Shopping at Amazon?
Wait! If you click on the Amazon banner link at the top of the page first, HCN will get a percentage of anything you purchase for 24 hours!
Open predictions
Our local book authors
User login
Who's online
There are currently 6 members and 136 guests online.
![Syndicate content](/misc/feed.png "Comments for \"Article Reads like "Infomercial" to Tanta\""){kind=small}
Thank you, Tanta!
Bombs away
But we're O.K.
Bombs away
In old Bombay
Getting back to banking I saw that Fortis, the Dutch bank/finance company was denying rumors that there was a run on the bank. So things are "running" smoothly too in Europe. LOL.
Washington Mutual plans more layoffs - Atlanta Business Chronicle:
Washington Mutual Inc., battling to cut costs, will lay off more employees in September, according to people familiar with the company.
I got some Fortis this morning at $13.1 that was below my limit and now there is no quote in the US. In Europe it is quoted, last I saw, at about 8 euros.
This guy was featured in Lansner's column at the OC Register a short while ago. Looks like he parlayed that into national exposure. Does OCR get any kind of brownie points for being the first to (mal)practice this kind of journalism?
Will there be a WM in September to do the laying off? Doubtful.
Watch for high return CD offers at WM.
The super bear super prescient Roubini on the present sitshiation:
This is a systemic financial crisis, there is no end to it,'' Nouriel Roubini, professor of economics and international business at New York University, told Bloomberg Television.It's a vicious circle between a contracting economy and greater credit and financial losses feeding on the economy.''
Tanta, you've identified one of the most serious yet least-recognized problems in our country today: a largely brain-dead "mainstream media." I've concluded that American collegiate journalism programs have accepted only those students demonstrating a superior mastery of laziness, ignorance, stenography, and unquestioning subservience to whatever authority is in place. Most American "journalists" are far more suited to a single-party authoritarian state than an effectively-functioning democracy. There's no question that the large majority of them would be unable to write a coherent paragraph describing the differences between the two systems.
Contrary to your belief Tanta, there are "lenders" willing to discount the notes they hold near 50% or less rather than refinance with a discounted note.. think mortgage warehouse lenders and think defaulted credit lines to mortgage bankers and what happens to all those little mortgages that secure those credit lines.. and this is across the US, to include those states where FC is quick as well.
bluestate, how right you are. Mainstream TV is a joke, as are lots of newspapers. Internet blogs are where all the brains have gone to.
edit: should read 50% or more.. doh.
I'm smiling now. I hope you're well & continue to share with us for a long, long time! Have a great day.
"And we know that this example is realistic--that there are all of these lenders out there happy to take 30 cents on the dollar for a mortgage loan rather than just writing it down to 54 cents themselves and letting the borrower refi into an FHA program--"
Not realistic, of course. But there is some point at which the lender would be happy, and it may well be far enough under 54 cents to make an opening for somebody - but not to make 50% return on capital in a month or two. I'm sure some of the smart lenders are doing it themselves. The undercapitalized ones can't take the hit and just have to run around in panic mode until they die, but the well-capitalized, diversified lenders should be accepting the pain and doing exactly this, either on their own or through a ethical, reputable version of the above-mentioned...
I always wondered who the people were behind the "Will buy your foreclosure for cash!" cardboard signs I see at freeway exits.
I guess anyone who bought a house and is significantly underwater already has "sucker" written on their forehead.
Contrary to your belief Tanta, there are "lenders" willing to discount the notes they hold near 50% or less rather than refinance with a discounted note..
I'm not sure I follow you there.
I own a note that is seriously upside down. The borrower would love to refi but he doesn't have enough equity. I can either agree to write off 50% of my principal in a short payoff, or I can write off 70% in order to sell the note to someone else who will then collect the 50% payoff, leaving all that money in someone else's pockets. And I would be sure to do that in a fast FC state that limits my expenses and thus my loss severity.
