Man, I remember the RTC days. I was living in Atlanta then and employed as a headhunting placing accountants for a national firm. This was before I started a company doing it.
We tried to get into the RTC to put temps in but it was such a craxy place that we never made much progress. We were able to only do a little business with them.
I would guess that the people who bought those properties back then ended up making a fortune on it. The RTC office was in my office building and they had an entire room filled with brochures and pictures of properties up for sale. They had brand new 20-30 story office buildings included. No telling how cheap they went.
This mess now is so deep and complicated no one really knows how its going to turn out. I read the other day that Bernanke called in some “experts” to give him a face to face refresher course on exactly how these derivatives function. That is pretty scary to think that a smart guy like him doesn’t fully understand them. The problem is the off balance sheet stuff that no one even knows about.
I think that Bush’s plan is best. Just like the chips fall where they may for those who were speculating in the market and for the wall street firms who created the mess but do whatever neccessary to try to minimize the impact to the banking system.
