Wells Fargo’s Commercial Portfolio set to Explode?

Wells Fargo – $138.6B

Since early 2007

161

banks have "imploded*"

September 17th, 2009

This morning, Teri Buhl released an exclusive report entitled “Wells Fargo’s Commercial Portfolio is a ticking time bomb.” The report details how Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) has hired outside consultants to review its commercial portfolio and reportedly “they are shocked with what they are seeing. Not only do the bank’s outstanding commercial loans collectively exceed the property values to which they are attached, but derivative trades leftover from its acquisition of Wachovia are creating another set of problems for the already beleaguered San Francisco-based megabank.”

To view the complete article on Bankimplode.com, please check out: Exclusive – Wells Fargo’s Commercial Portfolio is a ticking time bomb

As of 6/30/09, notable holders of Wells Fargo include:
#1) Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway: (302,609,212 shares)
#7) Wellington Management Company (132,768,076 shares)
#9) Dodge & Cox (82,146,205 shares)
#50) CalPERS: (10,693,798 shares)

For Detailed Investor Profiles on these Investors, click below:

Berkshire Hathaway (Warren Buffett)

CalPERS

Related People: Charles T. Munger;

Warren E. Buffett

Related Entities: Berkshire Hathaway Reinsurance Group;

General Re; MidAmerican Energy Holdings; California Public Employees' Retirement System; GEICO

Contributed by: Teri Buhl

---------------

Wells Fargo on the Writedown-Rundown & General Distress Lists

September 14, 2009 – 6:01 am

2009-09-18-The Fat Lady Clears her Throat:

They say it ain’t over until the fat lady sings, well she’s clearing her throat.

In order to sort through the disaster that is Wells Fargo’s (quote: WFC) commercial loan portfolio, the bank has hired help from outside experts to pour over the books… and they are shocked with what they are seeing. Not only do the bank’s outstanding commercial loans collectively exceed the property values to which they are attached, but derivative trades leftover from its acquisition of Wachovia are creating another set of problems for the already beleaguered San Francisco-based megabank.

2009-09-17-Snake Eating Its Own Tail:

So you wonder how Wells Fargo manages to positive quarters in a row during the greatest credit crisis of all time. It’s easy. They have a ready-made buyer for any crap they want to sell at any price. Don’t believe it?

This borrower couldn’t pay and thus stopped doing so. This should generate a “NOD” (Notice of Default) and ultimately lead to foreclosure, right? It should result in an impaired asset which might be sold to some other company (at a discount), right?

It got sold all right – right at the “120 day” late point where Wells counts a loan as “defaulted.”

But look at who it got sold to…..

Wells Fargo has literally become a snake eating its own tail.

2009-09-14-The Party is Over:

The party is over at least for one ex-Well Fargo senior vice president, at least for now. (Full Article)

For Detailed Investor Profiles on these Investors, click below:

Berkshire Hathaway (Warren Buffett)

CalPERS

Related People: Charles T. Munger; Warren E. Buffett

Related Entities: Berkshire Hathaway Reinsurance Group; General Re; MidAmerican Energy Holdings; California Public Employees' Retirement System; GEICO

• Liberal Billionaire (& Obama Money Man) George Soros… Major Shareholder in IndyMac/One West Bank
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Catastrophe - IT'S TIME TO TAKE BACK OUR COUNTRY

Now. It's that simple. It's that urgent.

So begins Dick Morris and Eileen McGann's latest and most important book. They say that we must act before President Barack Obama fully implements his radical political agenda. Because after Obama has won his war on prosperity and canceled the war on terror, it will be too late to regain our liberty or our security.

At a time when we needed a pragmatic centrist to lead us out of recession, we got a doctrinaire socialist who wants to use the crisis to put the government in charge of the economy and enact European socialism here in the United States. Cars, banks-what's next? He will keep at it until Washington governs every major business in America and sets all our salaries.

It's a catastrophe.

Dick Morris and Eileen McGann saw the meltdown coming. In their book "Outrage", they called out the house of cards that was Fannie Mae. In "Fleeced", they went after the credit card companies, the subprime mortgage lenders, and the hedge fund billionaires who conspired to wreck the economy-and Barack Obama, whose policies, they predicted last summer, would "trigger a stock market crash."

Now, in Catastrophe, Morris and McGann take a hard look at America in free fall-and at how Obama is transforming a vulnerable America into a socialist state.