OK, I'm not saying nobody ever in the whole universe would do this. But, like, how many would?
I guess anyone who bought a house and is significantly underwater already has "sucker" written on their forehead.
Okay, before I derail this thread with this comment I should re-phrase.
There was/is a lot of inexperience all around in this housing market, including buyers. So of course more people would be looking to make profits off of them.
Journalisming is vary hart.
Let me just say that I have, in my long and mis-spent life, had to sell a few really ugly loans to get them off my damned books. I once unloaded a $6MM pile of low-balance horrors the price for which was so low I had to actually wire money at settlement because the negative escrow balance was more than the price for the loan. Sure, these things do happen.
How did I do it? Well, I wasn't a regular seller of nuclear waste, so I called the EVP of servicing of a former employer of mine who'd been in the business since dirt and asked him, and he flipped open his rolodex and gave me the name of some perfectly reputable junk buyers with actual mortgage servicing capacity and a FedWire account, and that was that.
I can just see myself getting a cold call from a former acupuncturist-turned-loan-officer telling me he'd like to buy one of my loans for 30 cents on the dollar since he thinks his BPO is better than mine.
This guy isn't in the business of flipping loans, he's in the business of selling franchises and/or how-to materials. Look at his website--front and center, above the fold, is a come-on for the "free seminar".
People with a real business don't spend their time teaching others how to get into their business and compete with them. I doubt he's bought out more than a couple example loans, and those at nowhere near the ratios quoted in the article. The article example was framed as a hypothetical, not an actual loan transaction.
Tanta,
Are we to believe there are still "good people" in the industry you used to work in?
Thesis: all the good people who knew what they were doing got out of the way after looking where the conditions were taking the industry, and watching the barista-turned-loan officer make similar amount of money, and the accupuncturist-turned-loan officer's existence put negative wage pressure on those who knew what they were doing. Perhaps these good people got fed up when their bosses were the car-salesman-turned-loan officer.
Two counts, felony journalistic malpractice and one misdemeanor count of practicing herbalism without a license.
Book 'em, Tanta!
"Effusiveness in original"
Or did you mean to say effluent?
The article example was framed as a hypothetical, not an actual loan transaction.
Yes. But the question becomes: did Wasik thing this was a plausible example?
Wasik in fact comes right out and says that this company does buy the loans. I fully agree that it doesn't sound like they do on any kind of regular basis. I would like to see Wasik's justification of that. Did Lee tell him that they are regular buyers of defaulted notes? If so, did Wasik ask why they teach other people to take their business away from them for free?
YLSP | 07.15.08 - 10:49 am |
Amen.
"ask why they teach other people to take their business away from them for free?"
Philanthropy.
/sarcasm
I wonder if this outfit's been buying ads in the OC Register, promoting their you-can-be-a-flipper-too "seminars"? Just thinking...
The game of football is generally played with a round ball, traditionally with black and white coloring. And every four years, most of the world goes completely crazy watching it.
Yes, I realize that the four year schedule makes it a bit harder for Americans to keep track of what is going in the football world, but trust me, it is the game played mainly with feet.
bluestatedon wrote: Most American "journalists" are far more suited to a single-party authoritarian state than an effectively-functioning democracy. There's no question that the large majority of them would be unable to write a coherent paragraph describing the differences between the two systems.
Bingo! You got it! I had a Duke MD doing an NIH fellowship (glorified postdoc) in my lab two years ago and we talked about a course he took at another american university. Everyone new what kind of politically correct answers they had to give or "else". The "or else" was a very low grade which, if you are heading to Medical, Dental school, can be a killer. One Russian colleage down the hall (a postdoc from Moscow) joked in near perfect english that Russian Universities were freer now than the American Academy. Go figure. And this before the "messiah" comes with a veto proof congress and supreme court.
Tanta,
OT but "Good on ya." Just in case you missed it from yesterday's comments
Haralambos writes:
Tanta is quoted!
