I HEAR A TRAIN A COMING....ECONOMIC UPDATE

The day after tomorrow, birds will be singing, jobs will be plentiful; we all will have plenty of money....except for those that don't. One of the first duties of President-Elect Obama, will be to anoint a new Secretary of Treasury. In past years, the Secretary of Treasury was a peacock position: walk around, look pretty, and make a little noise. With the imploding of the stock market caused by the credit crunch, the position will take on Super-Hero proportions to get the American Economy back on track. Do we really want to jump back on the greedy, credit default swap, subprime train so the soothsayers at Wall Street can go back to making their millions, putting their kids in chic, ultra exclusive schools and traveling in their own private planes? Will the world population, again, have to pay for another catastrophic train wreck? Hank Paulson, the current Secretary of Treasury, orchestrated the $700 billion bail out that can't get out of the station. Some banks are taking the bail out money and hording it for a rainy day, not lending it, as was the intent. Others, like Fannie Mae are spending the money on their employee's golf games. The "Hope for Homeowners" is stalled in the never, never land of lenders that cannot or will not make a decision. Bank of America (Countrywide) and Chase have agreed to modify homeowners loans, but with " terms". Some homeowners purchased their homes for the wrong reasons: to get on the money train. And since it took the government too long to realize that our economy's wheels had fallen off, they are abandoning the neighborhoods where values have decreased dramatically and could care less about modifying their loans. The forerunners for the new Secretary of Treasury are Lawrence "women aren't as smart" Summers, former Secretary of Treasury for the last year and half of Clinton's administration, as well as former Prez of Harvard University; and Paul Volcker (he is 205 years old, but the former Fed chair did guide the country out of the last deep recession in the 1980's under Presidents Carter and Reagan). It is going to take an iron hand and a lot of steam to guide our economy to a prosperity that will prevent history from repeating itself.

FYI: Kenny Budge, our operations manager for 14 years, passed away last Thursday. He was instrumental in building our company with his knack for forming relationships within our industry from real estate agents, escrow officers, branch managers and appraisers. His reputation for integrity with our banks and underwriters have helped us navigate through these current turbulent times. His memory was legendary, since he remembered everything: he was rarely wrong. He was serious about his career, dedicated and loyal with a wicked sense of humor. He is laughing at us now, saying I told you so.