helmut_hofmeister
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User ID: 846
helmut_hofmeister
1mo ago
It’s the euphemism treadmill in action again. My dad (silent gen/New Jersey kid) still calls it a guinea tee
helmut_hofmeister
1mo ago
Great topic. I wrote this on my phone so I hope it makes sense.
I would love to claim that I saw it all coming, but that would be BS. I also have a mortgage banker’s view vs an investment banker’s view and I definitely didn’t have the sophistication to put things together coherently even when I saw the signs. That said, there were a few things that I noticed at the time that certainly make more sense in hindsight.
When I started in retail mortgage sales, other than the dot com bubble, things were smooth and the money was easy. Gov’t pressure to expand homeownership meant relaxing credit standards for even conventional loans, and it was already becoming the Wild West in terms of private product offerings. This had its pluses an minuses, of course.
From about 2000 to 2005, I worked in the NYC market for an expanding west coast based institution that was more like a thrift or S&L than a commercial bank. We wrote normal Fannie/Freddie paper but also a lot of funky IO/neg am “option ARM” stuff. The key things here were that this was NOT a subprime lender, so the rates were quite sharp, and at least in my market, the staff were trained on how to use these types of loans responsibly. We cleaned up. Best earning years of my life.
The Option ARM could take up a whole effort post itself, but the key thing is that it was designed for a particular kind of financially savvy buyer. Like anything niche-y it did not scale. During the early/mid 00’s, these niche loans, with their very low qualifying payments, started to be offered by more institutions, and this had the effect of qualifying buyers for loans they couldn’t afford. Without the knowledge to use these loans to their benefit, buyers found themselves over-leveraged. Add to this the gov’t emphasis on “homeownership” as a goal regardless of risk and we had quite the recipe for disaster.
Meanwhile, high-rate subprime loans were readily available, and - this is key - these loans were ALL securitized and sold to private institutions. The appetite for mortgage paper was immense. This was a thriving market for non-conforming loans that was supported by nothing really besides rising home prices. Less reputable mortgage originators would just churn their pipelines and perpetuate the issue based on the high appraisal values at the time (sidebar: Appraiser independence is another interesting topic but I’ll save that for another time too).
I moved from that shop to a large, conservative commercial bank during the run up to the ‘08 crisis, so I was a bit more insulated from what transpired, and I started to get my own education into what all this meant (for our jobs, home prices, the financial sector, and economy at large) from a colleague with a Wall Street background who joined our firm. Still at the time our take was that finance firms/investors are gonna do what they do and we were more concerned over the perverse incentives that the gov’t placed on lenders to expand credit. (Aside: I hate the OG CFPB with a white hot passion - I could go on about how bankers like me became the bad guys when this was all directed from DC and both Dodd and Frank can eat a bag of dicks, but I digress).
The mortgage industry got hit with the crisis about a year before Lehman failed, in what was still just called the Subprime crisis. If this had been limited to just subprime lenders, the industry could have absorbed the fallout. What happened instead was that several high-profile mortgage banks (IndyMac, American Home Mortgage, etc.) went bust all at once in the summer of 2007. This was the first real wake up call for me since the “Alt-A” lenders were wiped out along with actual subprime lenders. These are the loan portfolios that suddenly had no market that could not be priced due to the unknown risk contained in the securitized portfolios that led to the ‘08 crisis.
The response to this by the mortgage industry was that ALL non-Agency investors stopped buying MBS. Within a week, virtually all jumbo / ALT-A, and/or subprime outlets were unavailable, leaving only Agency paper or true in house portfolio lending at commercial banks e.g. Chase or Wells. This tightening led to more failures - still mostly within the mortgage industry - but when countrywide and especially WaMu failed, it was clear that the snowball effect was well under way.
So, I saw some signs, but I was really focused on the policy side of it at the time. This area has never really been widely discussed in my opinion. We got the CFPB which mostly annoys lenders with overlapping compliance hurdles but bears no responsibility for the financial health of the industry it regulates, and less product to offer. The Biden admin was right back there with pressure to expand credit to “underserved communities” until the very end, and I can see the cycle continuing.
When Trump II took office, we had a meeting with Compliance/Fair Lending where we pretty much shelved about a dozen stupid reg-based initiatives carried over from the Biden era CFPB.
(ex: We (meaning ALL LENDERS), for practical purposes, need a process buyers can follow if their property appraisal comes in below their personal estimate of property value. Despite this, CFPB made us create a redundant process to positively inform all buyers of their existing right to get a reconsideration of a low appraised value. ok, but CFPB failed to take into account that such ROV’s necessarily have to be very limited due to appraiser independence (bc we aren’t allowed to influence value). In effect this actually changes nothing for the buyers, except now they have the idea that they can justify any value they want, and we jump through all these hoops to just say no and look the bad guy again.
helmut_hofmeister
1mo ago
If anyone’s interested, I am a mortgage guy by trade. AMA I guess. I have been in the mortgage lending industry since the mid-90’s. I was a loan originator for 15 years and for the past decade I’ve been involved at the executive level managing pricing, secondary market, and risk (I run the underwriting dept and the secondary market desk at my shop now).
helmut_hofmeister
1mo ago
These are excellent points.