Blogs - Opinion - Commentary - Politics - Art - News - TIME.com curious_cap...e_now_acco.html
Haralambos | Homepage | 07.15.08 - 8:37 am | #
As Mr.Phelps is a "licensed acupuncturist and herbalist", maybe he'd the the right person to contact for some Snake Oil.
Tanta,
I almost ripped the "off" knob off the car radio yesterday as I heard the words: Amity Shales on the NPR afternoon market program.
Great God Almighty!!!! Go to Brad Delong to find the reason for the radio rage.
I agree that our educational system sets up 'journalists' to work only in Soviet-style institutions.. But the blame isn't all theirs. Remember, those institutions are useful to those in power.
Hence, people like Bill Kristol (wrong about everything) get Time magazine columns. The NAR gets tons of column inches to talk about real estate 'always going up'. They were also one of the biggest political contributors. Everyone but J6Pack understands this.
You don't have to be correct - just good at talking points.
He couldn't believe how easy it was. . . .
Is there a bigger warning sign than this statement?
Tanta,
A great rebuff to the Bloomberg article.
If you could buy notes for 30% on the dollar do you think you would advertise it to the world? Lots of private equity is quietly waiting on the sidelines for such a chance
People I'm glad I'm not today:
a) John Wasik
b) A former acupuncturist-turned-loan-officer cold-calling Tanta to buy one of her loans for 30 cents on the dollar since I think my BPO is better than hers
This post is why all of cyberspace exists.
What the heck would we do if it weren't for Al Gore's Internet and great blogs
like CR to watch the watchdogs in the fourth estate?
You don't have to be correct - just good at talking points
Most TV economic commentators and journalists are simply clowns who all talk over each other so nothing can be heard and treat a discussion as free for all fight. Most of them are brainless ninnies who are wrong almost always, but nobody, much less their employers, bothers to notice. If people watch, it's okay because the show has viewers and ads can be sold. And the people watch because most of them have no brains either. Beyond depressing.
It also just shocks me that with all the ink that has been spilled on incompentent servicing lately, that somebody like Wasik didn't think to ask about loan servicing.
Either Lee is buying these notes with the servicing rights, or not. In the latter case, he would presumably be paying the former noteholder to service the loan. I have to wonder why anyone who wants out of a problem that badly would agree to continue to service a loan for some amateur investor. Or how hard they'd work for it if they did. You know, servicers do put some effort into keeping up with, say, Fannie and Freddie loans, 'cause they can make your life one big living hell if you don't. Lee thinks a servicer is going to handle an FC for him quickly and cheaply, if need be, when they've got better paying customers to worry about? Really?
If Lee is also buying the servicing rights here, how comfortable does that make everyone? Think he can handle paying your taxes and insurance? Sending you an interest statement every year? Reporting correctly to the IRS and the credit bureaus if you continue to perform? Filing that release of lien promptly if you do manage to refi? What does this borrower do if Lee doesn't do all that right? Sue? How much is Lee (or the rubes he ropes in) good for?
What happens if the borrower files BK? Is Lee ready to file a motion to have the stay lifted? Hell, Countrywide has problems with that at times and they're a real servicer. And no, there is no way to know if a borrower will declare BK the day after you buy a delinquent note. And there is no way you can condition buying a note on a borrower promising not to declare.
Why is no one asking about these borrowers? Should we be applauding a tactic where loans end up in the hands of people who are not competent to service them? I mean, if you were really a good faith borrower who went to a financial institution you thought was legit to get your loan, and you got into a hardship, and the next thing you know you've got some Transfer of Servicing Notice telling you to send your mortgage payments to Some Guy Named Dave, wouldn't you possibly feel a little badly used? I'd frankly be inclined to think it was a joke. Which, of course, it is, but not that kind.
I might add that if a bright guy like Roubini ever appears on these shows they insult him and talk him down and make fun of him. Yeah, being bright is such a downer.
