Mortgages to Mods: Getting them coming and going
Submitted by
CalculatedRisk on Sun, 07/19/2009 - 8:07pm (116 comments)
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What?!! Lawyers would set up fronts to screw you out of money?
When do we get to the part of this story when foreclosure becomes socially acceptable, so that folks stop getting suckered into crap like this?
This is the kind of shit that lights my hair on fire.
When have they ever needed a front?
We have plenty of lampposts.
edit: Nice high ones
Key word: pathetic.
So sad.
Tricky game, playing poker with the prime lender on your home. I've been there once. The banker is not emotionally invested. He wins i suspect.
From the pigged thread:
"The stockholders should string up their BoD and Execs, who are the real culprits for pissing away all those layers of capital."
How is it that that never happens. Talk about a rigged casino, shareholder rights and influence must be at an all time low.
It happened in the 30s when folks lost faith in the system (as they should have) and withdrew from the market. I wish I could quote you another manner in which it happened historically, but I can't.
I will say this: Until the attitudes towards shareholders changes, it might be prudent not to become one.
Lawyers! Again with the Lawyers! Something must be done! We have to go to Congress and... oh wait. Lawyers. Never mind.
"I will say this: Until the attitudes towards shareholders changes, it might be prudent not to become one. "
All I can say is this: Companies differ. It's part of the evaluation process.
All I can say is this: Companies differ.
True, but the cross-fertilization of boards and execs makes it very difficult to find the clean ones, because so many are sullied by conflicting interests.
sm_landlord,
Not many good stocks, even fewer good stocks in good companies. At this point I'm afraid they'll only get caught in the great revaluations to come.
on that CIT deal the 3 bil for 10 bil in assets sounds like a deal I worked on 22 years ago
involving Circle K that involved PIKs (Pay in Kinds)... I remember when we structured the deal in [edit] mid '87
I thought the cash flow forecasts were way too optimistic and said so and got some heat
for it. in '90 Circle K filed for Chapter 11...
Saw something on the local news on this; seemed like people too naive/ignorant to understand the abc's of finance/money matters are once again being duped to the poorhouse. How the system allows somebody to own a mortgage without the basics of finance under their belt, is beyond me.
And I'm sure you received all sorts of corporate rewards for your great foresight.
Traditionally, Lucifer was the light-bearer.
Diogenes might be the better daemon to follow.
In search of an honest company....
This is a loan mod sign in the San Fernando Valley:
Effective Demand: Don't let your lender take your money!
The type of people this appeals to aren't exactly the brightest bulbs in the world.
Rob,
my old professor Brzezinski at Columbia used to say the reason why DC is made up
of lawyers as opposed to say academics is due to their "combat training" , their skills
give them a decided advantage
personal anecdote: say I would be taking a 3rd law seminar called Law and Foreign Intelligence (13 seats) and then
I'd go over and sit in on say a 2nd year finance class at the B school and really be floored by the
disparity in intellectual firepower.. (I'd think these guys/gals would be toast)
There's a "criminal university" aspect to the mortgage broker business. It has trained probably tens, maybe hundreds of thousands in relatively sophisticated financial fraud. The fraudsters can often apply their now well-honed fraud skills to other forms of financial fraud as they are driven out of mortgage fraud. The shift to mortgage mods is probably only the first; I expect a lot of trouble with things like fraudulent business bridge loans and investment schemes as well.
Duke of Con Dao , good lawyers float to the bottom of the top, the rest sink.
This is the kind of shit that lights my hair on fire.
Amen.... Its stories like this that make me wish there is a heaven and hell
That suspicious loan mod sign is also posted on the 405 fwy northbound just before the 110. Based on the widely spread billboards, there's a big advertising campaign for this - which of course is even more reason to be suspicious.
True, but the cross-fertilization of boards...
The country-club, good ol' boy network is alive and well, and not in the shareholders interest. Of course they do let a lady or two in these days, but I do not think Fiorina is a shining example of competence. The Packard revolt at HP did not do much to change the course there and those guys had muscle, rep and votes.
The entire system is working to train the sheep to be ruthless. But we'll still act shocked and appalled when they grow fangs, someday, and cluck about the "sanctity of the contracts" they signed. (Like the religious overtones to that one?)
Sigh. We've come so far from the days when Boy Scouts were trained to help little old ladies across the street. We broke it, we bought it -- ownership society, indeed.
