Monday, December 22, 2008

Where's the beef?

Reading the paper last week I was reminded of the old Wendy's commercial with the old woman yelling "Where's the beef". After the Fed lowered the interest rate, I began to wonder wheres the money. The banks have money from the Government in the form of the bail out; they have lower interest rate to borrow from the Fed and none of it seems to be filtering down to us. I do not buy property with bank financing. You have to jump through too many hops to get the financing not to mention the stellar credit report you need to qualify. Timing is also a problem. We move pretty quickly on property and we do not need a last minute problem that does seem to come up delaying our closing.

But bank financing is and will be critical to the recovery that is coming. People need access (keyword is access) to money at a reasonable rate. We certainly have the reasonable rates. Now we just need the banks to loan money to good qualified people to get the economy. That will happen when more people starting looking at their own situation and realize that they job is safe and they start to spend money again. One thing I know is true, if you have 6.5% unemployment that means 93.5% are gainful employed.

See Ya,
Mike

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