Tanta,
I read that article yesterday and whilst my radar went off on the 30cent in dollar biz, I just assumed some ordinary corruption, meaning they probably have an inside track at a mortgage company or two and some offbalance sheet shenanigans are going on ( like that the ex-executives, who still keep their restricted stock, set up an office insides Lehman offices who've "bought" Lehman assets).
I never thought they were such wide-boys. As I result of your expose, I clicked on their web site link and indeed, its really pretty obvious what they are NOT.
Thank you, Thank you.
-K
Everyone takes Bloomberg to be a non-biased impartial news organization. As I have written here before, I know people who work at Bloomberg, and I can tell you especially in the New York bureau they are far from unbiased. They like to put a subtle positive spin on the news, because in the words of one of their highest profile news anchors, everyone there looks to play up news that is bullish or confidence building because to be bearish is depressing.
I also think that news organizations like bloomberg have an agenda passed down by their owners to bolster financial confidence. After all in a downturn owners of financial news organizations also suffer if people switch off.
My column is the subject of this blog -- John Wasik -- and this is my response.
First of all, I don't endorse any services except those that help people save money or figure out how to invest. I have no connection to Foreclosure Trackers nor any other mutual fund, ETF or financial planner I mention. I never have and I never will. I am an open-minded journalist. I've been doing this for more than 30 years and my record speaks for itself.
I used Foreclosure Trackers as an example of what could be done in the home market so that we as a country can move on. Is it the right way to deal with the problem? I don't have that answer.
The example I used was hypothetical. Nowhere in the piece did I say what Lee was doing was an ideal or perfect solution. It's one approach among many. I don't know what the best approach is, but I'm willing to explore some new routes to an incredibly complex problem.
Wall Street has written down more than a third of a trillion dollars of bad paper. Why can't Congress allow homeowners to do the same?
If everyone wants to blame the messenger, I can understand that, but we need to be honest and figure out what needs to be done. I'm all for homeownership and putting in place something that's not more political pablum.
Will a blanket purchase of all bad loans solve the problem? I don't think so, because it will only balloon the inventory of bad mortgages out there. Taxpayers will foot the bill for this.
What about loan modification where the terms are changed on an unaffordable mortgage? Well, if this is to work, some government agency will have to police and enforce it. Not everyone can afford to be in a home now. But it's something to take a look at.
What about just handing everyone a check, such as what Congress did in the form of "economic stimulus?" While I and millions of others plan to spend that money at Home Depot or some neat electronics or pay down debt, it won't do anything to fix the mortgage crisis or the much larger problem that homes have become unaffordable and people (and banks) were willing to do anything to create mortgage money -- even to those who didn't qualify.
We're going through some painful times. A lot of people will lose their homes and nobody wants to see that. But we also need to face the music on what's happening with the debt bubble.
Ignoring this reality will only prolong what will be a nasty and brutish recession.
Ignoring this reality will only prolong what will be a nasty and brutish recession.
John F. Wasik | Homepage | 07.15.08 - 12:02 pm | #
Thanks for dropping in to lay out your case.
Yes, I agree with Tom in AZ. Thanks, Mr. Wasik. Hope to see you here again...
Wall Street has written down more than a third of a trillion dollars of bad paper. Why can't Congress allow homeowners to do the same?
huh?
John Wasik:
Then you should have stated that we need government intervention rather than giving some sketchy salesman free publicity and an aura of legitamacy. Or found a more legitamate source to quote. Please, can you check your sources first? This guy has a website, would it be that hard to check it out?
Detroit Dan writes:
Yes, I agree with Tom in AZ. Thanks, Mr. Wasik. Hope to see you here again...
I agree. This is where the real intelligent discussion goes on, not in the MSM. Blogs like this are the antidote to the lies and spin put out by the MSM.
@wasik --
Was there no other vehicle for your message than these you-can-be-a-loan-flipper-too seminar pushers?
