It was Pathetic.. Obama agreed with McCain..Obama was vague, nothing new..McCAin repeated himself. Neither had an answer on the big Bailout..

Start a collection for Chris Mathews to get a set of Knee Pads for expressing his adoration for Barrack Obama. Chris Mathews should be fired…

Tomorrow Harlowe and Powell are having a sale and in it are a few things that looking interesting. Problem though, NO one there knows a thing about Asian art, Nada, Nothing, ZIP.

Arghh So I call, a nice young lady there answered the phone, the “antique person” is busy, so I asked her about  a particular lot. She says’ we don’t have an expert or even have access to one,  so she did try to help. She  admitted the things I was asking about come from a regular consignor who is “troublesome” translated means he/she brings in fakes.  The piece in question was a very good looking carved lacquer box, other things in the sale vases, Kangxi looking things are out of the question. 

Its too bad, because once in a while they get DO get in some very respectable things from blue and white to bronzes to Celadons. (I personally like Celadons)

Ming Lonquan Celadon, plcombs inventory

So this begs the question “Why on earth do they take stuff from this person?”

Answer…they are dense and amateurish. Nice enough but why do auction houses take in things time and time again from delaers who lie to them..when I ran live auctions one fib ended the consignors contact with me.

Ohh now I sound cranky and mean..didn;t mean to.

During the last few months, we’ve been treated to the laser like focusing of attention on the terrible situation unfolding on the Wall Street. So Here we are after nearly 25 years of equal opportunity lending funded by the acceptance as fact of bogus applications to secure loans for people attempting to live up to the implicit expectations of popular American culture. People who should be living in rental units bought condos, people who should be in condos bought houses and folks who can afford modest houses bought really expensive houses all on deferred interest.   

Loan originators have been funding P&S Agreements that should have been rejected with a laugh for people who knew they were in too deep. They weren’t rejected because reality is years away and it might be rolled over to a new loan. The buyers all hoping the overpriced house they couldn’t afford and bought anyway will (hopefully) rise sufficiently in value to offset the accumulating debt.  Instead in time, like all things, the bill came due the cheap interest loans came up to be converted per the contract. The result is, the borrower couldn’t afford the REAL cost of the house which in some cases jumped three fold. Disaster…the borrowers decide to walk away….”hey its not our fault, the realtor, the bank et al deceived us ALL!!… ” (Your parents raised an idiot, never seems to come up as the most accurate answer.)

Borrowers keep up the mantra claiming in Chorus “we didn’t know, its not out fault, we were tricked!”

This is of course PURE rubbish. Reality is, if you’re dumb enough to borrow the money, some equally dumb person will lend it to you, the problem here is of course the lender isn’t lending you his or her money.

Lenders are saying “we did nothing wrong, we met the guidelines, we did what we should have done, we created a boom real estate market, we created billions of dollars of equity and WE didn’t sign the loans, the borrowers made a contract, we didn’t”. This is also PURE rubbish as well.  They could and should have said NO…for more reasons than need to be expressed and today are self evident.

So here we are, an election year, to prevent a run on the banks and wholesale panic, all of us will pony up nearly a trillion dollars while watching indictments (no doubt) of investment bankers, reports of huge bonus’s while filing chapter 11 at these banks and investment houses will abound. The Democrates will want something in the package to save the poor borrower who is a victim. {Victims do vote}

The Republicans will claim its just the market at work, until they start to lose money. Bush has become a Socialist..just like France ..isn’t life ironic.

The borrowers who walk away form their mortgages will get whacked for massive Income Tax bills if the Bank dumps the loan and lets them off the hook. Yes this is considered Income to the borrower for 100% of the amount forgiven. Now the borrowers will be paying Fed Income Taxes on money they NEVER actually got.

In time new laws will be written Governing lending, you will once again need 20% IN cash, real money to buy a house and a good credit rating to boot. The mortgage I suspect will not be allowed to exceed 35% of the monthly income and huge car loans will be a thing of the past. The price of some things will fall, due to lack of demand and/or people able to support the once inflated prices..

We will survive, so far its not as bad as the crash of the 1980’s (it may be in time). The stock market will likely fall more, it might hit 9500…we’ll survive.