Fair Economist wrote;
"The shift to mortgage mods is probably only the first; I expect a lot of trouble with things like fraudulent business bridge loans and investment schemes as well."
Thank you for pointing that out. You are most probably correct, and now I need to get seriously medicated. Not like I was already sufficiently depressed. It just gets worse. Fsck. I will plan accordingly.
Nytol.
Did anyone see this crap (last month)?
Today's Market vs. 1938
Today's Market vs. 1938 -- Seeking Alpha
As shown below, at its peak last week, the S&P 500 rallied 38.2% from the March lows. In 1938, the S&P gained 50.5% in the four months following its low. If the S&P 500 were to have a similar rally off of its lows today, it would top out at 1,018. While breaking 1,000 on the S&P 500 seems remarkable given where we were in March, it is still nearly 200 points lower than where the index was trading before the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy.
"How the system allows somebody to own a mortgage without the basics of finance under their belt, is beyond me. "
I know people who could not add columns of a spread sheet or explain what a share of stock is, but are doing just fine. The ones I know getting in trouble are the ones who want more than they can afford. They knew they didn't belong in that house, but they needed to have it. Like my kids need to have things.
Dunno, Duke...many individuals I know told me that law school didnt teach squat about actually practicing law. One big reason I avoided law school. Now, attorneys with a few years actual experience under their belt...that's a different story. I'd agree with you there.
There's a "criminal university" aspect to the mortgage broker business.
Even for the honest brokers I think the issue with the banks giving brokers access to loans is that I think the banks are realizing how the underwriting guidelines are being applied and the brokers are guiding people into loans which may fit the guidelines technically but aren't in the banks best interest. Yes, underwriting should catch all these things but instead of getting a handful loans which may be on the edge, if the guideline flaw is large enough the bank will get hundreds and thouasands as the brokers learn about it and flood the bank with application.
It IS the banks fault for having the flaw in underwriting guidelines, it is just more maximally exploited when brokers are put into the mix. This is why brokered loans will always have higher defaults than those originated in house.
Duke - good point. Us lawyers are the mercenaries of the American empire. Very hard to get rid of once you have too many.
More OT:
Official: States should prep for more swine flu
SunHerald.com 404
Napolitano said if the disease does appear again, parents need to stay home with their children so it doesn’t spread. School districts also should devise some sort of take-home curriculum in case people have to home-school their students.
“The whole issue of schools and school closure is important,” she said.
“People don’t realize what it means when schools close. The ideal is to keep schools open and keep sick students home.”
debtfree - I seldom think ignorance is an acceptable excuse (i.e. "I didnt understand the loan") but then I think that I know very little about the human body.... I dont need or have to have a loan, I'm stuck with a liver, kidneys and the like....
Doc Holiday Did anyone see this crap (last month)?
Today's Market vs. 1938
Today's Market vs. 1938 -- Seeking Alpha
What could be more interesting than this topic, not much to me. What i find confounding, is that today we live in a different framework, completely, yet these graphs are piggybacking.
Flu updates:
The total number of people who have died of swine flu in California is up to 55, an increase of 23 over the past week, state health officials said Thursday as they warned of more serious cases on the way.
"We expect to continue to see more cases of swine flu, more serious cases and, unfortunately, more deaths," said Ken August, spokesman for the California Department of Public Health.
Argentina issued a nationwide alert on Friday after pigs in the country were confirmed to have the swine flu virus, health authorities said.
"We have detected clinical cases of the A(H1N1) influenza in a pig farm in Buenos Aires province, they have been confirmed by laboratory tests," the national farm and food standards agency Senasa, said.
Thousands of people have contracted the virus in Argentina and 137 people in the country have died.
DC Rogers
"sanctity of the contracts" was the very reason for the overthrow of Mossadegh in '52 (around that time)
seems that's all Churchill could mutter...
KR,
Perhaps this is just the way Darwinism works, in regard to cycles?
Fair Economist,
Brilliant observation, that.
Just going back to CIT for a minute. How are the parties in this deal all going to better off than if the company had gone BK now? I'm sure it will turn out that you-know-who is backstopping this somehow.
Doc Holiday wrote Perhaps this is just the way Darwinism.
You have me cornered. I see everything thru the lens of the Naked Ape, and also Darwin. Its behavioural for sure. But why?
yet these graphs are piggybacking.
Not really. The y scales are different ratios and they slid the x to line up one dip. With so much history, the probability of matching one graph to another is quite high.