You’d probably have liked the old flexible payment/negative amortization adjustable rate loans that got such bad press in 2008.
helmut_hofmeister
1mo ago
Technical detail: States are all over the place for required mortgage disclosures, but there is a federal disclosure requirement. The cost of credit (finance charge) must be disclosed on the LE (loan estimate) at application and again on the CD (closing disclosure) at closing.
This has been the standard since TRID replaced the GFE/TIL in (I think) 2015, but before then the finance charge has been a required component of lending disclosures since the TIL (Truth in Lending) Act of 1968.
helmut_hofmeister
2mo ago
When you put it like that it sounds liberating indeed
helmut_hofmeister
2mo ago
I’m in the ops/management side of my field now. I was a mortgage loan officer back in the good old days (pre-and post-‘08).
helmut_hofmeister
2mo ago
I’ve also done the sales roller coaster and got burned out. Old enough to have been through a few boom and bust cycles and I’ve been wiped out more than once.
helmut_hofmeister
2mo ago
Thankfully I’m not that far gone in the hair dept. although I got a minor sunburn on my scalp after renting a soft top in Florida. I imagine to the average motorist I was looking a bit like Jeremy Clarkson in that Jaaaaag.
helmut_hofmeister
2mo ago
This would check all the boxes for sure
helmut_hofmeister
2mo ago
I hear you on the IQ/$$ thing and I forget how much of a range of people there are around here. After we got married, we had a brief period where we could occasionally afford shit like that but decided to have a kid, so…Fun while it lasted. I guess less $$$ thrill-seeking might need to be tailored to local options. I’m looking for more, uh, sustainable ways to enjoy the finer things myself.
helmut_hofmeister
2mo ago
I had a habit of renting exotic cars instead of cheap ones for a few years. The feeling of having hundreds of BHP at your disposal is a true thrill. A great way to turn money into heat, noise, and fun. Bonus points if you’re going bald and you rent a convertible to complete the middle age/midlife crisis look
helmut_hofmeister
3mo ago
Sorry that one was too good to check. I truly bought an album by Cormac McCarthy on a whim, thinking it was some kind of side project. After further research it looks like it’s an entirely different Cornac McCarthy. Poor guy.
helmut_hofmeister
4mo ago
I’ve read almost all of McCarthy’s books and I even have his solo album. it’s true that his style becomes more accessible over time but not in a bad way.
I personally think that the sweet spot for him is the border trilogy - set in post-wwii Texas and Mexico. I don’t remember the order but the books are The Crossing, All the Pretty Horses, and Cities of the Plain.
helmut_hofmeister
5mo ago
Hospitals are also obsessed with billing and a month long stay costs a fortune. Even if patient has insurance the ins co would object. It’s at least a red flag.
helmut_hofmeister
6mo ago
Typically tri or aero bikes are also much heavier than road bikes at least given the same materials. Although that’s more of an issue when climbing.
helmut_hofmeister
6mo ago
As for comfort and road bike - while they’re a bit sharp edged off the shelf, road bikes are very sensitive to setup, fit and sizing and can be quite comfortable once dialed in. You also want to not have all your weight on your ass - when pedaling efficiently some of your weight is distributed to your hands and feet.
Saddle choice makes a big difference too. Squishy saddles are less comfortable over long distances for example. I and many others favor tensioned leather saddles like Brooks - heavier than what you can get if you’re weight obsessed but worth it for the long distance comfort
helmut_hofmeister
6mo ago
Why not tri bikes (or sometimes no aero handlebars at all)?
Road riders are accustomed to riding in pace lines. The aero qualities of a triathlon bike, which is specifically designed for solo riding, are less suited to close quarters cooperative riding styles. Both the geometry/handling and the body position are quite different.
helmut_hofmeister
6mo ago
Gotta love Gallic bloody mindedness
helmut_hofmeister
6mo ago
Interesting how your comment is about a cycling team with no actual ties to Israel and the inability/unwillingness of the Spanish gov’t to protect and sanctify the Olympic spirit, in the face of dissent. yet the cavalcade below doesn’t seem to be related to the Vuelta at all.
I am glad you mentioned this. I watched he entire race live, and it was surreal to just watch this fall apart.
