FIRE Sale, Part 3: The Real Estate Fat Cats Get "Theirs"

FIRE!!!!

Finance, Insurance, & Real Estate, that is: Those have been the 'fundamentals' of the economy since that drooling, cretinous, diseased, vicious, batty old fucktard Raygun and the Pukes (with the occasionally enthusiastic, but always reliable support of the 'globalist' Dims) started to deismantle USer industrial power and move it (and the jobs--take that, pesky middle class!--which went with them) overseas where wages were lower and margins were higher. Clinton's 6-year orgy of "free-trade" initiatives was an instrumental and vital contribution to the whole trend (e.g.).

"Finance" (Citi, AmEx, Goldman-Sachs) and Insurance (AIG, e.g.) have gotten their piggy-faces deeeeep into the trough of Congressional largesse. Not to be out-done, the commercial Real-Estate speculators are now lining up for their slops from the Trillion$$$$ Handout, according to a report up now on the invaluable and incisive Calculated Risk:

Sunday, December 28, 2008
NY Times on Possible CRE Bailout
by CalculatedRisk on 12/28/2008 08:54:00 AM (EST)

From the NY Times: A Wish List for Commercial Real Estate

Commercial real estate groups have been meeting with members of Congress, the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation as well as Mr. Obama’s transition team, to press their case. And they say they have a compelling one.

This is similar to the WSJ article I covered last week. The answer is there is no reason for a CRE bailout:

[T]his is really about property investors who bought commercial buildings at the price peak and are now underwater. But say the owners default and the properties are transferred to the bondholders - what is the risk to the economy? None.

The NY Times article claims CRE is in pretty good shape:

Although commercial real estate remains in better shaper than some other industries — there is a good balance between supply and demand, vacancy rates are modest and loan default rates have so far hovered at a rock-bottom 1 percent, according to trade groups — industry leaders warn that the sector faces significant problems.

Default rates are low - but starting to rise. However the balance between supply and demand is poor and vacancy rates are rising rapidly

Clearly, there are STILL some really wealthy constituents of the Dim-Tards and GOPukes who have not yet benefited enough from the going-away gifts being doled out by the departing Bushevik cabal which is draining what's left of the Treasury to repay and reward it's loyal donors, supporters and acolytes,a nd they're in a hurry, cuz there are only around 20 days (15 working days) til they can't anymore.

So the heat is on.