Sorry, legitimate.
John, thanks for joining the comment thread here. Most of the journalists I call onto the carpet are either too cowardly or too arrogant to respond.
That said, your response is pathetic. This isn't the time to fire off a bunch of buckshot listing a bunch of other things you should have written about but didn't.
I used Foreclosure Trackers as an example of what could be done in the home market so that we as a country can move on. Is it the right way to deal with the problem? I don't have that answer.
Well then why did you write the freaking column? When I write blog posts that make claims about "what could be done in the home market so that we can move on," I only do so when I think what I'm writing about could, in fact, be done.
You just wrote a whole column about a business model that doesn't pass the laugh test, and now you tell me you don't know if that could work or not?
No, John, it couldn't work. Is my point. There isn't any reasonable debate about it. You have been writing about financial markets for 30 years, and you have yet to encounter the idea that the capital markets are just a touch too efficient for a couple of twenty-something fast-talkers from SoCal to have invented a cash machine? That they're willing to give free 90-minute seminars about so everyone else can exploit this "inefficiency" in the loan markets?
I will tell you right now that there are, indeed, lots of better and worse ideas floating around for how to clear the RE market. But in no case will writing fluff columns about "credit repair" scams that legitimate them be one of those helpful things.
Of course I'm "shooting the messenger." You didn't have to deliver this message; you coulda hung up the phone on this goof and written something else. You think I don't get emails all day from former mortgage brokers wanting me to plug some idiotic idea on my blog? Of course I do. I delete them.
If your bullshit detector isn't good enough to write about stuff like this, don't write about it. At the very least you could have picked up the phone and called somebody with a clue for a comment.
I used Foreclosure Trackers as an example of what could be done in the home market so that we as a country can move on.
I think this the complaint, the maths don't work and it doesn't pass the smell test. Another scam can't help.
Thank you for providing furthur support for my "most journalists are lazy idiots" thesis.
John F. Wasick says: Is it the right way to deal with the problem? I don't have that answer.
I don't believe you.
I think you do know the answer to that question: No, the bucket of scum's scam is NOT the right way to deal with the housing crisis.
Ouch.
I teach journalism. If there's one thing to blame the schools for, it's leaving students with so much debt they have to take corporate media jobs to pay it off. I find myself in the awkward position of teaching students skills like investigative reporting that most will have no opportunities to put to work, at least not for pay.
My school has been hiring great talent lately, since everyone's fleeing jobs where they're expected to be stenographers for the powerful. Or as in the case of Mr. Wasik, for hucksters.
If Tanta played hockey, she'd be my 'enforcer'.
My school has been hiring great talent lately, since everyone's fleeing jobs where they're expected to be stenographers for the powerful. Or as in the case of Mr. Wasik, for hucksters.
alykatz | 07.15.08 - 12:49 pm | #
Add journalism to the list of 'skill sets in need of a new business model'. They aren't alone.
John Wasik = stand-up guy.
Respect.
Tanta:
Columns are about ideas and you are of course free to criticize them. Some of the ways of dealing with this crisis are going to be unpleasant and unpalatable.
But if we don't start talking about the potential solutions instead of launching missives against ideas, we're never going to address a problem that's getting worse by the day.
That was a pretty pathetic response, Mr. Wasik. I am not a mortgage professional and even I could see through these guys' scam. We have a right to expect better from a guy with 30 years' experience.
Is it that your BS detector is busted, or are you just committing the same kind of cheap, lazy, 'some say 2 plus 2 makes 4, others disagree, who are we to decide which is true' journalism which has infected our political reporting for so long?
Mr. Wazik - thanks for showing up. That's brave of you. I suspect you are not used to how blog comment threads tend to operate. Short tutorial: you need a really thick skin.
My question for you: didn't your scam radar go off at the mention of credit repair? Even someone who doesn't know much about mortgages ought to know credit repair isn't for real, right?
