Economy/Relocation rant

[63VDub]

I hate greedy jerks. That and people with way too much credit and not enough common sense. Considering that's what has caused the economy to take a giant dump. Up until then, I was poking along pretty good with my construction job and lack of formal education. Now, I'm looking at a relocation to Illinois for work. Hopefully it will turn into a long term situation and not one of the multitude of here for six months and there for a year.

Maybe someday I'll hit the Lotto and retire...

[Fred]

Work? In the construction industry?

Every firm I've talked with since I was laid off in May of 09 swears they've got projects on the board just waiting for financing... and in the meantime they're all laying off more and more design staff just hoping the banks will start lending to clients again...

Formal education doesn't mean anything anymore. Call my jaded but my Masters Degree has been dusty for almost 10 months... : /

[Simon]

I have a ton of construction work that will be needed on a new home I am buying. It's been neglected for a long time so it's a mess. It's taken nearly 5 months for the banks to sort out the shortsale even though I have been sat waiting with everything on my end taken care of.

That's the problem. The banks are just insanely slow.

They were supposed to respond to documentation in 5 business days. It tended to take 3-4 weeks per instance. The documents were just sat on someones desk not even being looked at.

Then the two mortgage companies fought over $3,800 for nearly 6 weeks at a probably cost way above the financial sum. It's insane.

[Pump Scout]

Back when I was working in the mortgage world, I saw a number of "purchase" mortgages that were actually set up as "construction" loans due to the amount of renovation/remodelling that was required for the house.

[Psiworx]

One of my favorite subjects. I could rant on the financial crisis for days. Suffice it to say I have seen it all before. In 1986 my ex-partner could walk into half a dozen banks and sign his name for a million dollar loan. In 1989 after the Savings and Loan crisis he couldn't find a bank to loan him $100,000 when we were turning $50,000 in inventory every 10 days. Same turd, different decade. The big difference this time is the shadow monetary system that are derivatives. The last time I checked the open contract value of the OTC credit default swap market was 1.5 quadrillion dollars.

The CDS concept actually originated with Drexel Warner Lambert ( anybody remember Michael Milken) but was formalized by J.P. Morgan Chase. There is a very good article in the April Vanity Fair about how a 32 year old kid named Michael Burry created a market for credit default swaps in sub-prime mortgages. He has a new book out called The Big Short that I might have to read.