer and scarier if the legislative deadlock continues. ‘If they don’t do something, they’re going to shut down real estate completely,’ said Richard Shuman, a Florida real estate agent and mortgage broker.”
“Though falling prices make homes more affordable, potential buyers don’t qualify for a mortgage unless they have the best credit. ‘How many people are going to sit down and say: ‘You know honey, it’s a good time to buy a house?’ asked Thomas Lawler, a housing economist in Virginia.”
The Palm Beach Post. “At this year’s Florida Association of Realtors gathering…Tony Macaluso, a broker and real estate instructor from Palm Beach Gardens, told Realtors he blames the ‘evil media.’”
“Real estate consultant Jim Sherry, meanwhile, offered this bit of analysis: ‘The media is still after us.’”
“Macaluso said in a more lucid moment: ‘Was it a surprise that properties were overvalued? It shouldn’t have been to any of us.’”
“A real estate investor and a mortgage broker have admitted their roles in a scam fleecing lenders of millions of dollars in home loans. In a deal for a home in Wellington, investor Ralph Michel arranged for an inflated appraisal that doubled the value of the house, then took a $650,000 kickback at closing, only to stop making payments on the loan, prosecutors said. In another deal in Versailles, Michel got a $600,000 kickback.”
“Lauren Jasky of Compass Mortgage Services in Boca Raton, meanwhile, collected at least $200,000 in mortgage brokerage fees from the deals, federal prosecutors said. The mortgage fraud ring also enlisted straw buyers, such as the part-time Publix cashier whose income on loan applications was inflated from $13,000 to $344,000 so she could qualify for $1.3 million in loans on a Boca Raton home, prosecutors said.”
“Experts say plenty of help is available to those who are threatened with foreclosure of their home but that homeowners need to seek assistance early and often. And they shouldn’t expect it to be easy. ‘Stay in your home as long as possible. ‘Until you get kicked out,’ says Stephanie Porta, head organizer for the Orlando branch of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. If you move out and the home is vandalized, the bank can charge you to repair the damage.”
“‘Unfortunately, sometimes saving the home is not the right thing to do for the person in the long run,’ said Anita Lynn Lapidus, a staff attorney for the housing unit of Community Legal Services of Mid-Florida. ‘Sometimes buying the home in the first place was just totally the wrong move.’”
The Sun Sentinel. “‘The worst thing you can do is abandon that home,’ even if it is in foreclosure, said Marcia Oban, of New Visions CDC. Homeowners typically can remain in the house for six or seven months, she said; time to save the money not paid on the mortgage. ‘Save the money toward moving out,’ Oban said.”
The News Press. “I was sitting in a meeting earlier this week when I noticed a text on my cell phone from one of my listing clients. ‘Quick question,’ he said. ‘Is there any way in this market that we can slightly increase our asking price?’”
“My wit has been known to outrun my brains, so my initial thought was to respond, ‘Are you nuts?’”
“I told him if we had multiple offers we could talk about raising the price. However, since we haven’t had an offer in six months, nor has there been a recent sale in his neighborhood in almost a year, we should be talking about lowering the price, not raising it.”
“His final response? ‘Not comfortable with lowering the price. Should we take it off the market and wait for better days?’”
“He then closed our cyber conversation by asking the question that every agent and seller should be asking each other, ‘Do under-motivated sellers belong in this market?’”
“Declining home values have Palm Beach County commissioners contemplating changing affordable housing rules imposed on developers during the real estate boom. The county’s $164,000 to $304,000 price range was set in 2006, based on median home prices that hovered near $400,000. In August, the county’s median price for existing single-family homes was $323,300, according to the Florida Association of Realtors.”
“‘We don’t know what affordable is,’ Commissioner Burt Aaronson said about the slide in the real estate market.”
“Juan Del Busto, the regional executive of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s Miami Branch, briefed the 120-plus attendees about the Miami Branch’s role as a local gatherer and distributor of key economic and tourism information. He noted how the federal reserve has hired educators to spread economics knowledge.”
“‘As we have seen recently, a lot of CEOs, a lot of bankers and a lot of people need to have an economic education,’ Del Busto said. Most nodded in agreement.”
‘Housing, along with everything else, is going to get a lot worse,’ said Hank Fishkind of the Orlando-based economic-forecasting company Fishkind and Associates.. ‘Let’s hope they [lawmakers] reconsider their foolish actions, quickly.’
This clown has a lot of nerve calling anyone foolish. Here’s a question for the Florida media; how come you guys don’t call Fishkind and this idiot Snaith out on their housing bubble blunders? How long did they reassure the REIC and the public that all was well, even as the state slid into this mess?
Snaith Pliskin has been quiet as church mouse lately…
“So far, most of the country’s home foreclosures have been because of bad loans”, said Sean Snaith, an economics professor at the University of Central Florida.
A Snaith in the grass
And a pain is the a@@
Wow! Haven’t heard from Fishstick in a while! Wonder what rock he’s been hiding under as his lies cannot be told any more.
What’s Lawrence Yun been up to lately?
There is an article posted in the bits bucket about how people do not trust our political establishment any more. I think it is a broader problem than that. We don’t trust our so-called “elites”, whether they are media elites, political elites or CEOs. These folks have been telling anyone that would listen over the past couple of years that the “fundamentals are sound” and that “we have hit bottom”. Does the reporter who wrote this article even wonder that he might want to talk to someone else who hasn’t been wrong on every aspect of the housing bubble?
I think the talking heads in the fishwrap and fishbowl divisions of maim-stream-media are content with going back to the same well of disinformation, mostly out of convenience, not to slake their thirst for truth.
Reporters are generally a lazy lot….not evil, just lazy…..
Except, for anyone who didn’t already see it, the fine article by Leslie Berkman of the Press Enterprise that Ben posted last evening. Showing a great graph of Option ARM resets and quoting an economist’s argument that the bust must persist through 2011 or beyond. Same story as our favorite Ivy Zelman graph, but now in MSM.