Tanta wrote, "Sounds like the kind of thing highly likely to save the economy: ignorant broke inexperienced people leaping into another Git Rich Kwik scheme."
Sorry, Tanta, but The Onion already scooped you
on this.
Tanta, I enjoy your wisdom and your wit.
And Mr. Wasik continues to beg the question...
Here I thought the 'missive' was about admonishing Mr.Wasik for trying to pass off infomercial schlock as acutal journalism.
But now you tell me Tanta was actually writing a big-bad missive against ideas. What a bitch! Who is she to critize ideas that might help Americans stay in "their" homes (that they purchased without their money)?
I am still trying to understand how Congress isn't allowing homeowners to just writing down their debt like those fancy-pants on Wall Street do.
I promise to start using preview, really.
Strting tomorrowww.
Shnaps writes:
Here I thought the 'missive' was about admonishing Mr.Wasik for trying to pass off infomercial schlock as acutal journalism.
Its a dirty job but somebody has to do it. The economic equivalent of 'fungus'.
Mr. Wasik,
Could you let us know what prompted your article? Did the foreclosure guy contact you?
Also, did they treat you to a meal, offer to put you up at Disneyworld for a few day? Do they advertise with bloomberg?
Uncle Billy Opens New Bank writes:
Mr. Wasik,
Could you let us know what prompted your article? Did the foreclosure guy contact you?
Also, did they treat you to a meal, offer to put you up at Disneyworld for a few day? Do they advertise with bloomberg?
Journos regularly get wined and dined by the shills. It is their payoff for publicizing the confidence tricks.
The fact that the article was written with good intentions is kind of ironic since it was good intentions that paved the way to this crisis.
Now, if only Tanta could get Gretchen to drop by ...
Tanta, since many of us admire your taste, could you give us a little list of financial/econ journalists that you respect?
I believe Vikas Bajaj made that list .. luckily for Gretchen she now writes joint posts with him ...
DR writes:
Tanta,
A great rebuff to the Bloomberg article.
If you could buy notes for 30% on the dollar do you think you would advertise it to the world? Lots of private equity is quietly waiting on the sidelines for such a chance
come it at 40% and they are yours..
It's a mutual admiration society -- Vikas has a link to CR on his ny times bio page.
Tanta, perhaps you were too hard on the guy by saying "You just wrote a whole column about a business model that doesn't pass the laugh test.."?
It had me laughing on an otherwise not so merry day.
Silly Mr. Wasik, you could have defended yourself by claiming to be engaged in satire. But this is not an article having anything to do with responsible problem solving. It's on the order of writing up what Billy the cab driver said to me on the way to the airport on how he would fix Washington.
come it at 40% and they are yours..
Sell me my debt at 70% and I'll be dancing. I think there's some kind of bias against working out loans that are not likely to default. Must be discrimination.
But if we don't start talking about the potential solutions instead of launching missives against ideas, we're never going to address a problem that's getting worse by the day.
Um, what is this "we" thing you have going there, John?
"We" have been writing a blog for a long time now that is known far and wide for talking about potential solutions to a bad problem. In long, tedious detail. With graphs and charts. Serious analysis. Nerdy details that try to plumb the depths. Why, just yesterday, "we" suggested that nationalizing Fannie Mae might not be such a bad thing after all. You and everybody else in the world who can read are free to disagree with that "idea." But you are not free to accuse "us" of not having ideas about this particular little problem.
So "we" are a just a touch troubled by "your" sudden conversion to the importance of this problem, as manifested by your apparent belief that anyone who criticizes one of your columns is "against ideas." "We" think that if such a statement wasn't so fatuous it would be offensive, implying as it does that you're the only one brave enough to raise "ideas" in print and the rest of "us" are just intercontinental ballistic missive-launchers. I find that much too amusing to be offended by it.
