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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jim McMannis who wrote (149031)	9/22/2008 2:18:43 PM
From: bentway	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 306849

If you think about it Jim, Bush has presided over the most massive expansion of government EVER. The (D)'s never DREAMED of being able to inflate gubbmint like this! Under Bush, the government has aquired 70% of the nation's mortgages and the largest insurance company in the world. If the (D)'s force acquisition of the IB's we're about to bail out, the government will own a controlling interest in all the largest investment banks in the world. Kinda makes what Chavez is doing in Venezuela look like some really small beer! As a socialist, he's a midget.

To: Jim McMannis who wrote (149031)	9/22/2008 2:34:09 PM
From: GraceZ	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 306849

OTOH, it's wishful thinking to think the taxpayer will get a good deal. Being a buyer of last resort has almost always ended up to be profitable. Think GS buying 135 million shares of DIS at 15 in 2001 from the Bass family, a price it never printed and never saw again. Of course, usually when the government gets involved it means they are buying assets that no private buyer can get involved with at a profit. As Mark Haines pointed out this morning, if this was such a good deal for the government why wouldn't a private buyer step up? Basically, I think what the investment banks are doing in changing to bank holding companies puts them in much better shape to hold assets that may end up being worth something because the switch allows them to use "hold to maturity" valuation methods as opposed to "mark to market". It is a serious stretch to think all mortgage assets are worth zero. Unfortunately, what I think we'll see is them holding on to all the profitable and only dumping the toxic sludge on the taxpayers. So I guess I agree with you!