President Obama signed the Dodd-Frank Financial Regulation Reform Act into law Wednesday, beginning what will inevitably become a maelstrom of angry lobbying and political jockeying. Obama described the 2300 page behemoth as a “common sense approach to long-needed financial regulation”. I don’t know about you, but ‘common sense’ usually doesn’t need to be explained in a tome about twice the length of Tolstoy’s War and Peace.
Maybe grandma was just more succinct in her common sense verbiage than lawmakers. Who knows.
And the unintended consequences have already started. Amongst other changes, ratings agencies will be held more accountable for the ratings they apply to certain institutions and financial products. So, many of the nation’s top ratings agencies have hired a small army of lawyers to sift through the pages of the bill and, until they satisfactorily understand the many nuances held within, have declared they aren’t going to do anything. A complete standstill. Can’t really blame them for wanting to know where the mines are before they go skipping through the brand new minefield.
Big Ben Bernanke, our fearless Federal Reserve Chairman, spoke to Congress Wednesday citing that we are going through a period of ’Unusual uncertainty’. Yeah. That’s the kind of soothing talk that calms everyone down. Stocks took a whack as a result.
Evidently loan default knows no income boundaries. In a recent survey it was noted that 1 in every 7 mortgages of $1,000,000.00 and greater was categorized as ‘seriously delinquent’ while matched by only 1 in 12 of those below the 1 mil mark. Those lazy rich people. Don’t they know that this kind of behavior could cost their corporate CEO golfing buddies their semi-annual bonuses? For shame. Now who will pay for the scotch and hookers?
Tons of mortgage lenders are turning down loans because of women taking maternity leave, saying that there is no guarantee that they will go back to work. Prospective mothers out there, I have some strong language for you: how dare you include Junior in the American dream? This is a free market. If your baby wants a home, they can get a job and earn one.
And, as if Florida being at the tip-top of the list for states involved in mortgage fraud wasn’t enough, we have a new feather to put in our community’s cap: a recent study by CoreLogic Inc. named Orlando as one of the cities in America with the highest incidence of mortgage fraud. I’m not saying everyone other than me is out to get you, but everyone other than me is out to get you.
You heard me.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Since when do facts matter in politics?
I always like to start these newsletters with a joke. Something fun to lighten the mood. And, in all my research, I couldn’t find any joke funnier than Republican party leader Michael Steele’s quote about the Afghanistan war: “Keep in mind again, for our federal candidates, this is a war of Obama’s choos-ing.”
BWAAAAA HAAA HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!
Seriously, guy? You said this in public? I wouldn’t recommend even muttering it quietly to yourself, but out loud on camera? Evidently his Tourette’s got the best of him. I wonder exactly how much bling-bling this little faux pas is going to cost him in political capital.
The unemployment rate ticked a couple notches down to 9.5% while the economy shed another 125,000 jobs. The job loss culprit: planned layoffs from the seasonal census workers. In related news, Congress opted not to extend unemployment benefits from 52 weeks to 2 years, citing budget re¬straints and dis-incentivizing the workforce as the primary drivers of that decision. There is a ton of political jockeying going on in D.C. right now and both sides of the argument are very emotionally charged.
Translation: I’m not touching this one with a 10-foot pole.
The Agricultural Bank of China (ABC) is set to have the biggest initial public offering in history soon at approximately 22 billion in value. This means that our hedge funds can now use the money we bor-rowed from China to invest into China’s banking system so China is better capitalized to... lend us more money? I’m getting dizzy. And somehow broker.
The $8000 1st time homebuyer tax credit was extended recently, moving the mandatory closing date back from June 30th to September 30th. Unfortunately, you still had to be under contract by April 30th to qualify. This is a shining example of how constipated the mortgage lending system is right now dealing with the piles of legal red tape and distressed properties we’re stuck with. Slow goings.
Tar balls have officially washed ashore on Cocoa Beach, but scientists are inconclusive as to where they could have come from. Let me give you kids a hint: it starts with “B” and ends in “P’s massive gushing screw-up in the Gulf”. But at least BP is a ‘week ahead of schedule’ in building a relief wall.
I love the media spin. Fills me with an empty sense of false hope, which is all I need to distract me from the untold sums of dead marine life, irreparably ravaged ecosystems and eventual cataclysmic toll on Florida’s tourism economy. Ignorance is oil-covered bliss.
BWAAAAA HAAA HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!
Seriously, guy? You said this in public? I wouldn’t recommend even muttering it quietly to yourself, but out loud on camera? Evidently his Tourette’s got the best of him. I wonder exactly how much bling-bling this little faux pas is going to cost him in political capital.
The unemployment rate ticked a couple notches down to 9.5% while the economy shed another 125,000 jobs. The job loss culprit: planned layoffs from the seasonal census workers. In related news, Congress opted not to extend unemployment benefits from 52 weeks to 2 years, citing budget re¬straints and dis-incentivizing the workforce as the primary drivers of that decision. There is a ton of political jockeying going on in D.C. right now and both sides of the argument are very emotionally charged.
Translation: I’m not touching this one with a 10-foot pole.
The Agricultural Bank of China (ABC) is set to have the biggest initial public offering in history soon at approximately 22 billion in value. This means that our hedge funds can now use the money we bor-rowed from China to invest into China’s banking system so China is better capitalized to... lend us more money? I’m getting dizzy. And somehow broker.
The $8000 1st time homebuyer tax credit was extended recently, moving the mandatory closing date back from June 30th to September 30th. Unfortunately, you still had to be under contract by April 30th to qualify. This is a shining example of how constipated the mortgage lending system is right now dealing with the piles of legal red tape and distressed properties we’re stuck with. Slow goings.
