Archives by Tag ' Wall Street '
Oct 9, 2010

TOP READER PICKS FOR SERVICES AND PRODUCTS EDITOR’S NOTE: This is not just a paper crash, which old-timers like myself will remember from the Wall Street paper-crash of the late 1960’s. Simple logic leads to the inevitable conclusion that property rights and contracts, mortgages, notes and obligation are all about paperwork and recording. The trail is […]

Sep 6, 2010

EDITOR’s comment: Everyone seems to agree that nobody really knows the identity of the creditor in the millions of mortgage transactions that were created from 2001 to 2008. Yet the general consensus from the administration and the media is that these transactions should be enforced anyway. The idea of enforcing a transaction in which only […]

Apr 29, 2010

Three years ago, when this derivative housing mess caught my attention, the reason I started looking into it was that the basic facts didn’t make any sense. Housing prices had been going up at a rate of as much as 20% in one month. Coming from Wall Street with an M.B.A. and having studied, written […]

Apr 26, 2010

“a ‘thing’ which has no purpose, which is absolutely conceptual and highly theoretical and which nobody knows how to price.” Editor’s Note: Think about it. The foundation of the supply of money that was pressure pumped into our economic housing system resulted in inflation of home appraisals. It was so large that everyone thought the […]

Apr 20, 2010

In my opinion, the growing anger at Wall Street is giving Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Dimon another chance at misdirection. They are using the current popular angst to steer the debate into whether derivatives and synthetic CDOs should be banned. In the end they will win that debate, and they should win it. What they […]

Apr 12, 2010

Editor’s Note: This article might help you understand the workings of a yield spread premium. For every 1% difference in interest rate the “cost” of the loan to you goes up 19%. Now if you look at it from the point of view of the “lender” that means the “value” goes up by 19%. That […]

Mar 27, 2010

The entities foreclosing don’t have ANYTHING at stake. They have no stake and yet they are still getting homes for nothing Editor’s Note: The federal plan is good as to its intent but unnecessary if the law was applied. Sure the bailout SHOULD apply to anyone who got stuck with one of these securitized mortgages. […]

Mar 23, 2010

without raising taxes one cent, many states could recover much or all of their deficit and perhaps some states could be looking at a surplus. The money is sitting on Wall Street waiting to be claimed through existing tax laws, regulatory fees, and even damage claims much like the Tobacco litigation. Editor’s Note: Bob Herbert […]

Feb 25, 2010

Editor’s Note: Home sales will continue to drop, home prices will continue to drop, banks will continue to fail until principal reduction is recognized as the reality of the situation. More than 11 million homeowners are reportedly under water. The real number is closer to 20 million. see Modifications Pushing More Homes Underwater. Our economy cannot […]

Feb 15, 2010

Editor’s Comment: Again, myth prevails. The monster that gobbled our home equity and the value of our pension funds came from the waters beneath the market not from some economic disaster or sudden migration of population to Australia. The “loss of value” was nothing of the sort. Prices were going up during a decade when […]