How can you trust someone that doesn’t listen to you?
CUE THE SEAL. We’ll know its time to buy here when this feckless and insipid captive intellectual “forecaster” no longer is collecting consulting fees from developers and homebuilders. He does not deserve to shine my shoes.
I’ll take this one, Ben, being in Florida and seeing it all up-close and personal-like…
The Florida media is the most complicit on earth when it comes to stoking the real estate fire. The local newspaper websites used to have a big giant navigation item labeled “Real Estate” years ago. Heck, I’m surprised the home page didn’t automatically redirect to it.
There is no major industry here, unless you count mouse ears and snowbirds as “industry”. Each day more and more people want a piece of the sunshine, dejected by the go-nowhere lifestyles in the other parts of the country where they lived.
Slackers (and gov. employees) need tax dollars to survive, so Governors Jeb and Crist contemplated, “Hmm…How do we raise those tax dollars?” And that’s when the real estate bubble here truly got underway.
The media jumped on board because they love a parade, and they knew that IF THEY QUESTIONED THE FACTS THEY WOULD BE BLACKBALLED BY THE LOCAL MEDIA. No exclusive interviews, no puffy press releases…Any newspaper that refused would become nothing more than a rag full of AP wire feeds. So they gave in.
And you can bet the newspaper execs were doin’ a little dabblin’ in the real estate profession themselves. Lennar is a big employer in Florida, so are a bunch of other large developers. Why upset the apple cart? Industry’s doing great! Industries pay tax dollars! We have money now! We’re rich! We’re operating off a completely new model!
But Florida is full of shysters and con artists - up and down the line - and the first one that has the courage to blink is the one that ends the game. And the homebuyers blinked first, too fed up with high insurance and taxes, and bolted for the Carolinas. And that’s when it all unraveled.
Suddenly the Miami Herald writes a story about how there were all these criminals underwriting mortgages. Wow, now that’s like a huge news flash we never would have guessed would have happened in Florida. And everyone remembers once again why they are here - not to get rich, but to live as well as can be expected either before you go to jail or die or potentially both.
Is there an annual award for the greatest understatement of the year? If so, here’s my nomination.
“‘There have been some issues with housing depreciation in California and Florida, where a lot of our loans were made,’ said Wachovia spokesman Don Vecchiarello.”
“been some issues…” BWAHAHAHAHAHAHHHH
Well the bail out failed and we are all still here. Friend of mine who doesn’t have a clue about the bubble emailed me this video. It caused him to switch his vote for the election. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I knew about the bubble for 4 years and just didn’t want to cause fights with my friends and family by trying to convince them of the bubble. ( I learned the hard way)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NU6fuFrdCJY
RE: switch
Great video, BP…Thank you for the link.
I am forwarding it to my social network.
Of course all the information, graphs, data, and storylines contained in the video is based on “BS rightwing talking points”, LMAO!
Comment by edhopper
2008-09-29 09:22:14
BS rightwing talking points.
Carter!?! Give me a break. Minority lending programs work for 30 years and NOW they cause a housing bubble and credit crisis.
Disregard Phil Gramm, the elimination
Yea I really liked it as well. The problem is that the media is so in the tank for the messiah that no real reporting is done on the issue. And no ed, I realize McCain screwed up. He didn’t scream loud enough in 2005 about the fraud going on with wall street and the GSEs.
RE: BS rightwing talking points…
hey, and here’s one from (gasp!) the Taliban News Network…
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/29/miron.bailout/index.html?iref=mpstoryview
Only way to stay friends with many people is to avoid discussing politics, religion and real estate.
RE: Only way to stay friends with many people is to avoid discussing politics, religion and real estate.
Birds of feather flock together!
The vocations of my close friends network range from heart surgeon to whitewater raft guide.
NOT ONE IS VOTING FOR O’BAMA.
hd74man,
I was a ‘little’ disappointed they didn’t include that Tax Act of 1997 ( basically doing away w/ cap. gains on homes ) but that wasn’t really germane to the case they were making.
What I have felt was always a little misleading about the explosion in subprime lending was that not ‘all’ of it was done for minorities. Not by a long shot. As I’ve said in the past, it crept ‘up’ the income ladder as well.
When MB punks were peddling that cr@p they would take even people w/ 750 fico’s and tell them; “Sure we can go Full-Doc but by that time someone will have swooped in and outbid you for the property! Do you r-e-a-l-l-y want that to happen to you again? Tell you what…”
I completely misjudged the effect of that tax act. Figuring that you no longer had to move up to a more expensive house each time you sold your current one (to avoid an immediate tax bill), I thought everyone would therefore begin to move down (downsize, downprice), and bank their capital gains. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
It appears that my wife and I were almost the only ones to do that.
Bill,
Where “I’m” concerned, it merits not only it’s own thread ( but could make for an entire Blog! )
Like yourself, I couldn’t have been more wrong. Harry Dent will have to ride in the back on this one? All of his considerable charts show “peak consumption” for most Americans hitting right around age 46. Then it’s time for the kiddies to go off to college, a few years of austerity ( ha ) and then downsizing pays off in the form of “bulked up” retirement account contributions ( double ha )
Personally ( bubbles aside ) we couldn’t WAIT to downsize! Wow, no more entire weekends dedicated to lawn maint. and we got a 5′ plastic Christmas tree! Does it get any better than that? Well apparently not. As Peter Schiff notes rather than curtail consumption by our mid-40’s..? Hell! We’re just getting started!
hd74man,
And if that IS true ( and they’re like MY friends ) that isn’t to say that it’s a rousing endorsement of JM either though, right? LOL!
Why do you say O’Bama. Are you another that lies about him being a muslim?
O’Bama sounds Irish to me…
He IS a muslim, tool.
