For he did not conform.
He did not comply.
He thought independently.
He actually is a real man and made his own money and didn't have to go grovelling to the taxpayer like a trophy wife does her husband for more money.
And no doubt, according to his heavily bailed out contemporaries, he must be eliminated.
No. The government must take his money and redistribute it to the people who lost their homes.
ReplyDeleteIt's a pity that the companies worth investing in aren't publicly traded.
ReplyDeleteMaybe there's a reason for that.
Maybe there's a reason for that.
ReplyDeleteHave you seen the requirements of the SEC and Sarbanes-Oxley? I wouldn't want my company subject to the cost and wasted labor required to comply with their dictates.
While the SEC and Sarbanes-Oxley are certainly causes for massive waste, I'm prone to thinking that there are also problems that arise from the more short-term perspective of most investors.
ReplyDeleteCould a publicly traded company survive for years doing what Beal did, even if it averted disaster five years down the road? I'd argue that a CEO that did what Beal did would be fired and the company driven into the same stupid practices that everyone else did, even without the SEC and Sarbanes-Oxley adding to their costs.
While the SEC and Sarbanes-Oxley are certainly causes for massive waste, I'm prone to thinking that there are also problems that arise from the more short-term perspective of most investors.
ReplyDeleteCould a publicly traded company survive for years doing what Beal did, even if it averted disaster five years down the road? I'd argue that a CEO who didn't own the company that did what Beal did would be fired and the company driven into the same stupid practices that everyone else did, even without the SEC and Sarbanes-Oxley adding to their costs.
Actually, while I really enjoyed the article and think he sounds like a really good businessman, he did not say he WOULDN'T take the government money. He said that he wasn't eligible. Fine difference, but a difference nonetheless. What we need is more businessman who don't look to the government AT ALL - whether it be for money or for ways to kill the competition (GE & GM).
ReplyDeleteCC,
ReplyDeleteI think you overlooked a gem in here. Because this fellow in essence owns the bank, he has an unusual capacity to chart his company's course, yet even when he decides to back out of home loans there is ONE category of home loan that he MUST provide -- because the federal government will seize his banking 'license' if he refuses:
Despite its aversion to credit then, the bank occasionally had to buy mortgages to meet federal low-income-lending requirements.
There it is, in black and white. The government forced him to make dodgy loans despite his best judgement. To my mind, that sums up the whole mortgage crisis.
I'd be interested to read a blog post with your views on this (regrettably, as an RSS subscriber I often miss comments.)
Regards
MHG