I would go so far to say: If you see folks using this sort of analysis to predict the future, never bother reading another analysis from them.
Re: The y scales are different ratios and they slid the x to line up one dip.
Maybe this is a logarithmic issue?
Baseline Scenario has a post up: Jamie Dimon v. Larry Summers
"Jamie Dimon has won big. JP Morgan Chase now stands alone, both in financial position and political clout – including special access to the White House and, as explained in today’s NYT, Rahm Emanuel’s likely attendance at his next board meeting tomorrow. ...Reformists within the administration really need a new consumer protection agency for financial products – there is little else they will be able to point to as an achievement on banking issues. Summers did not, for example, on Friday even mention the need for stronger regulation over derivatives; Dimon has likely already prevailed on this. Consumer protection is easy for people to understand. If the banking lobby really defeats or defangs it this year – as it almost certainly can – won’t that make meaningful re-regulation of banking a big issue for the midterm elections in 2010 and beyond?
And does Dimon really want to publicly confront and defeat Larry Summers?"
First word I've seen regarding someone with more clout than Summers...and that regulation of derivatives is off the table.
Maybe this is a logarithmic issue?
No, the problem is more fundamental than that.
The whole analysis is neglecting the correlation of price history with price future.
Edit:
Make that: The whole analysis is neglecting the lack of correlation of price history with price future.
First word I've seen regarding someone with more clout than Summers
Hell, a bunch of academics pushed Larry out from his last gig. I can't imagine that Dimon would have much trouble.
There would seem to be ethical obligations that should result in disbarment for such activity. Oh wait. I'm sorry. Justice is only to be sought against poor people. It's too f* impolite to hold corporate chieftans, sleazy lawyers and salesmen professionally accountable.
JP , while the axis scale may be skewed, the trends are similar. It reflects a phenomina, albeit human.
Well, with all the talk of Goldman's omnipresence, it seemed a foregone conclusion that Summers was going to replace BB at the FRB.
Urban Dictionary: Tyburn Jig
It IS the banks fault for having the flaw in underwriting guidelines, it is just more maximally exploited when brokers are put into the mix. This is why brokered loans will always have higher defaults than those originated in house.
Yes. The problem for the larger economy is that we've trained legions of people in exploiting somewhat flawed financial guidelines for personal gain at the expense of the guideline issuers and their borrowers/investors. But we have a very complex financial system, dependent on guidelines for efficiency, and inevitably there will be flaws - if nothing else, new developments will always take time to account for. The really lax standards created the problem, by allowing people to learn ways to exploit guidelines, but once they know what they're doing once-adequate standards may now be insufficient. An example might be the massive wave in fraud that hit Fannie and Freddie once the brokering system began to break down in early 2007.
Re: lack of correlation of price history with price future
Isn't that The Greenspan Model?
Is this a bong (Testing)?
Test ll:
From the NYTimes article:
"Chris Mozilo, nephew of Angelo R. Mozilo, the former chief executive of Countrywide Financial — a name synonymous with the subprime disaster — recently started a new business, eModifyMyLoan. It sells software that homeowners can use to apply for loan modifications.
Chris Mozilo worked at Countrywide for 16 years. “I’m very proud of my career in mortgage lending,” he said. “We helped millions of people achieve the goal of homeownership.”
JPM is becoming unbelievably powerful. They are the largest bank, they've got an obvious in at the Fed, and they've done a pretty good job of holding down their bad loan rate. Their only weakness is derivative exposure - but a collapse in derivatives would bring all of high finance down, so the government will do anything it can to avert problems there even without prodding from JPM. They're doing better than GS without making nearly as many enemies.
I doubt anybody could get to be head of the Fed now without JPM's approval (behind the scenes of course.)
JP , while the axis scale may be skewed, the trends are similar.
Yes they are. But the bigger question is: What will happen in the future? The implication that the future price movement will continue to be similar to that graph is just false.
Who will win the battle for the soul of the US Federal Reserve?
Who will win the battle for the soul of the US Federal Reserve? -
Business Analysis & Features, Business - The Independent
The very suggestion of an audit by Congress, opening the Fed's day-to-day operations in the money markets up to political scrutiny, has alarmed professional and academic economists.
Trying to make the pig happy by giving it booze and bud, Doc?
