Steve Dibert, MFI-Miami
I have to admit when Bank of America announced last week that they were going to begin issuing principal write downs for a select group of homeowners I was and still am skeptical of anything the banks say will benefit homeowners. I still believe this announcement by Bank of America is similar to Carnival Barkers luring people into rigged ring tossing tents at travelling carnival.
Then after I made these comments I read a blog by one of my favorite financial bloggers, Felix Salmon from Reuters. He disagrees with me and believes this the beginning of universal mortgage write downs by the vast majority of mortgage lenders. I don’t share Felix’s optimism because I have clients who have been burned by the banks by believing what they tell them.
Felix’s optimism is the reason I like his style. He’s an Englishman who doesn’t blog or write like an stereotypical English finance writer. Most English financial writers dress like the politicians from Stanly Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange from 1971 and spout outdated Thatcheresque dogma from the 1980s while trashing Americans as if they live high atop some Ivory Tower like Edward Longshanks.
Felix Salmon has shattered that stereotype in a big way. He understands finance and along with Max Keiser are the two media types in the world that can breakdown very complex financial formulas and explain it so you don’t need a MBA in finance to understand what he’s talking about. He also writes with a sense of optimism and wonderment that is rare and at one time was considered American.
This why I found his Reuters editorial from last week so fascinating even though I disagree with his overall premise. He not only breaks down what has gone wrong in the past 4 years but actually gives some common sense approaches to fixing it. Here’s an excerpt:
You can read the whole article here. It’s worth the read.
