Frank Louis
Has anybody been following this Jackson Hole (Wyoming) Fed Retreat?
By Frank Louis
If you have been following this summit, you must be as tired of hearing the intellectualization of this nation's economic crisis as I am. A crisis that no one will deny is rooted in housing. A crisis that no one (any longer) will argue was not created by fraudulent professionals in the real estate and mortgage industries- and are not in jail I might add. I have been following this fed-conference now for a bit now on CNBC and online. I think I have had enough. I guess the final straw today was when the best advice Thomas Hoenig (Kansas City Federal Reserve President) had for us is to "read all of my speeches." Really? Read your speeches while our life savings is being stolen from our hands. I don't think so Mr. Hoenig. That is your advice?
My mother used to have an expression. She said of some people that they were obviously "educated beyond their intelligence." I think you qualify. In fact, I think most of the talking head "experts" I have heard from at this summit are in the same category. Hoenig said they were there "for discussion,"not solutions. Can they separate the forest from the trees? I wonder.
In fact the only person in this country with the solution seems to be me, Frank Louis. The "Short Keep!" The more I tell people about this plan of mine, the more they believe it is the only solution. This is a plan in which the only qualification is the fact that you paid 20% or more on the real estate you bought at falsely advertized prices in the housing bubble. If you did, you qualify. Face it, you need a rebate!
These bubble prices, everyone agrees, were a result of the "overbuying" that was a result of no-money-down no-doc loans and, our favorite folks, the straw buyers. You know straw buyers; the buyers thousands of realtors andmortgage brokers brought to the table after qualifying them. Remember them. They paid nothing, got paid at the closing, and defaulted. It was not the fault of people who put their money on the table. Financial experts created the environment and we were robbed.
To qualify for the short keep you need only to have been sincere (not a banking term) in your investment, put money down, and have believed that the professionals you paid to advise you through the transaction were holding up to their fiduciary responsibility to you as their professional client. You know, the crooks called realtors, financial experts, and mortgage brokers, the ones who inflated the market.
If you are unfamiliar with the short keep concept (or cash for keeps program), read my past articles or listen to my radio show. You will become a believer.
But more on this conference. According to CNBC online and AP, today, while this summit is ongoing, the financial markets are still "worried about more home loan losses" Wow. These folks don't miss a thing do they? The article states that there is also concern that mortgage companies (you know, Fannie and Freddie, among other "giants.") "will need another government bailout." What? Didn't they just get a few trillion dollars already? No problem Ben is yet to speak. Hold on!
Do you experts know who the true "mortgage giants" in this country that need a bailout are? They are the millions of Americans who have been robbed by this housing scam and have had their life savings wiped out and their "credit-ability" stolen. Bail them out. Give them their down payments back and then some.
This makes me so sick it is just not funny! Then you hear yet another important person at this conferencespeak; Michael Mussa. Mussa is all excited about how the Fed has saved the day by buying mortgages (because the secondary market has "all but dried up") and, perhaps, we need to read his speeches too. Sure, we can read them in the back seats of our old cars after we have been foreclosed.
Sir, you too are just over-intellectualizing this and not facing reality. Meredith Whitney, in a similar show of brilliance, talks about the 60% of modifications that have failed and she is just as surprised. Go figure, who got them and what are these modifications anyway? It is al so misguided. People who made down payments have not received any modifications.
On the final day, Friday, Ben Bernanke, in his much awaited remarks lets it be known that a double dip recession is a possibility, and that the Central Bank would "take action" to prop up the economy "if necessary" and housing continues to tumble, oh well.
Stocks, however, have the best day in weeks (Remember the bailout fear a few paragraphs back?) and the TV news switches to a story about people getting foreclosed on, showing video footage of scores of Americans in line begging for some sort of loan modification on the home they paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for just a few years ago which is now going to be "sold short" to some "worthy investor" for maybe $20 or $30 thousand while these people get a judgment against the rest of their lives. Ben, time for the Short Keep!
The problem here is that thefolks at this conference are the same people who created this problem; this experiment in society through which millions of Americans have lost hundreds of millions of dollars with the help of realtors and mortgage professionals in the process. Mr. and Ms. Fed, this is real money these people worked for decades to get. And your policies have stolen it and continue to run this economy and the American citizens into the ground. And, in case you are someone who has not yet felt the ill effects of this crisis, my advice to you is "just wait."
So, I tell you, the short keep will stop this crisis. It will halt the downward spiral of housing values. This, after all, is the root of the "uncertainty" you experts speak of. Can't you see this or is it just too simple, like the Biblical truth that this country was founded on? The "uncertainty" that continues to bring the country down is housing and the exotic financial mazes that brought it down that you continue to expand upon. And who is going to be left to buy anything? The people I am sticking up for all had credit scores in the 700–800 range just a few years ago. Now, they are credit unworthy. They probably can't even buy a used car.
Steve Liesman (does that spell "lies man?") and Diana Olick (real estate expert) are both impressed. They've been there rubbing elbows with hundreds of "international bankers and academics" for the past few days in Jackson Hole. What, no people who put 20% down on a real estate investment in 2005 at the summit? None interviewed on your programs, none giving speeches? Where are they? I'll tell you, on the street, being foreclosed!