Obama (D-Hamas)
Nonsense, he’s just a Trotskyite.
nobody gives a sh*t, Uncle Metamucil is about to get an early retirement. This thing is going to be a landslide…get used to it….
‘Cause you guys are so hot to see Phil Gram as Treasury Secretary. That’s a real smart move.
‘Only way to stay friends with many people is to avoid discussing politics, religion and real estate.’
But who wants to be friends with souls so unenergetic that they are willing and able to avoid discussing these exciting things? Some of my favorite people are ones I disagree with on religion and politics.* As long as it’s a lively and respectful thing, everyone is enriched by vigorous, informed and highly-opinionated debate. Don’t agree? Let’s argue about it!
*Notice that I DID leave out ‘real-estate’. In my observation most real-estate cheerleaders are vapid or blustering drones with teeny weeny vocabularies and nothing but rote mouthings. Why waste time debating things with *them*? Uninteresting. Besides, former REtard cheerleaders seem curiously unavailable for arguments lately. Too busy crying little tears out of their sad eyes, for instance.
HAHAHAHAHA!
Oh PLEASE, same old, same old.
Yeah, poor Wall Street, the INHUMANITY of it!
VICTIMS of Democrats!
Investment Banks CEOs, Hedge Fund mgrs victims of browny getting a sub-prime!
PLEASE!
Muir,
We have to hold Main St. accountable as well. NAR made 60 bil. in commissions in 2005 alone. NAR’s own estimates show that 35-40% of that may have been for “2nd” homes ( or 3rd.. or 4th )
With the kind of volume they were pumping out there’s only (1) place that can handle it! So that’s where it all wound up. WS is paying for it. Is Prudential’s “Agent 24/7″?
You WANT a $700 billion US Taxpayer BAILOUT Mr & Ms America ? Wasn’t the first of these bailouts for these scumballs lessons enough ?
Let these CORPORATE Thugs, Hoodlums and Criminals mark to MARKET, make it, or go Bankrupt and reorganize FIRST.
Wall Street gamblers, lobbyists, the Chamber of Commerce and NAR SHOULD NOT be running this Country and Congress…PERIOD
Absoultey NO BAILOUTS and any more good money after BAD for any of these Gamblers and Speculators CLASS.
Let THEM get a REAL JOB like the rest of America !
mikey,
Oh, agreed. FWIW I sat on hold to make sure I got through to our Oregon reps, and evidently we should be congratulating one another!
My point though is more one of “cause and effect”. Because Realtwhores function simply as “brokers” ( they really don’t have an “inventory” ) They’re simply paid a commission to sell your house, right? So in spite of the fact that they brow beat appraisers and in cases I’m sure, otherwise ethical MB’s to “get deals done” just so they could get their commission, they’re claiming absolutely ZERO accountability here.
It’s just become altogether too easy to point the finger at Wall Street ( and believe me at this point they’re glad of it ) NAR probably figures they’ve “suffered” enough just w/ the slide in pay-outs so they just want the rest of us to pull our heads out of our own @$$e$ so they can get back to “doing deals”.
Dang - they pulled the video!
Did anyone save it?
Leigh
Now for all the folks who fear the police state from the right you need to look to your left.
“They want higher credit scores and larger down payments…”
No way! Responsible lending? Why? I’d rather give them $700 billion to free up more money for liar loans.
Bad Andy,
Just have them call Michelle LaPiana! She’ll… hook them up!
She saved her old 20k pay stubs in the hopes of once again knocking down those kind of bucks. True her car has been repo’d and her lender wants her out of her half million dollar home that she hasn’t made a payment on since freakin’ MAY but I’m sure she can help.
Just as soon as she gets over being a victim.
Well, she *could* try riding a bicycle. Might do her lazy butt some good.
BTW, here in Tucson, there’s a real estate agent who trumpets his love of bicycling in his ads.
Sotto voce: He listed a house a couple of blocks away. And it sat there. Neighbor told me the Mr. Bicycle didn’t do much in the “try to sell this house” department. So, the owner switched to a more energetic agent, and, boom! the house was sold a few weeks later.
Oh and I’m willing to bet there’s a tax nightmare that’s uglier than 3 barrels of… well YOU know!
Regardless of age, people that stumble into that kind of windfall have no idea how to contend with that level of income! Uh… ‘most’ of us have to e-a-r-n it a teensy bit at a time? I’ll bet she didn’t even HAVE a CPA ( let alone know what one does? )
“If you move out and the home is vandalized, the bank can charge you to repair the damage.”
and just How are they going to make you pay?
The banks are so backed up that I’ve yet to see one sue after the initial foreclosure. In FL they have just 12 months to seek money. They’ll be lucky if they’ve sold the house in 12 months, let alone be able to sue you.
“‘There have been some issues with housing depreciation in California and Florida”
Gee, really?
Apparently this is news to the Florida Association of Realtors, still blaming the media for the facts.
Those Realwhores never complained when the media was propping up home prices.
How does being turned down for a loan on an overpriced and rapidly-depreciating condo in a market cratering with foreclosures get described as a “plight”? That couple just got saved from themselves.
Yeah, people really don’t know when they’re lucky.
Talk about dodging a falling knife–a $434,000 South Florida condo–today?
That condo will be for sale for 300K next year, and less then that 2 years from now. Why do you think the lender wanted such a huge down payment?
Not getting the loan is the best thing that could happen to these people. They should go ask the people who did get loans (2 years ago) about how happy they are about being able to borrow 10X their incomes to buy a crashing asset class.
I still see people getting loans they absolutely shouldn’t get. Many are FHA loans. Why is it they are screaming credit crisis when really it’s a credit correction?
And putting 40% down on a 434K condo in South Florida as well? People are insane. Or just really, really dumb. Add to that clueless, lacking foresight, naive…how the heck did humanity survive to the 21st century?
once again, I’m reminded of Swift and the vision of Yahoos tearing each other’s hair out trying to get the shiny trinkets. If there is an afterlife that guy’s got a beer on me.