They tell the truth about Obama and his radical policies:

• He will destroy our health care system so that no one gets adequate care.
• He designed his bank rescue plan to pave the way for nationalization of the banks and socialization of the economy.
• He firmly believes in government control of our major industries-he's already commandeered the banks and the automobile industry.
• He plans to reshape the political landscape to keep the left in power for decades by cooking the census, enfranchising illegal immigrants, muzzling talk radio, and coercing workers into unions.
• He is attacking those who fight terrorism while letting the terrorists go free.
• He gives aid to Hamas while Shariah Law threatens to take over America.
• He has repealed the Declaration of Independence and put us under a worldwide, European-dominated financial regulatory system.

But Obama is not working alone. Morris and McGann spell out how Congress is complicit:

• How Senator Chris Dodd and Congressman Charlie Rangel use special interests and special friends for their own enrichment and glorification.
• How Ted Kennedy Jr. is exploiting his father's health care power.

"This is no time for apathy or alienation or hopelessness," Morris and McGann remind us. "It's a time for action." And that action must begin now-before it's too late.

By Dick Morris and Eileen McGann – Order Their New Book Today: Catastrophe

Posted: Knowledge Creates Power

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HOW OBAMA'S SOCIALISM WORKS

President Obama's vision of the future is, apparently, an economy guided, steered and -- when the occasion demands -- commanded by the federal government. Some of the companies will remain private. Washington will take others over. But all will look to the White House, as to an orchestra conductor, for signals as to how and when and where to proceed. (Sounds like a blend of socialism and fascism).

This summary is the vision that emerges from the Chrysler bailout.  

Whether or not one believes the claims of attorney Thomas Lauria (I do) that the investment bank Perella Weinberg Partners was strong-armed by the administration, the fact remains that the four firms that accepted the piddling offer of 29 cents on the dollar are all awash in Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) money.

Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan Chase all dutifully approved the offer from Washington, while Perella Weinberg reportedly held out for 50 cents. Did the combined $90 billion the four compliant firms owed Washington in TARP funds make a difference in their passive acquiescence? You bet it did.  

They shouldn't have said yes. Clearly, Obama was not about to pull the trigger, which would have sent tens of thousands of autoworkers straight into unemployment. Politically, he would have had no choice but to cough up the $4.5 billion loan the feds just gave Chrysler with or without a debt settlement. The political pressures that have always operated on this Democratic president are still there and still in play.

Knowing the ultimate vulnerability of the administration position, any investment bank that was looking out for its clients would have demanded more than 29 cents. But Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan Chase all had a higher calling -- they had to appease King Barack I. To its credit, Perella Weinberg put its investors first.

But this little vignette shows exactly what the new rules of the game will be under this administration. It won't be Soviet-style socialism or Reaganesque capitalism. The system will more resemble the Japanese arrangement where MITI, the Ministry of Trade and Industry, informally guided companies and told them what to do. In Japan, a nod usually suffices to command. In the United States, one has to use a hammer. But the result will be the same: compliant capitalism.

Companies will not look out for their shareholders or their employees or even their customers so much as watch the smoke signals from Washington to decide what to do. The markets won't control decisions. Washington will.

The same balance of government control and nominal private ownership is evident in the mortgage rescue plan and the efforts to rekindle consumer lending. It will be manifest in the cap-and-trade legislation and in the priority that the administration will accord to green lending and job creation.

The strong-arming that obviously led up to the Chrysler deal will also be typical of the Obama industrial policy. When the chips are down, JFK's pressure on U.S. Steel to lower its prices in 1962 will be the model for the Obama years. While terrorists need not fear any violation of their constitutional rights, CEOs of Fortune 500 companies will not be so fortunate.
At the core of the new policy will be the simple assumption that Washington knows best.

But it doesn't. The stagnation of the Japanese economy in the past 20 years is eloquent testimony to the fact that government usually gets it wrong. Sometimes it makes the wrong decision because it fails to anticipate the market (as Japan did when it downplayed laptop computers and stressed mainframes). More often (as is normal in Japan), it is so in the thrall of special interests that it ends up articulating a consensus of those who would divide up the pie among them.

One way or another, the government usually runs the economy into the ground, as it will under King Barack I.

By DICK MORRIS
Published on TheHill.com on May 5, 2009

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Fleeced – A Must Read

American Progressivism

Posted:  Knowledge Creates Wealth on 5.6.09

Urgent Message from Christopher Ruddy & Dick Morris

Dear Fellow American,

We are getting down to the wire!