I was actually a bit surprised at the lack of disruption during the TdF - there were Palestine flags here and there but nothing like what we saw in Spain.
helmut_hofmeister
9mo ago
Depends on the car’s stability and handling characteristics. 100 mph does not feel that fast in something like a BMW or a Lexus, generally I’d be worried more about getting pulled over than road safety in the conditions you describe
helmut_hofmeister
9mo ago
Good question. Frame of reference: I did the Lycra thing on weekends and early morning training, but I also commuted about 18mi each day in street clothes. Rode daily, weather permitting.
(adjusts jaunty cycling chapeau and assumes casually deliberate pose)
Before bike lanes, bikes rode with cars, between them, filtering up to the light at each stop. At lights, you’d safely be out in front of the cars, visible to all, front wheel just behind the crosswalk. Head start at the light so you’re seen, cars catch up, repeat. It was a thrill and required some guts but that kept tourists and entryists at bay. I can’t say whether fewer cyclists got hit by cars back then, but in any case all this stayed in the traveled lanes of the streets where wheeled vehicles belong.
(Aside: Food Delivery bikes were old mtn bikes back then and they just rode on the sidewalk (illegal but selectively enforced)).
Gradually the city added more and more bike infrastructure along with the (anti-car) street redesign / project zero in the 00s and teens. Cars got squeezed, and these new bike paths provided lots of space that might have been intended for bikes, but in reality just became multi-use space. Or more accurately no man’s land.
Litany of issues with trying to use a NYC bike lane: it’s the Wild West now. They’re laid out such that you have to cross 3-4-5 lanes of vehicles at opposite-way intersections; many but not all are between the sidewalk and the row of parked cars; all cyclist rightly fear getting “doored” by a parked vehicle; bike path use is not preserved for cyclists so inevitably there is a black SUV, a police car, a vending cart, an UBER, a yellow cab or three, and/or a hundred pedestrians using it as an extension of the sidewalk, driving you into the street unexpectedly; the aforementioned e-bikes are everywhere as are oblivious tourists on citibikes.
The worst part was that once these lanes showed up, expectations changed. It felt like a theft of the commons or eternal September or something like that. Bikes, formerly road users like cars, were in a weird place where the core users were squeezed out by all the above, but were no longer welcome or expected on the roads.
I would inevitably just take my chances in the streets. And if you’re quick enough you don’t really piss off the cars much.
helmut_hofmeister
9mo ago
I was a long term road cyclist in NYC from 2000 to 2017. I also kept a car in Manhattan the entire time, so I have the experience of all the major interest groups being discussed. I lived through the progression from bike messengers weaving in traffic to the design and implementation of stupid and dangerous bike lanes to this e-bike situation.
Nowadays I have a hard time defending “cyclists” without lots of “no true Scotsman” style gatekeeping and I have kind of given up on making the cyclist case. I am a road rider, I know how to ride with cars and around people, but my breed are the minority.
The difference I think is the e-bikes. People riding e-bikes are not cyclists. They haven’t learned the skills that usually go along with being able to maintain those 20+ MPH speeds. They’re dangerous electric mopeds. Now when I visit, it’s terrifying.
helmut_hofmeister
9mo ago
I had a similar relationship with my background and just how WASPy it all is, including a family camp on a lake in the northeast US. Ultimately, “For the kids” is what made me realize it’s less about the snobbery and more the sense of timelessness and continuity of having such a touchstone.
I am reassured to know that I can go to a place that I’ve connected to in different ways and at different times, and it makes me grateful for my ancestors having preserved this for my benefit. Planting a tree for your descendants to sit beneath and all that. Makes me well up.
The place is now in my mom’s cousin’s name, and I have become very concerned about preserving it after they pass.
Depends on where you are a bit right? Anything grown to store and ship vs. taste good off the tree naturally entails compromises and some varieties store and ship better than others.
Im from (and currently live in) the northeast US, and particularly in upstate NY, apples are fantastic. I can completely refuse to buy CA, OR, or WA apples and not really suffer for it. Local apples here are much fresher, and we have access to varieties that don’t ship well or are harder to grow or that are lower yield. On our little homestead, we have Macintosh, Macoun, and Northern Spy apple trees. Macouns are great eating apples but I understand they deteriorate more easily than some. Someone said below that honey crisps are overrated. I’d agree, with the caveat that they don’t travel or store well, so they’re overpriced and can be disappointing unless you pick one fresh. There’s a push to create a hybrid that helps - evercrisp for example.
OTOH my wife is from LA and she can’t fathom why anyone would bother to eat most of the oranges we can get here. Just recently I got some shit from her for trying to juice navel oranges for mimosas on New Year’s Day til I reminded her that Valencia or whatever juice orange she prefers aren’t available in January here. We have had good luck with Cara Caras when they’re in season, but when we do to CA for holidays the variety and quality really do make a noticeable difference. But I’m not an orange connoisseur and can’t speak to the comparison of, say, FL vs CA oranges.
I think some of the preferences below follow from here.
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