That should just add the cherry on top to the housing market crash.
Ask for 40% down.
As jaded as I am, I’m still surprised that the best the media can come up with to prove the credit crunch is a bad thing for main street is:
- the fact that an Ecuadorian Banana grower is being required to put up a large downpayment for the worst current investment anyone could imagine, a new condo in downtown Miami.
“saved from themselves”
That’s an interesting remark. I have been posting about a SW Florida amateur Investor who has been after me to lend 80% for 15 years on a 3BR/2BA REO in Cape Coral. Listed at $80K and offer of $68K was accepted. Investor had told me 10% interest rate was OK. Once I agreed to finance this particular property, I heard nothing more whatsoever from the investor. Perhaps the investor came to realize that the $585/mo P&I plus the tax/ins/maint was going to be more than the house would rent out for. Investor saved self. The only reason I’d been willing to go along at all was, I figured I didn’t mind if I ended up with the house for $55K minus however many payments the investor might make.
“The bottom is going to occur when we get a better balance of supply and demand,’ Sean Snaith, economist for the University of Central Florida, told The Ledger.”
======================================================
Chance the Gardener: Yes. In the garden, growth has it seasons. First comes spring and summer, but then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again.
I was travelling further south. The road slowly gave way to a rocky crawl. Suddenly hens scattered and a village appeared. In the distance, a bell tolled. I saw a group of women carrying laundry and prodding children. One peasant girl let her gaze meet mine. I motioned to her to come to my car.
Jerzy baby
That sound like Hemingway!
“In July, she woke up one morning and found her Jeep Commander missing from the driveway. It had been repossessed. ‘I knew it was going to happen,’ she said. LaPiana made her last mortgage payment in May. The lenders are hounding her out of her half-million-dollar dream. She’s had to borrow money from friends. ‘I feel I was a victim, but I feel government is not going to help people like me,’ LaPiana said.”
Gotta love the classics. Trying to keep from feeling a sense of entitlement myself or being a victim. Felt good calling the my congress critter.
‘Sounds to me like she spent 6 to 7 years being a perpetrator of financial crimes.
Sub-prime is all they wanted? B.S. That’s what paid the highest fees and commissions.
She took all she could, and like all other lazy con-artists, did not SAVE a single dollar for future contingencies……….she found an endless gravy-train and thought she was entitled to lap up the flowing money as her rightful place in this world.
Victim? It’s just amazing how twisted people can get.
She’s a victim of her own twisted morals and illogical thinking.
diogenes,
I’ve actually had subprime brokers describe the “boom” years by saying “It was like sitting next to a river of money, all you had to do was stick your hand in and grab as much as you like!”
Seriously. What’s more is that Michelle actually felt that she was w-o-r-k-i-n-g. No deary, I’ve done ‘work’ and that ain’t it.
Maybe her next job at McDonalds will show her what real work is.
We are the victims ‘cos now we have to pay for the crimes ass clowns like this comitted.
She was pulling 500K a year, and not only did she not pay off her 500K house, she had an ARM!
That’s called eating one’s own cooking.
It does say she had some faith in financial alchemy,which is to say that she is clearly a dillusional idiot.
That’s no crime, but to claim she never put people in houses they couldnot afford shows a complete lack of understanding of what an ARM mortgage, or any subprime product truely is…… a way to buy something you really can’t afford….. and hope that somehow, someway, someday, someone will bail you out. It’s looking like our CONgress thinks that’s their job. Fortunately, the call-ins have them scared. LIQUIDATE, Confiscate and payout to the lenders!!
“The couple found a two-bedroom condo they loved at the Plaza on Brickell. At $434,000, the price was right. Their credit was good. Friday, they got the bad news: The lender wants 45 percent down on a five-year loan with an initial interest rate of 7.8 percent. Now Encalada, a 39-year-old administrative assistant, and her husband, an Ecuadorean banana grower, are waiting on a second bank offer requiring only 40 percent down before they proceed.”
Let me be the first to clue them in. The price was NOT right. The lender wants 45% down, because, in their estimation, that’s the amount necessary to cover their possible losses from selling the home should the buyers walk away and/or be unable to pay the MTG.
It’s amazing, all these people whining about not being able to buy a home. They are doing you a HUGE favor by not writing you that loan. For those that have never been to the Brickell area of Miami, it is nice (really fun place to live), but there are 1,000s (or 10,000s) of condos for sale there. The building was just unreal. And there is no local industry to support the amount of “luxury” condos that were built. Perhaps tourists can soak some of it up, but not all!
Some of those buildings might be converted to section 8 housing. Then you don’t even have to leave your building to buy some crack or hook up with some crack whore.
That will work wonders for real estate prices. I am surprised how loose lending standards still are. Banks are still willing to lend $434K * 60% = $260.4K on a place that maybe worth 150K. I’d require 75% down on a place like that. Actually I wouldn’t touch the place with a 10 foot pole.
RE: Some of those buildings might be converted to section 8 housing.
Gonna be a lot of this if the bail-out passes and the Feds control all that housing inventory.
It’ll cerainly be a big step up the housing ladder for the crackheads and welfare queens.
Single family detached homes with payments based on income-or in the case of this crowd…free!
No doubt the absolute best thing which could be hoped for by the framers of the Community Reinvestment Act.
So you better be watchin’ where you decide to hang’ your hat.
The next ghetto might be your own neighborhood-thru no choice of your own.
They tore down on of my favorite hot dog stands to build a Wachovia bank. I hope they put the hot dog stand back when they tear down the Wachovia bank building!
Yeah, my favorite burger place in Tampa, Jimmy Mac’s, was torn down for our absurd stillborn “New Port” development. I believe the website for New Port, promising all the obscene luxury accoutrements the average American deserves to go into debt for, finally has been taken down.
