Doug Hunsucker từ Gualjoco, Honduras

dougtheillf22d

11/05/2024

Dữ liệu người dùng, đánh giá và đề xuất cho sách

Doug Hunsucker Sách lại (10)

2019-10-14 23:30

Giáo Trình Luyện Nghe Tiếng Hoa - Trình Độ Cao Cấp (Có Phần Bài Tập Và Đáp Án, Dùng kèm 6 Đĩa) Thư viện Sách hướng dẫn

Sách được viết bởi Bởi: Mã Thanh Tài

This is an interesting book, but it shouldn't be the only one you read about the financial crisis. This book looks at the ground-level operations of subprime lenders - Ameriquest in particular - during the late 1990s and the housing boom of the 2000s. Lenders such as Ameriquest had a boiler room mentality, pushing through as many loans as possible which where then sold to major Wall Street banks, which packaged them into mortgage-backed securities, when were then stamped with AAA ratings by the ratings agencies and sold to suckers (I mean, investors). I always thought the movie "Boiler Room" sucked and wondered who would actually like it. Turns out the answer is Ameriquest, who showed it to its employees as a model of how to behave. Employees took this to heart, guzzling Red Bull by the case (federal investigators later said they could tell how dirty an Ameriquest lending office was by the amount of empty Red Bull cans in the dumpster behind the office), altering documents such as W2s to push loans through (dubbed by some employees at the "Art Department") and using deception to get people to sign for loans with high upfront points, closing costs, and adjustable rates. It didn't matter that these loans were bad, they were sold to Wall Street, so any defaults were their problem, not Ameriquest's, and Ameriquest received generous origination fees and employees were rewarded with BMWs, booze-filled trips, and parties featuring coke and strippers (in some branch offices). Moral hazard at its finest. This book shouldn't be the only one you read about the financial crisis because there are a lot important issues that aren't dealt with. The author doesn't explain why securitization became all the rage during the 1990s and 2000s. He alludes to "deregulation" being the culprit. But, the diisintermediation that occurred in the inflationary 1970s, which isn't mentioned, is far more important. It would be a mistake to come away thinking that deregulation is solely to blame. Also, government policy which contributed to the bubble and the misbehavior of Fannie and Freddie isn't mentioned at all. I was going to read "The Devils Are All Here" by Bethany McLean and Jose Nocera, which deals with this, next but it turns out that I didn't order it from Amazon like I thought I did, so it will have to come with my next book order. Damn! However, to understand the crisis, it is important to understand how the incentives on the ground-level made what happened possible, which is why this book is worthwhile. The author alludes to the answer to preventing another crisis as being more regulation and consumer protection. After reading this book, I am pessimistic about this. Roland Arnall, the CEO of Ameriquest, even after Ameriquest's dirty practices were known and in the midst of an investigation into them, was still nominated and confirmed as the Ambassador to the Netherlands. It's not like the vote was particularly close (a unanimous voice vote in the Senate). Deval Patrick, a former Ameriquest board member who made hundreds of thousands from the company, later became governor of Massachusetts. The author rightly comes down hard on Patrick in the book. A aspect of financial reform that made the Dodd-Frank that was mentioned briefly but favorably was a consumer protection commission to prevent these type of subprime loans from being made. I find this idea to be a non-starter. Does anyone actually think any commission would have cut-off subprime lending during the height of the bubble? For example, the Fed has a poor track record of taking away the punch bowl before the party gets really good. The best way to prevent moral hazard is to go back to "old school" lending where banks loan the mortgage and then hold the mortgage for the duration. Hence, the incentive is to make good loans as the lending bank is stuck with the bad ones rather than selling them off to a sucker. But, this of course means that fewer mortgages are made, which conflicts with the government's goal of maximizing the home ownership rate (who decided that the American dream means owning a home anyway?). If the government insists on resurrecting the securitzation market, which it seems hell-bent on doing, then it should consider the idea of assignee-liability, which is discussed in the book. This means that mortgage originators are held liable for bad loans they originate. Of course, the mortgage industry hates it and managed to get it repealed in Georgia, so I wouldn't hold my breath. I think I'd also ban credit default swaps, or at least make originators of them back them with a capital ratio of 100%. There's probably other stuff I'd do too, but this review has gone on long enough. Yeah, so this is a long review, but this is an interesting and important topic. Plus, Michigan State lost a big basketball game today, so writing this review is better than thinking about the game :o) P.S. Despite what the book alludes too, those of us in favor of "free markets" DO believe that enforcing rules against fraud is a legitimate role of government. Also, one wonders after reading this and Michael Lewis' book how many of the mortgage-backed securities that were issued are really worthless. This would have some bad implications for the banking sector and the Fed (which has a lot of them on its balance sheet).

Người đọc Doug Hunsucker từ Gualjoco, Honduras

Người dùng coi những cuốn sách này là thú vị nhất trong năm 2017-2018, ban biên tập của cổng thông tin "Thư viện Sách hướng dẫn" khuyến cáo rằng tất cả các độc giả sẽ làm quen với văn học này.