« Is a Falling Dollar All Bad? | Main | Next Week’s Fed Meeting »

Garrison Keillor now moves into second place for worst subprime column.

I sit in wonderment at the story of W. Lance Anderson, the president of NovaStar Financial in Kansas City, who while handing out subprime mortgages to any applicant wearing shoes and a shirt managed to sink the company's stock from $40 in June to $1.72. This is a man who earned $1.7 million in salary and bonuses last year, plus $711,386 in deferred compensation, plus more dough in various arrangements that dopes like me can't quite grasp. Meanwhile, all the little investors in NovaStar are cutting back on Christmas gifts and canceling their winter vacations in Daytona Beach.

I myself would never invest money in a company headed by a man named W. Lance Anderson. The very name inspires distrust. What's the W for? Wolfgang? Whoopee? Weasel? A man who goes by W. Lance is likely to wear tinted glasses and two-toned shoes, smoke Kools, and have a gun fetish. Nonetheless, a small army of hopeful investors bought into the idea that you can make money on bad loans and now they are left holding the bag while W. Lance goes on to his next great idea, perhaps a scheme for making purses from dog poop, and I wish him and his family well, but I will not be there for him at the IPO.

Purses from dog poop! Get it? No one wants a purse made out of dog poop! Comic gold, Garrison.

I wonder if the 85% of subprime borrowers who are doing just fine see their lenders in quite the same way.

This is all part of the normal cycle. Someone freaks out about redlining. Soon, something must be done. Aggressive lending is encouraged. Then suddenly, someone freaks out about predatory lending. Again, something must be done.

If you’re curious, the worst subprime article award goes to Jim Rokakis, the treasurer of Cuyahoga County, Ohio. In a truly revolting article, he blames the death of a little girl and an elderly man on predatory lenders.

Twenty years ago, the Slavic Village neighborhood of Cleveland was a tightly knit community of first- and second-generation Polish and Czech immigrants. Today, it's in danger of becoming a ghost town, largely because a swarm of speculators, real estate agents, mortgage brokers and lenders saw an opportunity to make a buck there.

You could say it was because of them that 12-year-old Asteve' "Cookie" Thomas lost her life on Sept. 1, shot in Slavic Village when she stumbled into the crossfire of suspected drug dealers.

No, you can’t say it was because of them. You could, however, blame her death on the suspected drug dealers who fired at her.

Someone should tell Mr. Keillor that there are apparently lots of things made out of dog poop these days.

Posted by edelfenbein at December 3, 2007 12:30 PM