Kung.Fu.Panda,
that depends on the law school, Columbia uses the Socratic method first used at Harvard by Christopher Langdell in 19th century,
while many law schools emphasize 'black letter law' this approach teaches a method of thinking conceptually about the law, not just
memorizing a bunch of case law, but rather what the law can be made to do... a philosophy of law approach
from CRs post
"I had people calling me crying, and we were telling them, ‘You can pay me or you can lose your house. People were giving me every dime they had, opening credit cards. But I never saw one client come out of it with a successful loan modification.”
ah yes
the farmer corrals the sheep to protect them from the wolves
blaaaaa blaaaaa, help us mother , the sheep cry out, we are afraid is that you?
the wolves answer back in a sweet voice, "yes dear it is us"
and the wolves close in sinking their teeth into the lambs neck
how precious is our system of survival of the fittest... the free market, ...regulation light
and wont it be delicious to speculate who will play the roll of antoinette and louis 14
Chris Mozilo left out a word.... "temporary" (homeownership).
Fair Economist,
I never get to play and I was wondering where all this partying stuff came from; seemed like a combo was a good idea?
Doc Holiday wrote 10:15 pm
Who will win the battle for the soul of the US Federal Reserve
have you not heard?
the federal reserve has no soul....and would be without a god were it not for money
ah yes
the farmer corrals the sheep to protect them from the wolves
Reminded me of this image: so who's working for whom here?
I'm no fan of the Fed, but remember it's congress that's been pushing FASB around.
Fair Economist
"Yes. The problem for the larger economy is that we've trained legions of people in exploiting somewhat flawed financial guidelines for personal gain at the expense of the guideline issuers and their borrowers/investors. But we have a very complex financial system, dependent on guidelines for efficiency, and inevitably there will be flaws - if nothing else, new developments will always take time to account for. "
...
surely you remember the memorable exchange bwt Elizabeth and Barbossa in Pirates of the Caribbean when she invokes the
'rules' of parley and he responds that 'they are not really rules, more like guidelines', eh Matey!
Mortgage Brokers/Loan Modifiers/Financial Lawyers beware:
Piglet castration made easy [adult viewing]
"Your day will come" la la la
the farmer corrals the sheep to protect them from the wolves
or this image
http://media.photobucket.com/image/the%20borg/pma1963/Cheney_and_Bush_Borg.jpg
CON DAO
i listen, and often learn from your comments. my law school experience is that nothing was nearly as difficult as thermo or math. just the arguments of a vs. b. still, in that context, priceless. is this not the truth of how things work? not often intellectually challenging. one class i went to not a single time
practicing on the other hand is like a fight,occasionally one feels a bully and sometimes sysyhiphius {sic)
however, in mitigation, rarely have i been lied to by a lawyer, as opposed to clients
drunk in vegas
Time to call it a night, but many thanks to those that were here for the entertainment!
If this doesn't work, no loss: The Eternal Thinker: Smileys for Blogger #Update 001
:mj Smiley:
Cheers
kratovil1
....
practicing is another matter indeed! was surprised the other day to see the great Floyd Abrahms (NY Times v. Sullivan)
as a hired gun for Standard and Poor's... can't imagine Kuntsler ever doing that. At 73 guess he wants to cash in his chips.
....
my girlfriend's father here in Cambodia is one of the top judges... he's former Khmer Rouge to the core, I thought growing up
with a dad in the Marine Corps was tough... her upbringing was even tougher, along with her sister, years of karate and boxing classes, and language classes, etc under a stern taskmaster.. she admits to being KR in mindset...
Duke I thought you were married
son of santini,
i know you get that,
i was navy rotc
on the bright side, seriously, practicing for 25 years, only directly lied to once, only saw literal corruption, atty to atty once,,
actually lied to more in the military, as an officer
semper fi
they had me for a summer
i sort of liked it
Timmy Waiting for -
last year on July 15th the Duchess gave me my walking papers...
I had arrived on the island for a marriage...
( I screwed up royally by postponing the first wedding date on Nov 27th - a full moon - due to the inability of bringing both parents or even one to the ceremony which was going to have 1200 invited guests, I was bringing 4. Viets are big on this fmaily thing, plus it gives them a chance to show off their money respectfully) What I didn't realize until it was too late that I was auditioning again! (somebody should have passed me the right script...)
in the end, at least she let me keep my title and didn't have me put in one of the tiger cages in the old French prison on that island of Con Dao.
c'est la vie
there are more fish in the sea
just not that particular kind
Hey guys
I'm not sure whether it's appropriate to share this with you all here, but you're the closest thing I frequent to a local tavern.
