patrick.net

Dinner at Spago: at least Peter P will approve.

Speaking of ski disasters:
www.idahostatesman.com/newsupdates/story/302439.html

The CEO of Tamarack, Jean-Pierre Buttplug, said "We were caught by surprise."

The real problem is this. "The resort has presold 90 percent of the condominiums in the village, but terms of the buyers' contracts say the homes must be finished by Dec. 31 or buyers can cancel their purchases."

And where were they planning to get construction financing?

"The resort was counting on money from the sale of land for the Fairmont Tamarack Resort, a luxury resort and vacation-home development. That sale should have closed in the summer, but Fairmont asked for an extension of the option to buy."

Does $118 Million count as a non-conforming "jumbo" loan?

How does one go about making six figures in Memphis, period?

Count both sides of the decimal point!

Collie Tuttle, in her early 60s, is caught in this bind. Four years ago, she purchased a newly built four-bedroom three-bathroom house in the Memphis outer suburb of Olive Branch, Miss., for $270,000. She put nothing down, relying on her six-figure income from selling furniture to pay down the mortgage, reducing it to $248,000.

But now, to sell it for the $269,000 a potential buyer was recently willing to pay, “I would have to come up with $6,000 from my pocket,” Ms. Tuttle said, explaining that she cannot afford to invade her meager retirement account.

How can you spend so much after receiving a "six figure" income to not have $6K mad money to get out of a house?

DennisN,

I don't think the man's name is "Buttplug" o.k? (But with a statement like that it should be!)

Yeah, uh... celebrity names and attracting investment dollars. Can't wait to stay away from it! Same result when Demi Moore was "on the board of directors" for a... Hard Rock Cafe she and Bruce opened up your way back in the 90's?

I don't think anyone is getting their deposits back... if that's the next logical question?

Ooops...I guess I let a typo in there.

OT

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/talk-housing-bailout-leads-more/story.aspx?guid=%7BB4CEFD07%2DBD47%2D44CB%2D939B%2D1DB5F76F63D9%7D&siteid=yahoomy

They were eager to make money on all of this and now they are going crying to the government because they are now losing money - didn't hear a peep out of them when they were all making huge profits!

The government should demand all the profits back from the banks and mortgage brokers to pay for all of this - I don't hear anyone suggesting this!

I say - no bailout! And some of course are suggesting we are already paying and should be pro the bailout because our 401k's are taking a hit - well if we lost 50% in our 401k (sad to say) it would still be less than what hopefully the houses will go down by in our area of CA.

And remember a lot of these people were quite happy to raid their housing ATM's for crap they didn't really need and holidays and fancy cars and were gleeful as to how much their house was worth - well, you know, I don't want to have to pay for their cars and holidays because in the good times they sure wouldn't have returned the favor if I had asked!

RANT OFF

Bruce Willis actually owns much of the town of Hailey and IIUC is a primary investor in Soldier Mountain ski resort. www.soldiermountain.com

I am still skeptical of 401K.

However, I have learned the lesson. Next time there is a large-scale financial orgy (like the housing bubble) I will jump in headfirst.

Claire,

Oh I didn't think it was a rant at all. Just straight talk. I too have wondered why they haven't just liquidated some of these lenders, sold of their remaining assets or placed them in some form of recievership?

Here's the reality. We actually HAVE opened the flood gates and they ARE finally allowing class action suits for investors to sue their 401k's! I haven't been able to find much about it yet, I just caught a quick blurb on MSNBC as they were concluding their market wrap on Wed.

Now I have NO IDEA what this all implies? You're suit is against Vangard/Fidelity? Your employer? (God forbid, he doesn't control that) Your broker? So I have no idea if this is "what's good for the goose"? Turn-about or whatever? I've long made the claim there was no one to bail US out (10 Mar 2000 - April 2003) so why all the bending-over-backwards for over leveraged specuvestors?

Anyone have anything on the 401K Class Action Auth?

LaRue v. DeWolff

pacer.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinion.pdf/051756.P.pdf

Just another little something to fuel Peter P's paranoia about 401k's!

In my lay understanding the guy totally has a legit claim. I also feel the Enron employees that were shut out of their accounts as Enron "changed retirement plan providers" (while the stock was tanking) is legit as well.

My question is if these were isolated incidents (inability or unwillingness to complete the trade and move those that wanted to go to cash and were *not executed) why clear the way for class action?

DinOR Says:
February 22nd, 2008 at 8:01 am
"Malcom,
On Turbo (and Tax-Cut) they both search for updates (I assume primarily for the AMT Patch) and I have (2) differing results? Anyone else run into “I am, I might/might not be in the AMT?” Just curious."

I'm holding off on hitting submit for my taxes til a little later, but the software is very good. AMT is not affecting me this year, but somehow it is the only doubt I have as well since I of course don't want to miss out on any rebate of it which is one of the questions about prior year AMT. My actual AMT tax a couple of years back was a little under $2,000 but in a way it was good because for some reason it caused my tax person to not have to add back in my state refund from that year which I never understood. I didn't have AMT last year, but that phrase prior years has me doing a little research. I've simplified my situation a lot and have found tax advice to be a self fulfilling cycle. I actually overcontributed to an IRA a couple of years ago (didn't know you needed earned income, I make mainly passive income) and would have paid the 6% penalty again but then TaxAct had a suggestion of just withdrawing the excess. No preparer, not even my original CPA said to do that, I just ran down to the bank yesterday and filled out a simple form specifically for excess contributions.

Actually I think I remember why the state tax refund didn't need to go back in, because AMT replaces the itemized deductions which is what the state taxes paid are normally deducted from and then the refund is added the following year. Yikes! See it's not all fun and games.

New thread: Poetic Justice strikes Banksters: Judges say, “No tickee, no forclosee.”

@Malcolm:
Yeah, with regard to public schools and the money crunch there--one does wonder what the heck they are doing with the high Cali income taxes and the high Cali sales taxes. Something is deeply wrong somewhere.