At noon (Eastern Time) tomorrow, Thursday, May 7th, we will launch our Call to Arms broadcast, and I urge you to register before it’s too late — your financial future may depend on it!

Go here to reserve your spot for FREE!

Joining me on this exclusive video webinar program will be famed CNN anchor Bob Losure, along with top experts like Dick Morris, as well as my chief financial analyst, David Frazier.

I will also be playing a never-before-aired interview with the late Sir John Templeton, who prophetically explains why Obama’s financial plans will fail.

We also will show a recent video clip from Warren Buffett that has gotten scant media attention but is simply shocking in what the Oracle of Omaha predicts.

On the Call to Arms broadcast, we will be providing you with specific investment advice you can make to protect and grow your wealth.

Both Dick Morris and I also will be making a shocking announcement, one that I believe will help jumpstart your finances.

If you can’t make the noon call, I will be releasing the broadcast again at 7 p.m. (Eastern Time) that night.

And by registering, you will get immediate access to the VIP Web site, where I’ve created a library of free smart investing videos and articles for you to view.

So take a few moments to register now!

There’s no risk!

I look forward to you joining me tomorrow in this revolutionary online event.

To Your Success,

Christopher Ruddy

Obama: The Grand Strategy

Unified theory of Obamaism, fifth (final?) installment:

In the service of his ultimate mission -- the leveling of social inequalities -- President Obama offers a tripartite social democratic agenda: nationalized health care, federalized education (ultimately guaranteed through college) and a cash-cow carbon tax (or its equivalent) to subsidize the other two.

Problem is, the math doesn't add up. Not even a carbon tax would pay for Obama's vastly expanded welfare state. Nor will Midwest Democrats stand for a tax that would devastate their already crumbling region.

What is obviously required is entitlement reform, meaning Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. That's where the real money is -- trillions saved that could not only fund hugely expensive health and education programs but also restore budgetary balance.

Except that Obama has offered no real entitlement reform. His universal health-care proposal would increase costs by perhaps $1 trillion. Medicare/Medicaid reform is supposed to decrease costs.

Obama's own budget projections show staggering budget deficits going out to 2019. If he knows his social agenda is going to drown us in debt, what's he up to?

He has an idea. But he dare not speak of it yet. He has only hinted. When asked in his March 24 news conference about the huge debt he's incurring, Obama spoke vaguely of "additional adjustments" that will be unfolding in future budgets.

Rarely have two more anodyne words carried such import. "Additional adjustments" equals major cuts in Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid.

Social Security is relatively easy. A bipartisan commission (like the 1983 Alan Greenspan commission) recommends some combination of means testing for richer people, increasing the retirement age and a technical change in the inflation measure (indexing benefits to prices instead of wages). The proposal is brought to Congress for a no-amendment up-or-down vote. Done.

The hard part is Medicare and Medicaid. In an aging population, how do you keep them from blowing up the budget? There is only one answer: rationing.

Why do you think the stimulus package pours $1.1 billion into medical "comparative effectiveness research"? It is the perfect setup for rationing. Once you establish what is "best practice" for expensive operations, medical tests and aggressive therapies, you've laid the premise for funding some and denying others.

It is estimated that a third to a half of one's lifetime health costs are consumed in the last six months of life. Accordingly, Britain's National Health Service can deny treatments it deems not cost-effective -- and if you're old and infirm, the cost-effectiveness of treating you plummets. In Canada, they ration by queuing. You can wait forever for so-called elective procedures like hip replacements.

Rationing is not quite as alien to America as we think. We already ration kidneys and hearts for transplant according to survivability criteria as well as by queuing. A nationalized health insurance system would ration everything from MRIs to intensive care by myriad similar criteria.

The more acute thinkers on the left can see rationing coming, provoking Slate blogger Mickey Kaus to warn of the political danger. "Isn't it an epic mistake to try to sell Democratic health care reform on this basis? Possible sales pitch: 'Our plan will deny you unnecessary treatments!' . . . Is that really why the middle class will sign on to a revolutionary multitrillion-dollar shift in spending -- so the government can decide their life or health 'is not worth the price'?"

My own preference is for a highly competitive, privatized health insurance system with a government-subsidized transition to portability, breaking the absurd and ruinous link between health insurance and employment. But if you believe that health care is a public good to be guaranteed by the state, then a single-payer system is the next best alternative. Unfortunately, it is fiscally unsustainable without rationing.

