MichaelNYC

Banning Shorts Works in Fancy Restaurants, Not the Marketplace

oops my post was about WB

Banning Shorts Works in Fancy Restaurants, Not the Marketplace

So who can the little investor who paid $23 plus on Sept 19th, turn to now? Paulson, the gang of "long cheerleaders" on CNBC, you guys on here who are against shorting? If shorting wasn’t banned that day the little investor wouldn't have paid the $23 bucks, it would have never gone there! The government is trying to control the markets which are a rigged game as it is.

Common Sense: My Solution to the Mortgage Crisis

Afleet Alex - if you read what I wrote I respectfully disagree with what you say "a few lenders took advantage...most conducted business as usual with ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA " - no sir, most conducted business the way they did because they didn't CARE what would happen because there is no accountability that goes back to most of them. They didn’t need to care and most people are self centered. I’m suggesting to compensate everyone involved based on the loan performance. Let’s face it most sales people bend the truth and after the contract is signed get their commission and are of the hook, that needs to change. Wall Street as a whole is a sales person, let’s make them care by tying in their comp to performance of the product they sell.

Common Sense: My Solution to the Mortgage Crisis

jlounsbury59 - I appreciate your comments, thank you. I agree re my short comment could've been interpreted the way you did. No hard feelings and thank you for reading my long posting. I could write five times more :)

Common Sense: My Solution to the Mortgage Crisis

For the record, I do believe we need No Income check loans but limited to 65% LTV or so.

Common Sense: My Solution to the Mortgage Crisis

jlounsbury59 - you don't know my self interest and I would suggest you refrain from inappropriate suggestions as to my career.

6% on every OO loan - price controls and that's going to work? 100k per violation - who will be the experts - ACORN, and will they judge based on their socialist agenda on based on how much they get in kick backs from the lender and then they'll go against the borrower (as I believe they have done in the past). These suggestions only invites abuses by the dishonest and is reminiscent of a communist dictatorship.

Some thoughts - Loan To Values are very important and there needs to be true market based pricing. As it stands today the Democrats in congress prevented the FHA from doing that even now – they want someone who is very likely to default to pay the same insurance premium as the borrower least likely to default. Shame on them. The Dems pushed a scam for years now where “down payment assistance” comes from nonprofits, in actuality in comes from the seller by increasing the price by say 10k and giving it to a nonprofit who is in the business of doing this and profiting from this. The nonprofit turn around and gifts it to the buyer, so the buyer has a “down payment” . So the FHA was forced to write zero downpayment loans which defaulted in large numbers, of course this is on the taxpayers back. When the FHA wanted to stop this scam the nonprofits took them to court and the court stopped the FHA from discontinuing the scam until congress just now stopped it. So don’t tell me there’s justice in the courts. Cong. Frank and his buddies have behaved criminally vis-à-vis FHA, Fannie and Freddie.

Having said this I also want to say that the vast majority of the people in the mortgage brokerage business and the majority (less because they have more financial responsibility) in the mortgage banking business are complicit in this mess, many on a criminal level. Wall Street – when you pay people huge percentage of the profits not contingent on final loan performance, you invite this. Rating agencies – same as Wall Street. The issue is human nature nothing else – make it so they the compensation of the people who originate and sell, deal in this paper is directly related to the loan’s performance - that’s the key.

The originating lender must have long term interest in the loan’s success - securitization the way it was done, decoupled this.

Many borrowers with and without the help of mortgage loan officers are guilty of fraud in the mortgage process. When they need the money they lie and will do anything to get it, when they default they play “poor innocent victim” . They want high, fraudulent appraisals and of course will go to the lender who will give it to them. Of course when they default they quickly become the victims of high appraisals – pleeeease!

By the way to those who feel that everything was disclosed – it wasn’t, the bait and switch in the mortgage industry is beyond what you can even imagine. To jlounsbury59, I always said that my biggest competition is the bait and switch lenders. Many consumers wanted something for nothing, what they usually got is a bait and switch.

