Sam's Insane Ravings

These guys are looking slighty less nuttier.

A 15 months on recap on the dominoes.

Washington Mutual - largest bank failure in US history.

First Federal Financial - dead bank walking.

Bank of America - billions in bailouts, countrywide and merrill would have sent them into bankruptcy if not for the government handouts.

Freddie Mac - swallowed into conservatorship by the FHFA.

Fannie Mae - swallowed with Feddie Mac into conservatorship.

Bank of America's purcahse of Merrill made no sense at the time, then again they'd also bought Countrywide which made even less sense. It seemed pretty obvious at the time that there was some sort of under the table "you buy Merrill and countrywide and we will bail you out" deal with Treasury. But apparently not, a back room shakedown instead.

I won't get the words exactly right -- and he said, "I'm going to be very blunt, we're very supportive of Bank of America and we want to be of help, but" -- I recall him saying "the government," but that may or may not be the case -- "does not feel it's in your best interest for you to call a MAC, and that we feel strongly," -- I can't recall if he said "we would remove the board and management if you called it" or if he said "we would do it if you intended to."

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And Hank said two things: He said, "First, it would be so watered down, it wouldn't be as strong as what we were going to say to you verbally, and secondly this would be a disclosable event and we do not want a disclosable event."

'It Wasn't Up to Me': Excerpts From Ken Lewis's Testimony - The Wall Street Journal

So the CEO of BoA is, while under oath, is saying that Paulson and Bernanke committed extortion and also confessing to committing securities fraud himself. I was expecting backroom deals and securities fraud, but not blatant extortion.

Those are all Federal crimes, what's the bet that none of them ever see the inside of the jail cell they belong in.

Extortion and Securities Fraud are both RICO offenses, so if Paulson is committing Securities Fraud by telling the CEO of BoA to do so then we have "2 in 10 years" and racketeering can be added to the list of offenses.

Two months ago is was up 190% (from the price I bought) on no news at all.

Now it's down 40% (from the price I bought) on oil falling futher and recessions and huge dividend cuts.

I sold half my holdings back when it was up, now I'm thinking of pouring that all back into it. Turn a winner into a loser that's my motto!

Figures compiled by The Sun-Herald show that repayments for a median-priced property of $536,000 in Sydney - taking into account the most recent rate cuts - are $592 a week. A similar-priced property can rent for between $450 and $550 a week.

If the buyer takes out an interest-only loan, the repayments fall to $461 a week - about the same as, or cheaper than, renting.

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Also, Sydney house prices fell 4.2 per cent last year, while landlords increased rents by 16.9 per cent, according to APM data.

Past performance is no guarantee of future performance and all that, but lets just say it is.

Let's say you sign a 1 year lease, and then rents jump 16.9% for the second year when you sign again. And your rent starts at $461. Then in the two years you have paid 461*52 + (461*1.169)*52 which is about $52k.

Now say you take the no interest loan, then your payments for those two years are 461*52*2 which is about $48k. Woo woo, you're $4k ahead. Oh except at then end of the first year the house had dropped from being worth $536,000 to $513,488. And at the end of the second year to $491,921. So call it $492k. So you've lost $44k in house value. So your real cost of ownership was $92k or $40k more than renting for the two years. Don't forget to add the maintenance costs over those two years, the extra insurance costs, and so on.

And that's assuming a 16.9% increase in rents, which seems like a rather unsustainable rate. And only a 4.2% drop in house prices - which at least for the US is laughable (and I suspect Sydney has a just as bad if not a worse bubble)...

Of course interests rates could fall further, and I'm assuming an interest-only loan is going to have an adjustable rate. But there's no way they are dropping far enough to to get that interest only payment down to the $80/week it'd need to be to match the rental costs - that'd be about 0.75%...