…and your favorate hot dog stand was probably a profitable business with a positive impact on the community
n July, she woke up one morning and found her Jeep Commander missing from the driveway. It had been repossessed. ‘I knew it was going to happen,’ she said. LaPiana made her last mortgage payment in May. The lenders are hounding her out of her half-million-dollar dream. She’s had to borrow money from friends. ‘I feel I was a victim, but I feel government is not going to help people like me,’ LaPiana said.”
Does she live on Elm Street ?
and found her Jeep Commander missing
She’s hauling in $40,000.00 a month and she buys a frickin Jeep?
And didn’t pay cash for it?
What in the world did these people spend their money on?
and doesn’t pay cash?
No, she didn’t buy a Jeep, she Financed a Jeep. With the money she was hauling in, she should of bought the freaking for Cash. At least then she would have a Jeep to live in once they kick her out of her house.
What the heck did she do with all of that money? Obviously she didn’t save it, invest it, or buy a house or car for cash. She must of have went HGTV crazy or bought enough clothes for a small city. No one could drink that much Jamba Juice…
The government DAMN WELL BETTER NOT help her. Sorry, she’s not a victim, she’s a victimizer. She’s what- 27 years old? Still needs to grow up. Victim my butt.
(rant off!)
She’s in her thirties (divorced now). She made up to 200K per year (not 500K, not all biweekly checks were 20K, I guess). I mentioned her in a comment yesterday (article in my local delivered paper).
She claims she’s a victime cause she was one of the ETHICAL subprime account executives (and could have made more lending more freely), and she never made a loan to someone who couldn’t afford it. (Excuse me for calling bull on that one! So don’t buy it. )
I’m not feeling sorry for her. I’m not believing she’s a victim, not when her ilk are causing such woe. But she is a dumbass. To make THAT sort of salary and not freaking pay off a car and to get a half-million dollar house when she was a single mom (meaning relying on her paycheck, meaning she should have bought cheaper, not more expensive). Just a lot of crap choices.
She’s not a victim. She’s stupid. Several years of a mega-salary tells me she should have a paid off car and significant savings. Apparently not.
Well, I’m guessing she’s got plenty of shoes, clothes, expensive knickknacks and jewelry as she starts renting and getting on with her new career in …insurance. :0
Mir
Hi y’all,
Just wondering if anyone had any thoughts on the market in Miami (Coral Gables in particular)?
I’m thinking about returning to the area from the mid-Atlantic region, and wondering what the spread is between renting and owning in that area?
My family (who I love dearly, but they tend to be a tad optimistic on real estate matters) are convinced it is a good time to buy, because prices have come down so much. I’m inclined to think another shoe or three are about to drop.
Thoughts from the group?
If you don’t need to work in Miami, Jupiter or Stuart is much nicer IMHO. I live in Palm Beach County, and am not a fan of Miami, where I lived for 3 years. Such a large percentage of people that think of nothing but themselves, a general feeling that laws are made for other people, anything is ok if you can get away with it. I’m sure you know that almost noone speaks English in the streets. If you are used to the DC area, which has the highest average education in the country, Miami has the lowest percentage of college grads and the lowest household income of any big city. I heard that 54% of adults in Dade County don’t even have a high school education. Not passing judgement here, just saying it’s very different than the mid-Atlantic. My advice would be to spend two weeks there, driving around during rush hour, going to the stores, before you make any decisions.
I live in Palm Beach. I rent in Teaquesta (Geographically I live in Jupiter Island) I do not lock my doors to sleep. There are areas in Palm Beach that are affluent for sure. However, Palm Beach has MANY problems, statistically there is more violent crime than in Miami-Dade.
There are many affluent areas in Miami-Dade that are at least as nice, safe and beautiful as Palm Beach, in fact better. The East side of US1 in Coral Gables and Coconut Grove towards Brickell are pricey and will remain so as there is genuine value there.
Northern Palm Beach, Jupiter, Palm Beach Gardens and specially, Juno Beach and Tequesta are the best Palm Beach has to offer on the coast. If you like a rural setting there are other areas but you are at least an hour and half from Miami. Also be forewarned, this area is known for the most shallow, snotty uppity people on the planet and these are the locals opinion.
Yes, do your own research and drive, drive and walk.
I’ve lived in Fl for 40 years, there are many hidden gems around here that most do not know about.
Be careful what you tell tourists, Grand Avenue is east of US1 in Coconut Grove. It’s lovely, as long as you are in a bulletproof car escorted by the 82nd Airborne. While I would agree that there are some very bad parts of PBC and there are serious problems, I looked it up on the FBI website - Miami Dade has about a 33% higher percentage of violent crime than Palm Beach County - 998 per 100,000 people in Miami Dade vs. 726 per 100,000 in PBC.
Notice I said “Coconut Grove towards Brickell.”
Was it Lake Worth in Palm Beach where a couple of months ago a Haitian mother was forced to have oral sex with her adolescent son and repeatedly sodomized and raped? How far away was that the glamour of Palm Beach Island?
You too should be careful of what you say to tourist.
The last 3 places I have lived in I have not closed the doors at night: Jupiter Island, Mt. Dora, Coral Gables. All, in Fl and all very different.
I could not find the numbers you quote and do not know the years they refer to.
But, to imply that Palm Beach is safer than Miami Dade shows either recklessness or ignorance.
Where in my original statement did I say anything about violent crime? You brought it up! But as long as you’ve called me ignorant:
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2007/data/table_06.html
These are the latest figures, from 2007. Check it out, tell me where I’m wrong, show me where the statistics say Miami Dade has less violent crime than Palm Beach County. You couldn’t find it because you didn’t know how to spell FBI?
And Stuart isn’t even IN Palm Beach County. Are you saying that Coconut Grove is safer than Stuart?