I invested 50k in a company last month, a very speculative biotech, and it just announced that the drug I was betting on has passed its stage III trial. I am going to make enough money to comfortably do whatever I want to for the rest of my life.
There you have it. Time to do some planning. Now that money isn't an issue, I am going to medical school, to do what I really want to do with my life.
Thanks all.
damn, Hoops!
wish you would have passed that info along, I have some cash that I'd like to make start
working, either that, of paraphrasing Citizen Allen M:
someday the Duke's gonna have to get a job!
hoop, cool
was it gern?
me too sort of, shorted the shit out of everything about two years ago, so damn easy
except, unlikely to repeat, ever, duke, you should thank her for freeing you, dude,might take a few months to get it
that kr stuff you cited , if true, is beyond translation
Damn, Hoops, congratulations! All the best to you!!! Oh, and don't be a stranger!
duke, wanna hear a perfectly true story about the book santini?
involves my ex college roommate, colleges-in north carolina, corps, decency and is actually very sweet without being maudlin
kratovil1
bring it on... I never saw the movie or read the book but if my old man liked it then he either missed the point or
else the movie is a rah rah rah go Corps thing...
Duke what happened to just bringing over some chocolates? LOL
duke, if dad was corps, your education is incomplete
get the book or flick, truly, i insist because my tale will lack pith without that
plus i guarantee you will laugh or cry, or both
For those who didn't check this out on the last post, this is a must read:
Europe on the Brink
Johan Mauldin's take on Europe/UK banks. Plus a frightening pie graph that shows the 5.3 trillion in sovereign debt borrowing projected for 2009.
Thanks sm_landlord! Excellent find.
my guess is 5% of corps liked it,
Tim Waiting ..
the problem was that I had a lot of forces aligned against me inc. my brother who has lived in Nam
for 15 years (Airbus a310 pilot), he has always ended up with trailer trash of the Asian equiv (of course
all of his money has been siphoned away in their various get rich quick schemes)
and I'd outshine him (sibling rivalry at it's finest!) ...
and then it was her family, pure Mandarins.
since I had 'broken' my word a few times I was on the S List...
everything in the family flowed through the mother, who I called the
empress dowager... she decided that once we marry we move to the USA,
w/o even asking me!
when I was in HS I wanted to grow up to be henry kissinger... special asst to prez
for nat affairs. guess that didn't work out to well... but when I met the old lady
I thought, 'aha, so this is what it must have been like for Henry when he met Mao'
......
kratovil..
yes the KR is too true, her dad is 62 and was fluent in 6 languages and was very instrumental
to the KR high command, I suspect he was with the group of Ieng Sary that broke with Pol Pot in
'97 and joined FUNINPEC party...
....
yeah, when I read the book I'll probably cry...
edits
duke, seriously, count your blessings ,
i insist that you read this book
Flipkart.com: The Great Santini: Pat Conroy: Books Buy The Great Santini Sparknotes in India
one of the great american authors, seriously
and when you finish
i will tell you the story that will round it out
karatovil...
my thanks, the book is out of stock... but I'm sure I can find it in Phnom Penh, they
have a lot of used bookstores stocking titles you could never find in Vietnam....
try and find Philip Short's book on Pol Pot on the streets
of Saigon, they have every book on the KR except that one, why? it is highly critical
of Hanoi leadership and their eventual invasion they termed a 'humanitarian action'
a bookseller told me he could not stock THAT book!
{edit}
silver lining
<b/>
had the Duchess not booted me I would've never found Calculated Risk blog
and I am now quite the wiser for it! e.g., didn't know squat about RE or CRE...
HaHa. This economy is going to get you coming and going. And I remember being criticized here a long time ago for stating that I work off a basic assumption of not trusting anybody. The response was something like "That must be a tough way to go through life." Well, it isn't as tough as ending up bankrupt. Technically that only applies when I'm in a larger scale context (cities, corporations, government, etc.) If you don't want to deal with having everybody trying to rip your fucking face off then move to a small community where everybody knows everybody and faceless, corporate greed isn't possible and everybody knows who the rip-offs are. It's called a "community" and if you want to protect yourself, you should start participating in one. That usually means not always being selfish and sometimes helping out for free. If you lust after Hummers and Sea-Doo's, well, welcome to the payback time of your chosen reality.
