Saturday, October 16, 2010

Leave the Chamber Alone / It Ain't Over Yet - Financial Meltdown Part Deux


LEAVE THE CHAMBER ALONE

It’s time for Dave Betras and Bob Hagan and Barack Obama to shut up about the Chamber of Commerce. It almost seems like Betras and Hagan have taken up their attacks on Tom Humphries and the Regional Chamber right out of the Democratic playbook from Washington, which claims the national Chamber is spending foreign money on various election campaigns. When asked to provide proof that this is happening, Obama’s spokesperson told CBS News to prove that it isn’t. Even the New York Times and Washington Post didn’t buy that one.

On the local level, Chamber President Tom Humphries is not a public employee. He is employed by a private organization and is entitled to his political views. If he wanted to co-sponsor a fund raiser for John Kasich, that is his business. He is not one of the local Democratic officeholders and/or employees who pay tribute to the local Democratic Party for its political support.

The Democratic Party should be ashamed of itself with these kinds of juvenile antics against the organization representing those who create jobs in America. Keep it up boys. You are killing the goose that laid the golden egg. Go look for another bogeyman.

IT AIN’T OVER YET - THE FINANCIAL MELTDOWN PART DEUX

Folks, you may think the financial crisis over…but you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!! Recent announcements by major banks about a mortgage foreclosure moratorium may sound good on its face, but it is bad news. The amount of pending of mortgage defaults is so big, the banks can’t process the paperwork. Our local courts are clogged with foreclosure cases. I personally have three clients living in foreclosed homes, making no mortgage payments, and the banks are happy to have them there.

Banks aren’t lending money to small business for a reason. They know that as we move into 2011, they may have to write down further amounts to compensate for these mortgage foreclosures being held in abeyance. Even scarier, the fraud lawsuits are just now beginning against those financial institutions who sold those whacky derivative instruments to unsuspecting bondholders. All that money being held in the banks right now will be needed to maintain FDIC required reserve requirements.

Nobody knows how much is involved here. Fair warning, the billions upon billions spent in the TARP program may have been grossly insufficient to fix the problem. This may spell years of stagnation for the American economy, with no job creation. Couple that with Obama’s anti-business policies…you should be concerned.

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