Jul. 31–Miami Police are seeking the public’s help today as they search for man who shot and killed a Chicago-area tourist in Coconut Grove on Saturday. Ronald Gentile, 54, was robbed and killed after he may have gotten lost and stopped at a street corner to ask for directions….
Latest 2007 FBI stats:
http://tinyurl.com/44mvza
Now who is ignorant?
Having lived in central PB county for ten years (before escaping with my equity in 2005), I’ve got to say I never felt safe in Miami-Dade anytime I went there. All you have to do is drive from I-95 down to the cruise ship terminal and you would understand. Or take the public transit from the Amtrak Station to Downtown.
Now PB has a fair share of crime and a worsening gang problem in the past few years. The incident referred to happened in a public housing project on Tamarind Avenue in WPB proper, about a mile north of City Place, the convention center and the Kravitz Center. It was committed by about 7 or 8 youths who, if I remember correctly, are all under 16. The gang issues used to be centered in Lake Worth proper, Riviera Beach and the north side of WPB. Now they’ve moved into the suburbs with gang activity reported in Wellington, Jupiter and West Boca.
PB County has become Dade County North in the past five years (or Littler Havana if you prefer).
Too bad this guy didn’t know which way the Brickell side of Coconut grove was on. This happened in the middle of the afternoon:
Jul. 31–Miami Police are seeking the public’s help today as they search for man who shot and killed a Chicago-area tourist in Coconut Grove on Saturday. Ronald Gentile, 54, was robbed and killed after he may have gotten lost and stopped at a street corner to ask for directions….
Rents in Gables for a 2/2 condo range from $1600-2000 for something quite decent. It would cost you double to “own.” HOA fees are about 43-50 cents /sq foot so $600 month is easy. Taxes are $7000-$9000 for a 350K / 400K easily.
So, a house? Spread is the same or worse. No HOA but wind insurance + upkeep and (something that should be done) reserves. People forget A/C breaks down, painting needs to be done…. You could easily rent for half cost of ownership.
Add to that all the info from Bens blog and your answer should be clear.
There are some good comparison calculators (not mortgage calculators)
for buying / renting out there.
From the original post:
Wachovia’s problems stem largely from its acquisition of mortgage lender Golden West Financial Corp. in 2006 for roughly $25 billion at the height of the nation’s housing boom. With that purchase, Wachovia inherited a deteriorating $122 billion portfolio of Pick-A-Payment loans, Golden West’s specialty, which let borrowers skip some payments.
To which I say:
Ahem. Back in 2006, we HBB-ers were questioning the wisdom of this acquisition. Heck, some of the people here did a lot more than question it. There was some major gasket-blowing going on.
And I can also recall that, by 2006, the housing boom was clearly over. Matter of fact, the party was breaking up back in 2005.
Arizona Slim,
Excellent points all. Now that you mention it there was something of a collective head scratching going on over the ‘logic’ of that aquisition?
BUT it sure worked out for Golden West now didn’t it!
Golden West’s specialty, which let borrowers skip some payments.
The problem is, they wanted to skip ALL the payments…
Yes, I think some folks misunderstood the SOME payments part. Some, all, what the hell?
It is a good thing that those irresponsible financial institutions are going under. They need to be purged from the system so the rest of our economy can survive. Bad debts need to be purged. I think we are slowly approaching the bottom of this disaster. so banks are going to be tigher with their money going forward. Nothing wrong with that.
lmao…
“skip some payments”
Not the worst policy in the world. Az_lender allows a payment to be skipped now and then if the essential direction of the mortgage balance is downward, and if LTV is low.
OT, I have been horrified to observe that “az_lender” is the screen name of someone or other who lends money in one of those on-line lending services. I think. That’s what it seems when I google az_lender. Wonder which of us first used this screen name. Anyway I ain’t THAT az_lender.
Well allowing somebody to skip a payment and then adding that to the principal isn’t the end of the world. It’s better than default and a darn sight kinder than piling on penalties. But many didn’t even realize that their loans were negatively ammortizing in the intro period. And others were simply gambling that the house whould appreciate fasther than the negative ammortization.
“sometimes, her bi-weekly paycheck topped $20,000″
“…….I feel the government is not going to help people like me.”
I hope not.
Being thy cynic that I am, I am getting a little tired of the “divorced mother of 2″ act, like she is something special. My two teenage daughters live with me, but I’ve never called myself “a divorced father of 3″ (uuuhhh, until now……..)
Having been there, it just makes me wonder if the ex was trying to maintain some fiscal discipline, but she wasn’t having any part of it.
aka “What’s his is mine, and what’s mine is mine….”
Gulfstreamfixer,
I watched a similar psychology play out with young stockbrokers in the mid/late 90’s. Fresh out of college and making 2/300k a yr. I mean… why aren’t ‘other’ people hustling to make a buck like me? Isn’t ‘everyone’ this successful? What is other people’s problem?
When people ‘that’ young make ‘that’ much money they are basically ruined for life. I’ve tried to call and follow up w/ some of those guys and they won’t even return your calls. ( It’s just too painful! ) LOL!
It always pi##es me off when people confuse their dumb luck with talent. Like the saying that goes, “Born on third base, and thinks he hit a triple”
Consider two college linebackers…..one is 6′1″ and runs the 40 in 4.3, the othe 5′10″ and runs the 40 in 4.5. The one that drew the slightly better number in the gene pool will play in the NFL, no matter how big a screw-up he is…..the other one, just slightly slower and shorter, won’t even be drafted, no matter how good a player or how dedicated he is.
But, as William Muny said, “Fair’s got nothing to do with it.”
Gulfstreamfixer,
That’s why “Invincible” was such a good movie. It’s hardly just in pro sports that we’ve lost the ability to gauge “intangibles”.
My guess is, without any special training or education, with all of the wind at their back’s, just about anybody that wanted to “succeed” as a mortgage broker during the re-fi craze could have pulled down some serious coin.
