Simply Amazing!

Christmas is over and I'm in the office trying to catch up on a few things before New Year's Eve. I was reading a Barron's article about the ratings agencies and their conflict of interest problems, their out gunned night school MBAs and their modeling issues. What a bunch of hooey! It seems like all the finance types involved in the securitization business were willfully ignorant of conditions that exisited in the real estate world beginning in 2002. Thats when the no doc and 2/28 loans started to make their presence known and when the folks who wanted to play fast and loose with the bank's money started emerging. None of what is happening today is a surprise. Now the $64 question is what happens next? I'm still unclear, but I tend toward saying that the economy and especially the real estate world is in trouble for the next few years.