© Frank Louis
August 28, 2010
If you have been following this summit, you must be as tired of hearing the intellectualization of this nation's economic crisis as I am. A crisis that no one will deny is rooted in housing. A crisis that no one (any longer) will argue was not created by fraudulent professionals in the real estate and mortgage industries- and are not in jail I might add. I have been following this fed-conference now for a bit now on CNBC and online. I think I have had enough. I guess the final straw today was when the best advice Thomas Hoenig (Kansas City Federal Reserve President) had for us is to "read all of my speeches." Really? Read your speeches while our life savings is being stolen from our hands. I don't think so Mr. Hoenig. That is your advice?
My mother used to have an expression. She said of some people that they were obviously "educated beyond their intelligence." I think you qualify. In fact, I think most of the talking head "experts" I have heard from at this summit are in the same category. Hoenig said they were there "for discussion,"not solutions. Can they separate the forest from the trees? I wonder.
In fact the only person in this country with the solution seems to be me, Frank Louis. The "Short Keep!" The more I tell people about this plan of mine, the more they believe it is the only solution. This is a plan in which the only qualification is the fact that you paid 20% or more on the real estate you bought at falsely advertized prices in the housing bubble. If you did, you qualify. Face it, you need a rebate!
These bubble prices, everyone agrees, were a result of the "overbuying" that was a result of no-money-down no-doc loans and, our favorite folks, the straw buyers. You know straw buyers; the buyers thousands of realtors andmortgage brokers brought to the table after qualifying them. Remember them. They paid nothing, got paid at the closing, and defaulted. It was not the fault of people who put their money on the table. Financial experts created the environment and we were robbed.
To qualify for the short keep you need only to have been sincere (not a banking term) in your investment, put money down, and have believed that the professionals you paid to advise you through the transaction were holding up to their fiduciary responsibility to you as their professional client. You know, the crooks called realtors, financial experts, and mortgage brokers, the ones who inflated the market.
If you are unfamiliar with the short keep concept (or cash for keeps program), read my past articles or listen to my radio show. You will become a believer.
But more on this conference. According to CNBC online and AP, today, while this summit is ongoing, the financial markets are still "worried about more home loan losses" Wow. These folks don't miss a thing do they? The article states that there is also concern that mortgage companies (you know, Fannie and Freddie, among other "giants.") "will need another government bailout." What? Didn't they just get a few trillion dollars already? No problem Ben is yet to speak. Hold on!
Do you experts know who the true "mortgage giants" in this country that need a bailout are? They are the millions of Americans who have been robbed by this housing scam and have had their life savings wiped out and their "credit-ability" stolen. Bail them out. Give them their down payments back and then some.
This makes me so sick it is just not funny! Then you hear yet another important person at this conferencespeak; Michael Mussa. Mussa is all excited about how the Fed has saved the day by buying mortgages (because the secondary market has "all but dried up") and, perhaps, we need to read his speeches too. Sure, we can read them in the back seats of our old cars after we have been foreclosed.
Sir, you too are just over-intellectualizing this and not facing reality. Meredith Whitney, in a similar show of brilliance, talks about the 60% of modifications that have failed and she is just as surprised. Go figure, who got them and what are these modifications anyway? It is al so misguided. People who made down payments have not received any modifications.
On the final day, Friday, Ben Bernanke, in his much awaited remarks lets it be known that a double dip recession is a possibility, and that the Central Bank would "take action" to prop up the economy "if necessary" and housing continues to tumble, oh well.
Stocks, however, have the best day in weeks (Remember the bailout fear a few paragraphs back?) and the TV news switches to a story about people getting foreclosed on, showing video footage of scores of Americans in line begging for some sort of loan modification on the home they paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for just a few years ago which is now going to be "sold short" to some "worthy investor" for maybe $20 or $30 thousand while these people get a judgment against the rest of their lives. Ben, time for the Short Keep!
The problem here is that thefolks at this conference are the same people who created this problem; this experiment in society through which millions of Americans have lost hundreds of millions of dollars with the help of realtors and mortgage professionals in the process. Mr. and Ms. Fed, this is real money these people worked for decades to get. And your policies have stolen it and continue to run this economy and the American citizens into the ground. And, in case you are someone who has not yet felt the ill effects of this crisis, my advice to you is "just wait."
So, I tell you, the short keep will stop this crisis. It will halt the downward spiral of housing values. This, after all, is the root of the "uncertainty" you experts speak of. Can't you see this or is it just too simple, like the Biblical truth that this country was founded on? The "uncertainty" that continues to bring the country down is housing and the exotic financial mazes that brought it down that you continue to expand upon. And who is going to be left to buy anything? The people I am sticking up for all had credit scores in the 700–800 range just a few years ago. Now, they are credit unworthy. They probably can't even buy a used car.
Steve Liesman (does that spell "lies man?") and Diana Olick (real estate expert) are both impressed. They've been there rubbing elbows with hundreds of "international bankers and academics" for the past few days in Jackson Hole. What, no people who put 20% down on a real estate investment in 2005 at the summit? None interviewed on your programs, none giving speeches? Where are they? I'll tell you, on the street, being foreclosed!
© Frank Louis
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