Hooray for Hoopajoops.
Now your suffering is about to really begin!
You should go talk to some people that are doing something you imagine yourself ending up doing. Once you have earned your liberty, there are very few places you can go or things you can do to keep it and your happiness. No matter where you go or what you try to do, the system will be there waiting for you -- ready to grind you down into hamburger. If you truly are free, take some time to do your research and understand the reality of the people living the life you are imagining.
"meaningful re-regulation of banking a big issue for the midterm elections in 2010 and beyond?"
that's funny, I read that as "meaningful reelection of banking in 2010" the first time through...
yup, another 2 years of jamie, lloyd, chris and barney....
last word from drunk in vegas
the Wikipedia blurb
The Great Santini - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
might be difficult or impossible to to find in pp, still, i am way drunk and will ship it there if you cannot find it, brilliant, like jack Kerouac at the west side bar, but real
put some cash on the giants pennant while you're there if you can find 12-1 or better. great postseason rotation.
strangelove
how wise, or close to that
but without some sort of trust, at the minimum a trust of ones one judgment, how can one even breathe
i cannot imagine telling either of my grandfathers that i send money to websites where i personally know not a soul, but if i could explain, they would understand
pretty cool
i have been lucky, now i am drunk
best wishes
Congratulations Hoopajoops,
Happy to hear you broke out.
All the best.
BCRX?
Hollywood H,
"meaningful re-regulation of banking a big issue for the midterm elections in 2010 and beyond?"
that's funny, I read that as "meaningful reelection of banking in 2010" the first time through...
[edit]
will 15 months be enough time for the anger to build sufficiently for the electorate to turn
on the Big 19 banks and their paid for order takers in Congress? I think it depends on the
turnaround and how late it comes in 2010. My guess is it has to be by end of 2nd qtr 2010
so Dems can say 'look, we inherited a mess but turned it around' . Remember Bush in '92? The economy
turned around but it was one QTR too late for him (plus, the MSM played it down totally that the ECON was
on the upswing...) He had one QTR but needed 2 IMO due to the media bias...
That's excellent, Hoopajoops! Congratulations.
Now comes the tough part - how do you store that value?
"You can pay me or you can lose your house"
Still 100% baffled by why anybody thinks it's "their house" when there is a lien on it. It's not. It's the lenders until you've paid off the loan.
If you can't make payments, let the pawn broker keep it. I mean mortgage lender. If you can sell it for more than the loan balance, do that. What's the big deal? IT'S NOT YOUR HOUSE.
As if renting is the end of the world.
"the USPS will default on a $5.4 billion payment to prefund future retiree health benefits on September 30, 2009. And its government affairs representatives are now telling Congressional staff that the Postal Service may not be able to make payroll in October"
.
.
The Next Global Economy: US Postal service about to issue IOU
.
Mucho congrats, hoops! (And unless you have more confidence than I do that you know what shits gonna go down next, diversify immediately.)
Congratulations Hoopajoops!
We raise our virtual arms with our virtual tonics to you.
And yes, we want to know how you decide to preserve your capital, and enjoy it.
(Phnom Penh Post)
GARMENT workers' wages have dropped 18 percent in the year to May, according to figures released by the Cambodia Development Resource Institute (CDRI).
... daily earnings for garment workers were now just 6,100 riels (US$1.52), down from 7,500 riels ($1.88) last year. ...decline in workers' incomes is the result of their weekly working hours being cut from an average 59 hours to 48 hours May 08 over 09.
Garment orders are down by 30% the same YoY. .
....
does anyone have comparable numbers for China? are they experiencing this % of decline or
just giving state subsidies to workers to make up difference?
ENERGYECON:
HE Ministry of Health recorded five more cases of the influenza A(H1N1) virus, commonly known as swine flu, last week, bringing the total number of confirmed Cambodian cases to 14.
Four Americans who live and work in Cambodia fell ill after returning from a trip to Bangkok....
Also Wednesday, an Irish man was stopped at Phnom Penh International Airport after showing flu-like symptoms...
"We have had 14 cases of swine flu in Cambodia, but nobody has died. We will continue to monitor swine flu at the airport and border crossings" he told the Post Sunday.
Thailand has reported the largest number of H1N1 cases in the region, with 4,057 confirmed cases and 24 deaths
I am going to make enough money
The Tax Man Cometh.