The part that always bugged me was that it affirms the notion that the sales force is simply “migratory”. Rather than tough it out in the same industry she lay in bed waiting for her “Heep” to get repo’d. Class act, really.
Have you tried sending them an e-mail? Or would that just get deleted?
BTW, my college homecoming is this weekend. Just had an e-mail exchange with a classmate who married another classmate. She was a flake a-way-back-when we were still in school.
They had four kids, then the flake decided to find another rooster. AFAIK, she still hasn’t found one. Which goes to show you that there are some men with sense.
Any-hoo, classmate and the flake have been divorced for a few years, and classmate sounds like he’s drowning in college tuition and other bills.
He’s not coming to Ann Arbor this weekend.
Too bad, because he’s a nice fellow. Still kicking himself for marrying that flaky gal, but that’s his problem. Geez, even 20-year-old Slim figured out that she’d be trouble for any guy who paired off with her.
Advice for young guys……
My ex had issues, but was all gung-ho to get married……..looking back, she was more interested in getting out of mom and dad’s house. Me, being young and a dumb-a##, thought things would be better after we were married. Too much letting “the little head doing the thinking for the big head”. LOL
Things worked out, as long as I worked on second shift and I only saw her a couple of days a week. The problems started when I changed jobs, and actually saw her every day.
Don’t know if anyone else has seen this, but women have “mid-life crisis” also. My ex hit 40, and realized the grandiose plans she had for her life were probably not going to come to fruition. She compared herself to where her cousins were at (one married to a executive, while making the big bucks at a major hotel chain working for her daddy, the other married to a homebuilder in the ATL area), and found her own middle class existence wanting. Of course, this was all my fault, I was “too smart” to be a loser working in aviation. This is when she started locking herself in the bedroom most of the day, with either her TV or romance novels.
Nine years of this was enough. Take my word for it, don’t ever think “She’s just having a rough spot, things will get better”. They don’t.
Never marry anyone who has more problems than you do.
You were/are a jet mechanic and she didn’t find you interesting? Good grief, working on jets isn’t exactly a walk in the park. I know people who do it, and they’re some of the smartest people I know.
Sheesh. What a loser. You’re better off without her.
What a coincidence……..about everyone I know said the same thing after I filed………
:)
Sorry about the OT……let’s get back to who is going to foreclose on the squirrels.
I had a friend that the same thing happened to. The first three years of the marriage were great as he traveled for his company Sunday night to Thursday night. She worked Monday - Friday. So they only spent 48 hours together before he would leave town.
When he changed to another job that involved no travel, the marriage dissolved in less than 6 months.
That’s the feeling I get watching these pro-bailout talking heads on TV. The idea that someone could have a difficult time paying for a $400,000 house is beyond their comprehension. The idea that no matter how much mortgage money there is out there, the average person cannot afford a $600,0000 McMansion or a $60,000 Lexus, doesn’t even cross their mind.
And the kind of loose credit that let the average person purchase those things, or even versions that cost half or a third as much, will not come back in our lifetimes. That’s what gets me — the idea that a bailout will make things return to normal, when “normal” has changed, probably permanently.
“when “normal” has changed, probably permanently.”
Not only do they expect housing prices to return to normal they expect that the stock market and car market and collectibles will all return to their idea of normal.
This past weekend I talk to a gentleman who has purchased three houses because they are going to ‘go back to their former value’ and he admitted that all three are down from their previously ‘low’ value. Life is good.
And this fear mongering is getting surreal:
Wall Street and Washington to taxpayers - “if you don’t give me all of your money, you won’t have any money”.
“If we can’t loan money to people who won’t pay it back, we can’t loan money”.
“Banks won’t loan money to each other because they know they’re not good for it, but you taxpayers should. We’ll explain why later”.
“Holding worthless mortgages to maturity will make them, well, worthlessly mature”.
OH NOOOOOO, the DOW is up over 350! Now we have to convince the public that we don’t need a bailout because otherwise the market will crash to nothing, we have to think of some other reason. Let’s see, the banana grower guy didn’t work, nor did the mortage broker who needs help from the government for reasons only she could imagine…what do we do now? If only we could find someone with good credit that can’t get a loan, but so far so luck.
The real victims have been the squirrels. They have not been fed for so long. I hope they are doing okay.
Oh, they have all been fed…
to the debt-owners for dinner when the Ramen noodles ran out.
Squirrels have strong little stomachs and should be doing just fine with all the NUTS littering the ground who bought into this housing scam
she woke up one morning and found her Jeep Commander missing from the driveway. It had been repossessed. ‘I knew it was going to happen
Making $400K in a year, and she didn’t pay cash for this stupid vehicle. How in the H&!! did she make that kind of money for even one year? I don’t have to worry about waking up and finding my cars repossessed. This would be news to this B!T*H, they are PAID for in full. Nobody can repossess them because I own them outright. I am sure most other bloggers here own at their cars outright. Mine are older cars, but NO PAYMENTS. And I will keep it that way. Rant off.
“Almost as fast as the subprime industry itself, LaPiana’s life went into a tailspin
LaPiana, ain’t karma great. You screw others to your profit of $40K per week, and now you are broke. Ain’t it great. And you don’t deserve one cent of mine, or any other HBBers tax dollars to bail your sorry, ugly A$$ out. Hubby probably left when the gravy train ended. I A$$ume he was equally as worthless.
LiPiana should be in jail, not in the sob story limelight. I could muster up one or two molecules of water for tears (not anymore) for the stupid and uneducated that followed the ‘advice’ of this bitch. She got screwed before she started doing the screwing, and then got screwed a second time. Sorry for the rant - but KARMA is great in this case. She thinks my tax money should bail her when she stole far more money than I made. I couldn’t have made money in that environment because I have a conscience and couldn’t profit from screwing people.