In other words, this "I'm just trying to raise ideas, no matter how ridiculous they are, and it isn't fair to criticize me for it" line is not working on the old Tanta. Or, apparently, on the rest of the gang here. Using that logic, you could have written about a proposal for all mortgages to be payable in Monopoly Money for the next two years and call it "an idea." If the plausibility of the ideas you raise doesn't matter, it doesn't matter.
That's gold, Jerry, gold.
Note to self: don't p*ss off Tanta.
Wall Street has written down more than a third of a trillion dollars of bad paper. Why can't Congress allow homeowners to do the same?
Right idea, Mr Wasik, but completely WRONG messenger. Have to weigh in with Tanta on the checking your sources issue --this guy just doesn't pass the smell test.
Say he finds a property with a $750,000 mortgage, but his broker opinion determines that the property is worth only $510,000 in the current market. He offers $255,000 for the note.
...If his bid is accepted, Lee becomes the owner of the mortgage. He then contacts the homeowner and offers to cut the principal owed to $408,000 ``on the condition the homeowner is able to refinance with another lender within 60 days.''
If the borrower can refinance, the new lender pays off Lee's outstanding mortgage lien, netting him a profit of $153,000.
Uh... then why shouldn't the bank simply cram-down the principal to $255k and let the FB refinance for that amount? And what sort of "efficient" business model nets a parasitic middleman $153k just for flipping paper? In fact, isn't this sort of thing (money-for-nothing con games) exactly why we're facing this colossal mess today?
He also provides services to improve credit scores...
Major Red Flag.
Wall Street has written down more than a third of a trillion dollars of bad paper. Why can't Congress allow homeowners to do the same?
I don't think Wall Street was overjoyed at writing off a third of a trillion dollars, and I don't think the homeowner will be so happy either. This is aside from the fact the the homeowners' writedown is someone else's money.
The news media is having one of those "Condit & Chandra" moments over this housing topic.
They have exhausted all the conceivable story angles and talked with all the "experts" they can find.
Hey, even "the Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter" merited a NYT article.
Their relentless desperation to find one more new angle to a news story can easily get them astray.
Conjure and I are bottom feeders and proud of it. These guys are predatory scum. There is a difference.
I think Tanta launches missives against bad ideas.
And I think I've heard of that cab driver somewhere. Can you ask him, should I short oil stocks?
Don't feel too bad, Mr. Wasik. Jayson Blair managed to con the NYT for 5 full years, and the The New Republic got punked by Stephen Glass. No one's perfect.
Well, Mr. Wasik.
Let's talk.
As the prooooud owner of a seriously underwater property in Arizona, center of the overpriced universe, I would welcome something that allowed me to refinance my mortgage at the current value of the mortgage in these troubled markets.
As Tanta has suggested, the outrageous profits are a sign that there is a market, and it should be done, but the ability to exploit folks too unsophisticated should engender more government protections. The idea is sound, the posterchild for the idea, quite frankly, sucks.
In other words, you should have used Shiela Baird doing it for IndyMac folks, where it makes a huge pile of sense, instead of some quick buck artist. It should also extend to everyone who bought since 2005.
Now, contemplate that thought.
Someday this war's gonna end...
Don't look now, but I just wrote down a third of a trillion dollars from my mortgage balance. As luck would have it, that actually puts me "in the black" on that bad-boy!
I am calling my servicer to arrange for them to send me a check for the $333,333,787,452.37 overage.
After I cash my check and move to Tahiti, I'm going to fire off an intercontinental ballistic missive to Senator Dodd, explaining what an AWESOME IDEA this is for solving the mortgage crisis.
Ronin: that would just be gambling at a casino someone else owns. If you want a sure thing, go long on companies that control the world's water supplies.
" I don't endorse any services except those that help people "
John, what exactly is your definition of 'help' - and what percent of a kickback are you getting from them? You're a bought hack, and your trifling schlock doesn't cut mustard. Unless your audience dreams of one day being as open-minded as Dennis Kneale, just stop. For the children.