Congrats Hoops. Some good advice up thread re: talking to someone who's already doing it, and diversifying (asset class, currency, institution, etc.). Best of luck.
Congrats, Hoops.
I am a lawyer and this doesn't exactly surprise me. Law schools have been pumping out a huge oversupply of attorneys that the legal labor market simply cannot support. These lawyers find ever creative/shady ways of making money. The demand for legal services has been decimated, and corporations - the only entities that could afford to pay the ridiculous rates high priced firms were demanding - are no longer willing to pay for overpriced advice.
Not to mention transactional work, i.e. dealmaking, fell off a cliff.
Expect those with more knowledge to take advantage of those with less, especially in lean times. The internet is helping bridge the gap in information, but many people will still be scammed by these operators.
OT / I just realized that the trial I've been attending - that of Comrade Duch (Keng Kek Iew) is according to journalist Francis Deron,
"the first authentic trial of a communist regime" and will probably remain the only one possible for such a form of governance
that the Deron considers as "an imposture".
cool - witness to history! and you all thought all I did was pick up daughters of Khmer Rouge leaders and shoot off rockets and machine guns (besides
reading CR)
CORRECTION: the other day I stated that Seth Mydans of the NY TIMES wasn't in the courtroom the day Duch wept (July 3) After reviewing a few pictures of him
I remember him and where he sat - first row, 2nd seat from right in orchestra section. from that angle it is a physical impossibility to see a person's face in
the witness chair, I actually had a better angle. plus, my security units don't remember him crying.
....
back to FINANCE
Thanks Duke,
As this thing gets legs in Southeast Asia, the reassortment possibilities really start to increase - does subsistence level farming include raising pigs in country (not exactly your set, I realize, but what is local practice)?
energyecon..
this I don't know.... basically, first thing you need in rice farming is a water buffalo, if you can't afford this
then you buy a carabao, as for pig farms I haven't seen a lot of that in my travels... but I was down in Sihanoukville
last season and attended a pig roast, cost about 70 dollars for a good sized baby pig,,,
not sure that pigs are big here like in Vietnam or China but I'll ask around...
(Reuters) - Commercial mortgages at U.S. banks have been failing at the fastest rate in nearly 20 years, the Wall Street Journal said, citing its own analysis.
Losses on loans used to finance commercial spaces would possibly reach about $30 billion by the end of 2009 at the current rate, the article said.
The estimated $30 billion is based on financial reports filed by more than 8,000 banks for the first quarter, the paper said.
The commercial real-estate market, valued at about $6.7 trillion, represents 13 percent of the U.S.'s gross domestic product, according to the paper.
OH Bottom, where art thou...
HomeGnome
"Commercial mortgages at U.S. banks have been failing at the fastest rate in nearly 20 years, the Wall Street Journal said, citing its own analysis."
.....
having once covered this sector 20+ years ago at SB those commercial mortgages were concentrated in S&Ls were they not?
An S&L was a different animal and even had their own accounting standards of lack thereof called RAP (?), correct me if I'm wrong S&Ls were able to carry assets on their books that commercial banks could not. as I remember their timeline of OREO was different and I believe their capital ratios were far lower. the de-regulation of passbook savings rates should've killed the S&L (they could pay 50 bps more then a commercial bank) but they went to Congress and got legislation passed allowing them, well you know the story...
damn, Hoops!
wish you would have passed that info along, I have some cash that I'd like to make start
working, either that, of paraphrasing Citizen Allen M:
someday the Duke's gonna have to get a job!
Sorry, sorry. I didn't want to seem like I was pumping a stock. I ALSO didn't want to lose anyone money in case my judgment was wrong. I would've felt terrible.
kCoop writes:
That's excellent, Hoopajoops! Congratulations.
Now comes the tough part - how do you store that value?
That's a tough problem I've been dealing with... first step was re-upping my financial times subscription.
Good luck Hoops.
Now that money isn't an issue, I am going to medical school, to do what I really want to do with my life.
Hoops, that is the best use of winnings possible. Congratulations, and happy that one so wise in the use of proceeds met with success.
This has the smell of deceit and fraud. Deceit as they (successfully) suggest the have something to do with the Fed and fraud as they sell a service which they can knowingly not promise to deliver. To avoid this they should have called themselves "hope4cash" or something
disgusting, and a clear case for the ftc
The ones I know getting in trouble are the ones who want more than they can afford. They knew they didn't belong in that house.