It’s all very, very sad. Again, the issue is human nature nothing else – make it so they the compensation of the people who originate and sell, deal in this paper is directly related to the loan’s performance – and it will all be fine. This cannot be legislated through misguided left wing ideas – only through putting all involved self interest/compensation in the bucket as the loan’s performance. Don’t fight human nature, work with it.

Common Sense: My Solution to the Mortgage Crisis

Jim, I'm in the mortgage business and there are many words that come to mind to describe your proposal but I'll stick to the more polite ones - unworkable and way too ridiculous.

Banning Shorts Works in Fancy Restaurants, Not the Marketplace

qw - shorts, artificial valuation - how come nobody complains when longs push a stock up to crazy levels? What about the investor who buys a stock at 100 that went up from 40 and then goes back down to 40 and the investor loses everything because of the "artificial valuation at 100"? Why is that not criminal? Can someone please explain that to me?

Auction Rate Securities: Who's To Blame?

Chase caved - I still think they are pieces of crap and I for one hope I don't forget and hold it against them.

Auction Rate Securities: Who's To Blame?

Michael Steinberg - I try not to trust anyone (at least theoretically I know that's the correct behavior) still when an employee of Chase is involved it's a bit different. I would not buy these if a street broker offered them to me. At one point I even said “so this is like Chase commercial paper" and he said “yes”. The amounts are well over the FDIC limits so by keeping the money in a Chase MM I had to believe that Chase's credit would be ok and I did. It was a large sum and 97% of the cash on hand in this 501(c) , if this wasn’t a true “money market” just like the Chase MM, shouldn’t a Chase (Securities) employee say something? By the way, the branch didn’t seem to mind that a large sum went out of their account and went into AUS. I assume they were getting earning credits for the AUS also. It’s funny how Chase wants to be seen as a bank, yet make money and shaft their clients like the big boys on Wall Street. It’s really annoying how they behaved on this matter and I wonder if they think the clients won’t remember this in the future and hold it against them. When the Chase folks tried to be “helpful” and offer loans against the AUS, I told them to shove it. I hope they fold soon for their own good because eventually they will, given the other players folding, and they are just hurting themselves by protracting this.

DougM – what that a bank, can you tell me please which institution it was?

hooboy – you know, life’s busy and here’s a Chase employee… I was told the credit was insured munis, as to the liquidity he assured me that it was fine. In hindsight of course I’d act differently. Still this does not excuse their nondisclosure and as I wrote above their intermingling of Chase Bank and Chase Securities.

Auction Rate Securities: Who's To Blame?

Michael Steinberg - I don't know if you bought ARS for yourself or not, I'll assume you didn't. Happens to be I did. I have corporate and other accounts at Chase, and the sales person definitely marketed the AUS as cash, same as a Chase Money Market account except if you buy the 7 days lock up or the 4 week lock up, you’d need to manage you needs for those periods. No prospectus was given to me or anything else. In fact I had a substantial amount in a Chase MM account for years and this money went into AUS. It happens to be it was a 501 (c), and there's no question in my mind of what I was told. All of you who in previous comments on this article scream "buyer beware", should have been there and then you can talk.

If the Chase wants to be a bank it shouldn’t have sales people from Case Securities sit right next to my regular relationship manager and have that person have access to my Chase bank accounts to see how he can help me take money out of my case MM account and put it into AUS. I know of other Chase customers who were put into AUS as interchangeable vehicle for Chase MM or CD accounts. There was no disclosure, just the opposite. Sounds like somebody was making more money on the AUS, so that was being pushed.

I wonder why the others are forced to buy back the AUS and not Chase so far. As soon as the liquidity evaporated in AUS, the Chase thieves circled the wagons, it was almost comical, announced they couldn’t communicate about AUS by email only phone – it was pretty sad. As much as I don't like lawyers and AG Cuomo (or his father) I find that Chase’s behavior throughout the AUS saga was and still is very shabby and if it takes Cuomo to slap them around, unfortunately, so be it. I hope Chase is somehow not protected by the Fed for being the “good guys” on Bear. Nothing would surprise me anymore.