The refinance boom that started on November 25th is still going strong. This segment on Fox and Friends with Steve Doocy and Bill Kilmeade was short and to the point. And by the way, we really are glad that ‘people are not throwing shoes at us.’ I thought the secret service were always faster than that? I mean, that is the way it looked in that Clint Eastwood movie…
The news of course loves the pain of the credit markets. Something dramatic to talk about. We think there is significant pain too, but we agreed to go on FOX NEWS in July of 08 to at least point out some positive things. Some regions of the country are holding up better than others – not surprisingly, they are also the same parts of the country that behaved well from a governance standpoint on the way up.
The morning that Indy Mac was taken over by Federal Regulators, we were in the studio talking with Shepard Smith about the Fannie Freddie crisis. We wrote in this column that Indy Mac was a house of cards almost 7 months before it failed. When you make your living with Alt-A loans and Pay Option ARM’s, you die that way too. Drunks always shoot themsleves in the foot sooner or later.
Foreclosure statistics, like all statistics, are warped to fit the opinion of the person quoting them. Have they dropped since last month? Maybe. But are they are 5 times higher than last year? Probably. They were bad in July, they are worse now, they will be even worse this winter. But the focus on the foreclosure rates distracts attention from the devasting loss of wealth that Americans feel. Numbers can be a distraction.
Money for Breakfast is a great business show hosted by Alexis Glick. Is this interview, we appeared with a guy who calls himseld ‘Mr. Mortgage.’ After the program, we looked him up and were impressed. He has kept a very active blog for months and has offered some really sharp insights into the entire mortgage collapse. The only thing we wonder is, what are the chances that a guy with the last name “Mortgage” actually ends up in the business? Strange.
Alexis Glick is more than just the host of a news show – she was a very successful and well respected at both Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, Columbia grad. We agreed to go on the show and talk with the former chairman of the FDIC and the Senior Editor of Barons about the Fannie Freddie mess.
Neil Cavuto is the big cheese over at Fox Business News (always in HD as he will remind you!). He very accurately identified how the mortgage renegotiation issue embedded within the bailout plan might have unintended consequences. This interview was inbetween a Senator who was a BIG proponent of the bailout and Nancy Pelosi. Years from now this moment – when the mortgage renegotiation was first announced – will be infamous. It will be a provision studied in business schools and it will be a conversation between grandparents and the children…’back in 2008 and 2009, the goverment actually bla bla bla, not like you kids these days…’
