Real estate

Billionaires Plan Escape from Apocalypse

Well, the harsh truth about the integrity and fortitude of billionaires is finally out in the open for all to see, and the results are repugnant: Billionaires are gutless, chicken-hearted cowards. The proof is found in the pudding as several Silicon Valley billionaires purchase massive underground bunkers built in Murchison, Texas shipped to New Zealand, where the bunkers are buried in secret underground nests.

Investor Alert? Move to Cuba, Marry a Senorita, and Buy Flip Homes for Free!

If there’s one thing that conservative Democrats can rejoice about, given the less than stellar reviews of their point person who now occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, rent free, is that the ‘shout-out’ heard around the world would have to be President Obama’s “opening” with Cuba that occurred earlier this year.

Wall Street wins again: Bank of America settlement with US government is insufficient, critics say

RT | August 22, 2014 While the US government touted its “record” settlement reached this week with Bank of America for mortgage fraud that helped fuel the 2008 recession, the details of the agreement indicate yet another light punishment for an offending Wall Street titan. Bank of America agreed to a $16.65 billion settlement with […]

Sub-prime Redux: The Rental Housing Market

My neighbor Warren doesn’t understand high finance. He’s a physician, and they’re usually pretty savvy market-wise, but he’s an exception. Yesterday over the back fence he was expressing alarm over what he thought was a dangerous development in the banking sector.
“It seems that the next big thing on Wall Street,” said Warren, “is banks and other players bundling rental housing into a new product, that is a rent-backed security, similar to the mortgage-backed securities (MBS) that were at the root of the big crisis in ’09.”

Iceland thumbs nose at international opposition to advance $1.2 billion debt relief plan

RT | December 1, 2013

Iceland’s government has announced that it will be writing off up to 24,000 euros ($32,600) of every household’s mortgage, fulfilling its election promise, despite overwhelming criticism from international financial institutions.
The measure was introduced by the country’s prime minister, Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, the leader of the Progressive Party which won the late-April elections on a promise of household debt relief.