Wall Street’s Machiavellian Sharks Perhaps it’s uncharitable to complain about the piddling $12 million severance Jon Corzine was poised to gain if he had managed to sell his current firm, MF Global Holdings, over the weekend. But I’m going to complain anyway. The idea that Corzine, who single-handedly destroyed MF Global Holdings, was in a position to...Read More
No Longer AWOL on Financial Reform Notwithstanding a very long public record of Wall Street self-dealing, treachery, and greed on a scale never before witnessed in American (world?) history, New York Times columnist (and St. Louis Park native) Tom Friedman has been silent on the need for systemic financial and political reform. Until today. Our Congress...Read More
How Full — or Empty — is the Foreclosure Pipeline? Today’s New York Times includes a story that — at least at first blush — has ominous implications for Minneapolis and the overall Twin Cities housing market: In Minneapolis, lenders are bringing in at least six foreclosed homes for each they sell. –Eric Dash, “Banks...Read More
This Weekend’s Hot Story While it’s still free, check out this article in The New York Times: ‘In Prison for Taking a Liar Loan.’ It recounts the utterly fantastic tale of a how a small-time Countrywide borrower came to serve a 21 month sentence for mortgage fraud, while the bank’s senior executives literally walked away with...Read More
Drawbridges . . . Up In just a few weeks, some of my favorite “free” content . . . won’t be. That includes mainstream publications like The New York Times, but also specialty online newsletters like “Breakfast with Dave,” authored by Gluskin Sheff chief economist David Rosenberg. Even The New Yorker, which is busily promoting its iPad app, quietly omits the fact...Read More
Or Foreclosures, Either What jumped out at me reading “It’ Buildings of the Other Boroughs” in The NY Times was the high (financial) bar for entry: “Mortgages are allowed, but only for half the purchase price, brokers familiar with the building said.” “A recent sale in the building, which requires a 25 percent down payment...Read More