“Juan Del Busto, the regional executive of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s Miami Branch, briefed the 120-plus attendees about the Miami Branch’s role as a local gatherer and distributor of key economic and tourism information. He noted how the federal reserve has hired educators to spread economics knowledge.”
“‘As we have seen recently, a lot of CEOs, a lot of bankers and a lot of people need to have an economic education,’ Del Busto said. Most nodded in agreement.”
=======================================================
Imagine what a horror it must be, to have to learn the Dismal Science in a hurry?
Yeah, but, “the federal reserve has hired educators.” Like spreading the Fed’s great wisdom is gonna help.
we’re paying for this ? WTF
“Juan Del Busto, the regional executive of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s Miami Branch, briefed the 120-plus attendees about the Miami Branch’s role as a local gatherer and distributor of key economic and tourism information. He noted how the federal reserve has hired educators to spread economics knowledge.”
Bankers going re-education camping?
S’mores for everybody!
It is not a ‘bailout’. It is a financial recapitalization which would sell it to the public better. Just heard that from our esteemed NM Senator Jeff Bingaman. Wow, now I will support it (LOL).
Both candidates suck ass! humanity needs a bailout. I would rather vote for a dog.
Snoopy for President!
A thought just occurred to me why mark to market is the right accounting method for this market …hear me out .
When you have a house that is going into foreclosure ,or has gone into foreclosure ,you have a non-performing asset (your not getting the cash flow from mortgage payments ). So,once a asset is in that class ,all you got is a vacant liability that costs taxes,insurance etc. (unless you rent it out ,which banks don’t do ). So you have a minus performing asset in
truth . So the mark to market is right at current foreclosure market value .
If you have a bundle of loans that are performing ,than its current value is higher of course . So maybe those better loans or loans that have a good equity are being downgraded unfairly . So, just separate the performing from the non-performing . To think that Wall Street would try to sell this BS that these toxic loans had anything but no future value ,(unless lenders go into the renting business ) is fraud speak .
You can’t just let a vacant house set there for years without any care
,going down hill ,not earning market rents ,adding up property tax
and insurance costs . The assets that the banks want to get rid of has
great liability if anything . Why do you think banks get rid of foreclosures usually as quickly as possible .
So the big fraud speak of arguing about this mark to market is that
lenders know they must mark to market because they are not in the rental business . So to mislead the public that these assets can be held
like a piece of stock paper is misleading .No question in my mind that banks just wanted to unload their bad bad stuff because if something was performing they would keep it .
“Juan Del Busto”, the regional executive of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s Miami Branch
Still making these names up, arentcha Ben???
In addition . One of the reasons for mark to market rules is because if a
bank overvalues its assets ,than they are allowed to lend out more .If
the banks assets are valued at mark to market ,than they have to raise their reserves .In other words ,they can’t make new loans because they are not solvent enough to leverage more lending . So, the market to market is a protection for the public .
The only type of loan bundles where it might be unfair to mark to market
is actual income producing property ,like a apartment house or a
commercial building that has long term leases on it ,etc. . To take mark to market away from residential real estate accounting ,would just take away their reserve requirements and put them in a position to lend more than the reserve requirement would require . Any accounting method that allows a banks to look richer than it really is ,so it can
lend more than they can really back is a public danger and the exact
problem that got us into this mess with this leverage game .
Well the MAIN reason IMHO is that WE, through the FDIC provide insurance to them. And if the FDIC, on our behalf has to liquidate the bank, it is a good thing if most of the assets can be liquidated at something that approximates the value that they are held on the books. And what is the other solution that we hear from the candidates? Raise the FDIC insurance limit. Now since it hasn’t been adjusted for inflation for years, there is some justification. But before we become responsible for insuring a greatly increased amount of deposits, I’d like somebody to go over the books with a fine toothed comb and see whether banks should be closed down instead. I’m beginning to think that we may need a “bank holiday” within the next 5 years.
Please say NO to removal of mark to market accounting rules for banks on any new BILL.This is a way of banks not disclosing just how weak they are . I’m getting sick and tired of
this concerted effort to deceive the public as to the strength or weakness of any lenders ,and stopping them from requirements to increase their reserves .
Didn’t the Japanese try this “solution” with their banks? IIRC, it led to a weak economy that lasted over a decade.
Right . IMHO ,its better that we weed out the weak Banks now ,as legally they should be and force them to either merge with stronger banks or they need to sell out assets to raise capital ,or we give them a loan to give them more time to write down their losses .
Jim A. I totally agree with you . The problem is that some of these banks
needed to be taken out or merged with stronger banks . Your suggestion is right on . Lets no longer let the banks hide just how weak they are . If they need more reserves ,than they need more reserves .
The FDIC/Regulators function is to rise reserves when a bank does not has enough reserves . If a Banks does not have enough reserves ,they should not be lending and they need to raise capital .
Good quote and pithy summary from comments on the Palm Beach article:
“In the end this crisis was primarily enabled by financial institutions, the sources of the money, who presented unsound mortgage schemes which seemed legitimate to everyone who trusted these established and respected institutions.”
“If they [government] don’t turn this around, we will have a financial meltdown.”
Since when did this become the American motto?
You gotta fight!
“In July, she woke up one morning and found her Jeep Commander missing from the driveway.”
Oh, the fruits of the greedy are now being taken away!
Tony Macaluso, a broker and real estate instructor from Palm Beach Gardens, told Realtors he blames the ‘evil media.’”
“Real estate consultant Jim Sherry, meanwhile, offered this bit of analysis: ‘The media is still after us.’”
Well Tony Macaluso andJim Sherry, let me give you a hint, it is not the “evil media” or that “The media is still after us”, but a product of your own greed and those who participated in the housing boom that is causing your problems. Lets just say the credibility or the realtor, mortgage broker and wall street has sunk lower than whale S**t!