Archive for September 5th, 2009

Wall Street’s Ghoulish New Business

Those lovable Wall Street ghouls have cooked up a new asset class to securitize — life insurance policies. I am not kidding you, they’re going into the business of buying life insurance policies from sick people, pooling them and then selling the securities to investors. The NYT has the story: The bankers plan to buy […]

Bank Construction Loan Problems Are Getting Worse

Here’s an update on part of the commercial real estate sector’s loans from Floyd Norris at the NYT. He delves into the growing problems with construction loans. Reports filed by banks with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation indicate that at the end of June about one-sixth of all construction loans were in trouble. With more than […]

Taylor Bean & Whitaker’s Illinois Bank Seized

Remember Taylor, Bean & Whitaker, the Ocala, Florida mortgage bank that crashed spectacularly last week and was heavily involved with failed Colonial Bank of Birmingham, Alabama? Well they’re not done yet wreaking havoc. It turns out that Platinum Bank located in Rolling Hills, Illinois was owned by TBW. Platinum Bank was seized by the FDIC […]

Political Quotes Of The Week

From Politico.com, here’s the link to the political one-liners of the week and a couple of samples. “Who let the Blue Dogs out?” -A chyron on “Hardball”. “That is the voice of God because its the voice of truth and experience.” – MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, reacting to a Bill Clinton speech. Remember last week when I […]