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Sunday, October 5, 2008

Nobody saw it coming....

I just watched the first part of 60 Minutes. Some very smart person just said we are in this mix because nobody could forsee the fall out from the subprime mortgage promulgation. Really? Well I guess that makes me a nobody (see, my mother-in-law was right after all) because I blew the whistle back in 2005 on the housing bubble in a trade association speech I gave and in all subsequent public forums I was in. Some dudes who listened to me sold their salt water real estate and profited handsomely. Others ignored me and are upside down on beautiful mansions looking at the coast that they can't afford and got foreclosed on. But it is incorrect to say nobody said anything, because I did and I was right. But few listened. Perhaps if I was a Federal Reserve Governor instead...as my father said, "a dreamer lives to dream."

Learn all you can from this bubble and its fall out...because it will happen again. It's only a matter of time.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Warren Buffet had it right in 2002...the biggest issue facing the world economy is the unwinding of derivative contracts...."We try to be alert to any sort of mega-catastrophe risk, and that posture may make us unduly appreciative about the burgeoning quantities of long-term derivatives contracts and the massive amount of uncollateralized receivables that are growing alongside. In our view, however, derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction, carrying dangers that, while now latent, are potentially lethal."

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/derivatives-new-ticking-time-bomb/story.aspx?guid=%7BB9E54A5D-4796-4D0D-AC9E-D9124B59D436%7D

the unwinding is a train wreck about to happen...we haven't seen anything yet.