Wall Street Needs You...Well, Actually Just Your Money.

My son, sit upon this lotus and prepare to be enveloped by the truth. First, we must chant "Ohmmmmmmmmmmmm!" Second, we must spit in a dishrag and bury it next to a stump, under a full moon. Third, and last but not least, we must pay homage to Alan "The Terminator" Greenspan and his bearded acolyte Ben "The Beneficent" Bernake.

Sometime in the foggy past "The Terminator" banished that nasty addition to borrowed money once known as,ugh, interest, thereby freeing the borrowing power of the good, bad and the ugly to purchase large and misshapen domiciles known as McMansions. The Terminator's magic, as practiced by the prestidigitators of Wall Street, allowed millions of people earning, oh say $2000 a month to buy a house worth $500,000 and to pay only $600 a month. Then a year or so later when the mortgage jumped to $1500 a month, thereby assuring the lucky family the choice of buying gas or food but not both, the Street cheered because in their cleverness they had bundled these magic mortgages into baskets of securities and sold them off to other practitioners of the dark art of FINANCE in all parts of the known world...and perhaps even some unknown parts.

The Terminator rested, and bathed in adulation by the Street, retired to the lecture circuit to make large sums of money speaking in tongues which nobody understood.

Part2

A few years pass...and as Warren Buffett is fond of saying, "When the tide goes out you find out who's swimming naked." Turns out most of Wall Street was buck nekked! It seems that all those queer and exotic securities made their way back to the very same banks and investment houses that had sold them. Unfortunately when the current owners demanded satisfaction the banks and investment houses, upon realizing that these demands would cause them severe depletion of capital, known in the parlance of the Street as "bankruptcy", begin to tear their garments and cry, "The end is near won't someone save us?" For a time, 2 days perhaps, it appeared that these money changers would in fact disappear from the face of the earth and if that were actually to happen, many believe the world would be a far better place.

But alas it was not to be, for as the new day dawned on the terrified CEOs, CFOs and general Wall Street denizens a shout was heard at the far end of the Street, "It's Him!, it's Him!, He's coming, He's coming!"

And so it was that Ben "The Beneficent" Bernake arrived to bestow his hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayers money into the waiting arms of the now smiling money changers. And oh how they danced and whirled and rejoiced and begin to believe that perhaps their time was not over but simply at a new beginning.

So they begin to buy and sell, slowly at first and with some trepidation because, in fact their main indicator of success, the all holy Dow, was still 2000 points off its 52 week high. But as the sun begin to set on this amazing scene and it became apparent that "The Beneficent" along with his Sancho Panza like sidekick, Henry "The Bald" Paulson would continue to dole out many more billions of taxpayer's dollars far into the night, these Masters of the Universe knew that upon arising from a good nights' sleep they would go to their offices and buy, sell and trade once more. And so they did that next morning with such gusto and joy in their hearts as to cause the severely beaten down all holy Dow to rise a few hundred points.

So grasshopper, now you know how it was possible for a Bear to shit in the woods and Wall Street to come up smelling like a rose.
The End

The Battle is Joined. Who to believe?

To build or not to build, that is the question. Activists say danger lurks on these steep slopes and they have pictures to prove it. Developers say OK...but cost trumps safety. Developers and their local political enablers say there have been few deaths and not that much property destruction and the cost of pre-construction site surveys to determine safety are not cost effective.

What is missing in this debate? The inclusion of argueably the most important party...the property owner. Has anybody who presumes to speak to the interests of the buyer actually asked any buyers how they feel about having to add 2 or 3 thousand dollars to the cost of building to insure that they can make an informed decision about safe building concerns.

Is it reasonable to believe that someone willing to spend $300,000 to a million or more dollars for a new home would chose to ignore the benefits of a site specific survey and steep slope ordinances that might well result in safer construction of the home? If this information could be had for a few thousand dollars are we to believe that developers and Realtors are working in the best interests of their clients when they suggest these these very same clients should be kept unaware of the dangers that could be avoided by a site specific geologic survey.

The truth of the matter is much simpler than any interest in the client's needs. The fact is that these steep slope ordinances would result in some property being deemed not safe to sell or develop. Imagine that...unsafe to develop. Do you think that this information might just be of interest to the prospective buyer? Outrageous is the only word that can be used to describe the self serving choice of developers, Realtors and numerous political hacks working in concert to keep this information as far away from the prospective buyer as possible. Why would they do this? Greed...plain and simple greed. That very same business model that is responsible for our current economic downhill slide.