amREIT Agita

In the big Friday lead-up to America’s most politically incorrect semi-holiday (Columbus Day), I received a link to one of Jody Shenn’s articles on Bloomberg with a reasonable question:

“Does the increase in early prepayment have any role to play in the recent amREIT decline?”

So now that I’ve survived the heat of a weekend that should have been a brisk leaf-peeping delight here in New England, let me reflect on some of the data in Jody’s article.

E Pluribus Corporatum

I have my nomination for the highest return investment of the past three years — the hundreds of millions the financial industry spent on lobbyists who take their percentage and then pass lots of it along in heavily string-attached political contributions.

The fascinating part of this whole game is how the game itself derails any attempt to reform it.  By the way, the corruption-maintenance by the system only partially includes the nightly fund-raising cocktail parties in Washington where the standard lobbyist contribution is $5,000.