A great post from Homegrown Evolution on one of the surprising benefits of the housing meltdown: fresh fruit. That’s right. The blog thanks Mr. Mozilo for creating our very own ‘Banana Republic’ as rundown homes and unmanned irrigation systems create the perfect environment for the growth of amazing tropical delights.
These subprime bananas as the blog calls them, were the result of a foreclosed home and a wayward sprinkler system. Homegrown Evolution is a blog maintained by the authors of “The Urban Homestead“. Hat tip Boing Boing for finding this gem.
From Homegrown Evolution:
There’s a house in our neighborhood that’s been for sale for over a year. Two months ago the for sale signs disappeared, junk mail littered the front porch and the mow and blow guys stopped showing up, leaving the lawn to go wild. A busted sprinkler head creates a nightly fountain as the houses’ infrastructure lapses into a timer operated zombification. We knew the nice young family that used to live here and I hope that they were able to sell somehow, but it doesn’t look good.
I started picking up the junk mail to make the place looked lived in. I also remembered that the backyard had both figs and bananas, and ventured beyond the gate to see how the fruit was developing (fyi, picking up fallen fruit is important to keep down the rat population). The figs aren’t quite ready but the bananas, the ones the squirrels didn’t get, were the tastiest damn bananas I’ve ever eaten. It turns out that our national real estate bubble has a fruit filled silver lining. I imagine that all across America there are abandoned fruit trees yielding their bounty for a new generation of gleaners. Thank you Angelo Mozilo for creating a literal banana republic!
Maybe a little scouting in your neighborhood can yield some delicious homegrown summertime fruit too!
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It’s been quite a week for Citi.
To be fair to Citi, they are taking (well-deserved) crap for the entire industry on the salary issue. BofA, Morgan Stanley, UBS and others are also trying to dodge the bad PR when huge bonuses are awarded following huge losses. So now instead of bonuses for bad performance execs will just get a huge salary for bad performance. It’s all about retention – or so Citi would like us to believe. Quote from the NYT: “Citigroup executives are so eager to keep employees from fleeing, that in some cases, they are offering them guaranteed pay contracts.” Well, given that those contracts are being paid for with $45 billion of US taxpayer debt who can blame them. Citi is once again free to play with someone else’s money and are being just as responsible as they were the last time. BTW, the idea that these raises are going to the rank-and-file is absolute hogwash. As Alphaville notes, “the biggest increases will go to investment bankers and traders.”
The discovery came in Citi’s correspondent division, which buys loans from banks and independent mortgage firms, and was responsible for about half of the bank’s $115 billion in mortgages last year. Two great quotes about this:
“There remain key areas that fall short of our quality- control process. We ask you to review your processes and join us in this effort to collectively address these areas of concern.” — Brad Brunts, a managing director at the bank’s CitiMortgage division.
And this from an analyst
Not a good sign when you have to re-train people processing mortgages on the most basic elements of how to do their jobs. Are these some of the folks being offered those guaranteed contracts?
This really takes the idea of not verifying income to a new level.
RealityFrame’s comment about the raises could really be applied to pretty much everything the bank touches: Anybody want to dispute that those banksters aren’t indeed the "best and the brightest"?
Constantine von Hoffman is a veteran business journalist and social media consultant. He write the blog CollateralDamage, a satirical look at marketing and business.
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