House of (Wall Street) Blues

TROUBLED ASSETS.--The term ''troubled
15 assets'' means residential or commercial mortgages
16 and any securities, obligations, or other instruments
17 that are based on or related to such mortgages, that
18 in each case was originated or issued on or before
19 September 17, 2008

I am troubled by the term assets. As I understand it, (I may be wrong) mortgages were sold and then packaged into derivates and sold again, and then insurance was sold on the quality of package. The bank holds the paper for the mortgage and receives payment form the home owner. It pays the holder of the derivate who pays an amount to the Insurer. Without clear rules on what is being sold, the government may be buying the same asset more than once. I would require a sale of the mortgage where the government is a bidder on the open market and becomes the sole owner of the property. This is a huge GIS challenge to locate and clear title on these properties. My ide is to put the government at the court house door instead of in the banker's office. I see that as providing an arms length transaction. I am sure fraud was involved with some of the mortgages. For example let's say a person used a piece of property that they didn't own as collateral. The Government buys and then sells the mortgage on the property, who is the owner? The person who bought it from the government, or the person who owned it outright before the fraud. A lot of property is going to change ownership, the housing industry has a many fees tied to transactions. I didn't see anything that helps to cleans that up. I think we should get Google involved mapping the assets being sold. It is a good time to move from meets and bounds to Lat-Long for all deed descriptions. The new identity theft may be the very home you live in.

Sent by Ray | 7:06 PM | 9-22-2008

If Congress thinks they need to cobble together an agreement by Friday because they are expecting a vacation, then we are all in so much trouble you can't comprehend it.

The Iraq war was estimated at two billion dollars and will end up costing us two to four trillion dollars. That difference is 100 to 200 times th estimated exposure.

Will this express bail out end up costing us 100 to 200 times 700 billion dollars? That would be 140 trillion dollars on the top side.

There should be no bail out until the fair market value of the illiquid assets is determined. Then, there will not be a need for the Administration to buy them at inflated values.

Tell the people the truth and the markes will flow.

Sent by Christopher M. Brown | 4:07 PM | 9-23-2008