Consumerism, Economy, Editorial, Management Principles, Market Conditions, Mortgage, REALonomics
Gekko was Wrong…Greed is Bad
September 16, 2008 by REALonomics · Leave a Comment
EDITORIAL
A re-post from iVoteAmerica, dated Monday, September 15, 2008.
In the movie Wall Street, Gordon Gekko proclaimed to shareholders, “Greed is good!” Gordon was wrong. Wall Street was wrong. The real estate and mortgage industries were wrong.
Oh, by the way…Alan Greenspan was wrong too when he proclaimed that subprime lending was “innovative” and “beneficial to consumers.”
Sound economics and the art of lending are predicated upon the borrower’s capacity to service the debt, pay it down over time and deliver return to the lender.
The concept of borrowing without capacity is foreign to all western economies and you won’t find it on any campus in America in Economics 101. Neither you nor many of your friends was ever taught the principle “you can have something for nothing.”
No One Whined about the Flow of Money
From about 2000 through 2005 greed was good to Wall Street and to the real estate and to the mortgage industries. No one whined about the money back then.
Even REALonomics, one the real estate industry’s few cutting-edge, truth-telling blogs has acknowledged in a recent post the roll the real estate and mortgage industries have played in the crash of the housing market. Refreshing honesty amidst a sea of excessive finger-pointing and blame gaming.
With today’s huge 500 point decline in the NYSE, the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the timely absorption of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America we have the first bright light in the housing market collapse.
The First True Glimpse of Light
Today’s calamity was a glimmer of light and good news. Today’s plummet was the true market telling us greed is bad.
Yes, this is a bright light! Finally, the healing can begin along with celebration of the release of the last hot air from a pumped-up pseudo market, held together by slick accounting practices.
If not next year then certainly the year after your home value will begin to increase again.
Politically, this means there is less chance the Federal Government will continue its bailout of collapsing institutions that have made greed their mantra.
Tomorrow may see an uptick in the market as the true, blue-blooded economists and investors who understand the balance between eithical lending and moral borrowing begin to buy into a new market that is finally vomiting the economic bacteria from the depths of its belly.
Let the healing begin!
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