But don’t hate the Chicken Littles. Pity them. How’d you like to live like that?
The Vultures: These are the smart-money folks. They probably don’t like being called “vultures,” and you can call them “opportunistic investors” if you like. I call them, well, when I need to borrow money . . . (Kidding.)
The vultures see the gap between the lay of the land and what the Littles are saying, and they buy the difference. The most important thing I recently learned about sub-prime mortgages is that Wilbur Ross is buying into them. (Full disclosure, I privatized an airport with Mr. Ross in the mid-1990s. I was on the government side and he was with Rothschild Bank.) Hedge funds are lining up to buy Northern Rock, and Countrywide popped in price big-time last week. Meaningful? Yes. When people who don’t know their Alt-A’s from their control-alt-deletes are waxing eloquent about the dangers of the mortgage markets, billionaires are quietly buying.
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So there’s my new filing system. I don’t want to egg anybody on, but I welcome continuing comments from all species. Send them by owl or carrier pigeon, but be patient; this is not the kind of issue that can be settled in one fell swoop.
Jerry Bowyer is a radio and television talk show host.
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