"I've been doing this for more than 30 years"
This has no bearing on the article. Regardless, there's two possibilities.
1) You're just as clueless now as you were when you started.
2) You were talented when you came out of school.. but over time you forgot that you have to question your sources.
"The example I used was hypothetical."
When I was in 7th grade math, the canned excuse was "Just testing you!" when we were called on and the teacher pointed out our mistakes. Your silly phrase is the grown-up version.
"It's one approach among many."
Really? That's cute. What are they, what would actually work, and where's your citing of Roubini? Surely they taught the concept of point/counterpoint at your J-school.
"we need to be honest"
Yes, we do. Hence, our destruction of YOU. You're brutally dishonest, and your blatant complacency and complicity is a major reason WHY this country's economy has a 50-50 shot at experiencing a Greater Depression. I'm sure you'll write a lovely article about how it's all Obama's fault, also.. even though it's wholly the fault of Republican deregulation.
"I'm all for homeownership and putting in place something that's not more political pablum."
Really? Because, you see, the gratuitous promotion of "homeownership" IS PRECISELY NOTHING BUT political pablum.
"Not everyone can afford to be in a home now."
They couldn't afford to be in the home when they bought it, Johnny boy - that is the entire point. Nothing has changed about household solvency - that's precisely why the US economy since 03 is the definition of blowing and popping a bubble.
"A lot of people will lose their homes and nobody wants to see that."
I WANT TO SEE IT. Look, John, they didn't deserve those homes. They could never afford those homes in the first place - and the banks could never count on the income from those mortgages because they were NEVER sound!
"Ignoring this reality"
I have no idea any more whose reality you're referring to, since your entire article is an alternate universe of Republican wishes and neo-con dreams.
God, I love this blog. Anyone else find it telling that not even our chronic, knee-jerk, stand-by-the-MSM-in-the-teeth-of-all-common-sense, 'poor Gretchen' defending commentors haven't been willing to touch this puppy?
"A lot of people will lose their homes and nobody wants to see that."
"Nobody," my ass.
Hell, I DO. I've had my eye on a $700,000 house near me for years. It ain't worth $400,000 IMO.
I am WAITING for the bottom to drop out so I can buy it for $100,000 and have the owners BEG me to do so.
Why should prudent people like me never get to come out on top?
FALL FALL FALL FALL FALL, I say!
I'd LOVE a depression! Not only would I be able to scoop up some lovely assets cheap, I'd be proven right after predicting these problems for some time.
I have one objection to the many comments that refer to this plan as "snake oil" or to the gentlemen as "snake oil salesmen". Snake oil is unquestionably a very effective cure in many medical cases. Witness the well known placebo effect that must be accounted for in medical trials.
I fail to see how a placebo effect could be realized in this case.
I think it is possible that you are giving snake oil a bad rap by using it in this context.
Apologies to snake oil salesmen?
Anybody?
I wouldn't be surprised to hear that snake oil is valued in traditional Chinese healing.
This guy must have a magnetic personality the likes of which we haven't seen since Charles Ponzi. He even impressed (fooled) Matt Padilla.
Investor says only one road to foreclosure profit - Mortgage Insider : The Orange County Register
"the service works with amazement to improve your credit score"
You know, that's quite a turn of phrase, even in the great annals of marketspeak hackery churned out by the likes of an unqualified flipper and an ex-acupuncturist.
Or perhaps amazement is a subclass of fairy dust, which would at least make the sentence scan properly.
oc bear-- Interesting. I just read the comments over there. I guess we should count ourselves lucky that all we got was the injured innocence of a purblind journalist. Over there, after some initial comments very much in Tanta's vein this Lee fellow seems to have marshaled a few of his buddies and gotten them to issue, "Oh yes indeedy, I saw it done and now I'm making my own fortune thanks to Robert," comments-- along with some vague threats about lawsuits and 'being careful what you say'.