Social Security used to be the third rail of American politics. Not anymore. Health-care rationing is taking its place -- which is why Obama, the consummate politician, knows to offer the candy (universality) today before serving the spinach (rationing) tomorrow.

Taken as a whole, Obama's social democratic agenda is breathtaking. And the rollout has thus far been brilliant. It follows Kaus's advice to "give pandering a chance" and adheres to the Democratic tradition of being the party that gives things away, while leaving the green-eyeshade stinginess to those heartless Republicans.

It will work for a while, but there is no escaping rationing. In the end, the spinach must be served.

By Charles Krauthammer – Washington Post
Friday, April 24, 2009

Posted:  Knowledge Creates Power

White House Hesitating To Accept TARP Fund Paybacks – And the Question is Why???

Goldman Sachs is ready to pay back $10 Billion in TARP funds early and White House is giving non-answers to why it is delaying if not not putting pressure on GS executives not to??

Goldman Sachs and others have wanted to pay back their TARP loans and instead of cheering, the Obama White House Appears to be refusing the money?

Why?  Why indeed is the question!!! Perhaps the answer is: 

Obama Wants to Control the Banks

There's a reason he refuses to accept repayment of TARP money.

I must be naive. I really thought the administration would welcome the return of bank bailout money. Some $340 million in TARP cash flowed back this week from four small banks in Louisiana, New York, Indiana and California. This isn't much when we routinely talk in trillions, but clearly that money has not been wasted or otherwise sunk down Wall Street's black hole. So why no cheering as the cash comes back?

My answer: The government wants to control the banks, just as it now controls GM and Chrysler, and will surely control the health industry in the not-too-distant future. Keeping them TARP-stuffed is the key to control. And for this intensely political president, mere influence is not enough. The White House wants to tell 'em what to do. Control. Direct. Command.

It is not for nothing that rage has been turned on those wicked financiers. The banks are at the core of the administration's thrust: By managing the money, government can steer the whole economy even more firmly down the left fork in the road.

If the banks are forced to keep TARP cash -- which was often forced on them in the first place -- the Obama team can work its will on the financial system to unprecedented degree. That's what's happening right now.

Here's a true story first reported by my Fox News colleague Andrew Napolitano (with the names and some details obscured to prevent retaliation). Under the Bush team a prominent and profitable bank, under threat of a damaging public audit, was forced to accept less than $1 billion of TARP money. The government insisted on buying a new class of preferred stock which gave it a tiny, minority position. The money flowed to the bank. Arguably, back then, the Bush administration was acting for purely economic reasons. It wanted to recapitalize the banks to halt a financial panic.

Fast forward to today, and that same bank is begging to give the money back. The chairman offers to write a check, now, with interest. He's been sitting on the cash for months and has felt the dead hand of government threatening to run his business and dictate pay scales. He sees the writing on the wall and he wants out. But the Obama team says no, since unlike the smaller banks that gave their TARP money back, this bank is far more prominent. The bank has also been threatened with "adverse" consequences if its chairman persists. That's politics talking, not economics.

Think about it: If Rick Wagoner can be fired and compact cars can be mandated, why can't a bank with a vault full of TARP money be told where to lend? And since politics drives this administration, why can't special loans and terms be offered to favored constituents, favored industries, or even favored regions? Our prosperity has never been based on the political allocation of credit -- until now.

Which brings me to the Pay for Performance Act, just passed by the House. This is an outstanding example of class warfare. I'm an Englishman. We invented class warfare, and I know it when I see it. This legislation allows the administration to dictate pay for anyone working in any company that takes a dime of TARP money. This is a whip with which to thrash the unpopular bankers, a tool to advance the Obama administration's goal of controlling the financial system.

After 35 years in America, I never thought I would see this. I still can't quite believe we will sit by as this crisis is used to hand control of our economy over to government. But here we are, on the brink. Clearly, I have been naive.

By STUART VARNEY – a host on the Fox Business Network.

• Dick Morris - Suspects Obama Planning to Takeover ALL BANKS

Dick Morris - Suspects Obama Planning to Takeover ALL BANKS

 Dick Morris - Suspects Obama Planning to Takeover ALL BANKS

• PHONY MORTGAGE PLAN

Source: Daily Thought Pad