Tar balls have officially washed ashore on Cocoa Beach, but scientists are inconclusive as to where they could have come from. Let me give you kids a hint: it starts with “B” and ends in “P’s massive gushing screw-up in the Gulf”. But at least BP is a ‘week ahead of schedule’ in building a relief wall.
I love the media spin. Fills me with an empty sense of false hope, which is all I need to distract me from the untold sums of dead marine life, irreparably ravaged ecosystems and eventual cataclysmic toll on Florida’s tourism economy. Ignorance is oil-covered bliss.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
The news networks that cried wolf
Aside from video-taping people walking the streets wearing “The End Is Near” Sharpied onto poster-board, talking heads are spouting double-dip recession as loudly as they can in the wake of a 10% loss on the Dow Jones Industrial Average (a big stock market indicator) in the 2nd quarter of 2010.
The infamous double-dip. The thing that gets someone else’s spit all up in your honey mustard sauce. That’ll teach you for sharing the McNuggets.
Well, call me the blind optimist, but I am royally sick of hearing about America’s inevitable future plunge into the recesses of economic oblivion. Yes, I will be the first to admit that we’ve clearly hit a patch of soft economic data. The jobs report (beginning with the ADP jobs report which already sucked at the time of writing and finishing with Thursday’s jobless claims and Friday’s payroll employment reports) is, as our Spanish-speaking friends say, muy no bueno. Our nation’s gross domestic product was also recently revised downward to a modest 2.7% growth in Q1 ‘10.
But to debunk the doomsday theories kids and kidettes, realize it’s a bunch of scared, overly threatened fund managers running the markets in wildly turbulent political times amidst an international debt crisis. Things are going to be a tad choppy coming out of this quagmire. And news networks sell a hell of a lot of advertising space when they’re predicting Armageddon prematurely.
Ask yourself: have you seen a significant change in those around you in the past 6 months? About the same number of unemployed friends? People settling into a more conservative, maintainable pattern of spending? Same old ‘We’re broke, but we’re happy!’ jokes floating around?
Yeah. We’ve flattened out. We’re not plummeting to our doom. We’re chillin’. Recouping.
And just what is the major catalyst behind this latest market correction? Crappy numbers coming out of China. Their industry has evidently slowed down dramatically. Well, NO KIDDING. Customer Numero Uno (that’s us, people) has tightened up the ol’ bootstraps. Get a clue.
In other news , evidently Larry King is retiring. I’d probably care if I was older.
USA got beat by Ghana 2-1 in overtime, punting us corner-kick style from the World Cup. I’d probably care if I was... I dunno, not American? 3rd World-ican, maybe? I’m just glad to be able to permanently remove the word Vuvuzela from my mental dictionary. Good riddance, evil bee noise.
Hurricane Alex is slowing down the Gulf oil clean-up effort, but Americans have such short attention spans that we’ve already forgotten about it anyway. By the way, just for grins and giggles, go ahead and back your truck into a fire hydrant and watch the subsequent plume of water that comes up. Yeah. That’s going on at the bottom of the friggin’ ocean, only way bigger and it’s oil. Totally awesome.
And, to close on a happy note, massive financial regulation is going to be upon us once the Senate gets their act together. I assure you I will drone on about this for a good couple of newsletters, so for now let’s just say that Wall Street is probably going to be pissed. Fun times.
The infamous double-dip. The thing that gets someone else’s spit all up in your honey mustard sauce. That’ll teach you for sharing the McNuggets.
Well, call me the blind optimist, but I am royally sick of hearing about America’s inevitable future plunge into the recesses of economic oblivion. Yes, I will be the first to admit that we’ve clearly hit a patch of soft economic data. The jobs report (beginning with the ADP jobs report which already sucked at the time of writing and finishing with Thursday’s jobless claims and Friday’s payroll employment reports) is, as our Spanish-speaking friends say, muy no bueno. Our nation’s gross domestic product was also recently revised downward to a modest 2.7% growth in Q1 ‘10.
But to debunk the doomsday theories kids and kidettes, realize it’s a bunch of scared, overly threatened fund managers running the markets in wildly turbulent political times amidst an international debt crisis. Things are going to be a tad choppy coming out of this quagmire. And news networks sell a hell of a lot of advertising space when they’re predicting Armageddon prematurely.
Ask yourself: have you seen a significant change in those around you in the past 6 months? About the same number of unemployed friends? People settling into a more conservative, maintainable pattern of spending? Same old ‘We’re broke, but we’re happy!’ jokes floating around?
Yeah. We’ve flattened out. We’re not plummeting to our doom. We’re chillin’. Recouping.
And just what is the major catalyst behind this latest market correction? Crappy numbers coming out of China. Their industry has evidently slowed down dramatically. Well, NO KIDDING. Customer Numero Uno (that’s us, people) has tightened up the ol’ bootstraps. Get a clue.
In other news , evidently Larry King is retiring. I’d probably care if I was older.
USA got beat by Ghana 2-1 in overtime, punting us corner-kick style from the World Cup. I’d probably care if I was... I dunno, not American? 3rd World-ican, maybe? I’m just glad to be able to permanently remove the word Vuvuzela from my mental dictionary. Good riddance, evil bee noise.
Hurricane Alex is slowing down the Gulf oil clean-up effort, but Americans have such short attention spans that we’ve already forgotten about it anyway. By the way, just for grins and giggles, go ahead and back your truck into a fire hydrant and watch the subsequent plume of water that comes up. Yeah. That’s going on at the bottom of the friggin’ ocean, only way bigger and it’s oil. Totally awesome.
And, to close on a happy note, massive financial regulation is going to be upon us once the Senate gets their act together. I assure you I will drone on about this for a good couple of newsletters, so for now let’s just say that Wall Street is probably going to be pissed. Fun times.
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