What We're Hearing

Remember Richard Wilkes, the former mortgage banker who ran the IMX Exchange and other mortgage businesses during his long career in residential finance? Well, he's not back in mortgages (by any means) but is working on a side project with Google. I recently asked him about the state of the mortgage industry today and this is what he said (in part): "If I were in the business these days I would have gone berserk by now and might have gotten hurt. Sam, our Uncle, has made a trash heap of our mortgage finance system and the tenets upon which it has evolved into the best in the world. We made mistakes; we failed. That’s what happens with capitalism. Where we’re headed, however, is into a system that prevents failure…but it also will prevent success. Unchecked, what we now are creating will be the end of entrepreneurism and the unrestrained, stifling sloth of bureaucracy.” Richard, of course, is a Texan...