E C O N O M Y

Wow! So here we are sitting with the DOW jones just above 9,000, A huge unemployment percentage, giant deficit, foreclosures everywhere, and we are still fighting in Iraq 7 years later.

Things sure were good for a while though. A lot of people made more money than they thought possible. Stock portfolios skyrocketed when the Dow hit 14,000, people were making so much money buying up properties with the craziest of financing.

But now, homes are sitting. I read yesterday that in Southern California homes are still sitting even though they are priced at 1/3rd of their alleged values! The new trend in the mortgage industry is loan modification companies. Some lenders are now used car salesman.

I wonder what those who were persuaded to invest in the markets and take out the highest mortgage against their homes are thinking now? It never made sense to me, but the advocates of those programs sure could spin those numbers convincingly.

I feel good though. I always made every attempt to finance people with smart loans, and I can fortunately sit here in my office and know that I will not be the reason any of those people over the last 15 years of lending may now be struggling. I've always been a proponent of prepaying principal, keeping fixed rate loans, and shortening the mortgage terms. I hope all of those families that I did loans for took the advice.

I believe that our nation will begin picking itself up next summer, so if we all can just hang on for about a year we should be good.