For our Clients, Colleagues, and Friends,
All of you know a lot about mortgages, but not too many of you know much about mortgage REITs. These are publicly traded companies that own pools of mortgages or mortgage-backed securities. Throw in some leverage and you get eye-popping dividend yields. But there are reasons to be cautious about this, so give us a call if you want to discuss.
Last week I mentioned some of my assistants. One of the most interesting assistants was Chloe. She was a Film Studies major, or something like that, and is now a screenwriter in Hollywood. I should buy her a copy of Bud Schulberg’s The Disenchanted. It’s a novel about the author’s real-life experiences working with F. Scott Fitzgerald on a Hollywood screenplay when Fitzgerald was a broken down, tragic alcoholic.
Question: Since we’re talking about great writers, who was Orwell’s Winston Smith, and what modern technology would have made his job obsolete?
Wretched excess?: The world’s largest McDonald’s is in Beijing. It’s about 28,000 square feet and seats 700 people at a time.
There are politicians who call for “Medicare for all” or “Free healthcare for all.” Let’s slow down. When I turned 65, I didn’t sign up for Medicare right away because I doubted a government program could possibly be as good as a private plan.
As for this “free” business, Medicare is anything but free. The government charges me a premium for hospital stays (plan A) and $592 for Medicare Plan B. If you want the sort of plan that covers everything, even things not covered by Medicare, you get a private add-on from Humana or United Healthcare for about $680. This comes to $1,272, and I have no clue how much Plan D for drugs cost. Let’s just round it up to $1,500 a month.
So next time you hear a politician call for free Medicare for all, ask if this is the proverbial free lunch that doesn’t exist.
When you were in junior high or high school, do you remember how awkward you felt dancing to Do You Love Me? That was one of those songs only the coolest kids could do without looking like an idiot. Here’s a very short video of two awkward looking people managing to look cool while dancing to this tune, Looking cool. It’ll blow you away.
Another one of my interesting assistants is Abigail. She comes from a very affluent part of Los Angeles, and I asked her why she needs the job. She said she was paying her own way through college -- tuition, housing, books, and so on. That can add up to a lot of money over four years, so I asked her the obvious question, which is how she managed to save up that much money. Turns out she had been a model for advertisements since she was one-month old. She showed me her agency’s website, with her doing ads for food, for clothing, and so on.
One of the more interesting things about celebrities is how many of them changed their names. Here are some of the more interesting name changes:
Why is this man smiling? He’s Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase Bank, and the bank reported third quarter net earnings of $14.4 billion.
We’re headed into the final month and a half of the year. If it looks like you might take a loss for the year, but a small one, talk to your CFO to see if there are any expenses you can legitimately book in January 2026.
Before he became a semi-famous manager, Joe Torre was a pretty good baseball player, except on July 21, 1975. That day, he hit into four consecutive double plays. It never happened before, and it hasn’t happened since.
And how could we not mention the just-completed World Series? Wasn’t that just about the most exciting World Series of all time?
Be very careful if asked to be a minority shareholder in a mortgage company, or in any other company. We saw a situation recently where things had gone wrong with a Southeast mortgage company. The majority shareholders were, essentially, looting the company for their own benefit, and the minority shareholders had very limited rights. As a minority shareholder, you’ll have no say on distributions, dividends, plans to sell or merge it, and more. If the majority owners want to give themselves a big bonus, with none to you, you have no say in it. Argue for a better salary or a signing bonus, but be very wary of accepting a stake in the company as a minority shareholder. At the very least, be sure to review with qualified legal counsel the organizational documents addressing governance issues. Let us know if you need a referral to one.
Answer to question on first page: Winston Smith was the main character in 1984, and his job was re-writing history in books and newspapers to fit the government’s latest propaganda. And you guessed it right. Microsoft Word’s “find and replace” would have made his job 99% easier.
What follows is from an article on salesmanship we read years ago in the New Yorker. We think sales is what makes the gears of capitalism keep moving, and we think highly of people who are good at it (hey, we're sales guys, too!). So please don’t take it the wrong way. We just think it’s well-written – and funny:
“Salesmen have a horrible reputation, but I love them. They look you in the eye, use your name a lot, hold your shoulder while they talk to you, and they laugh really, really hard at your jokes. They take you to expensive restaurants too. They ask where you went to college and all about your kids, their ages, and their activities. They suggest through body language and facial expressions that they would like to marry you. In other words, salespeople treat you exactly the way you wish everyone would treat you, except that none of it is truly sincere.” Isn’t this great writing?