The following is an excerpt from our April issue:

By City Councilwoman Carol Chumney

Memphis should leave the issue of a new football stadium to the University of Memphis

An empty Pyramid, a historic and empty Coliseum, a Fed Ex Forum with a team whose ownership is up for sale with the city on the hook for bond payments if attendance and other financial goals aren’t met. Poorly maintained city properties, parks and recreational facilities. And now, instead of resolving these issues, and after investing millions of dollars in the $250 million dollar Fed Ex Forum, the Mayor wants to demolish the Coliseum and Stadium, and move on to another huge multi-million dollar capital project.

And this is the same Mayor who was first elected on a platform of putting human needs over bricks and mortar.

Mayor Herenton announced on New Year’s Day his plans to support an expensive $175 million new football stadium to be located on the fairgrounds site. For many reasons, this undertaking should be best left in the capable hands of the University of Memphis, and the State of Tennessee. (more…)

The following is an excerpt from our April issue:

By Chuck Bates

Over the past two installments of this column we have addressed the fact that politicians and central bankers more often than not issue reassuring babble to make us all feel better about the economy. We have learned that to best protect ourselves from those who may have an ulterior motive to lie to us on these matters we the consumers must educate ourselves on the true state of the economy in order to protect that which we have worked so hard to earn.

Last month we delved into the real estate bubble across the nation. Since that time the headlines have been inundated with stories of the impending real estate collapse due to poor lending practices. Sub-prime mortgages, politically correct speech meaning loans to people with poor credit, threaten to undo much of the real estate bubble built up over the past decade. Further it threatens to expose two more sectors of mortgage lending that to this point were considered economically “respectable”. Alt-A and Jumbo mortgages may also have been originated using “creative financing” we learn. Case in point; I was speaking with a friend who lives in one of Memphis’ most desirable neighborhoods. He recounted the story that a home in the area had recently sold for around $1.1 million. Upon completion of the purchase of this home, undoubtedly in the jumbo loan category, the new owner immediately sought another bank and appraiser to then value his home at $1.7 million and refinance the house and pocketing the newly “created” $600,000 in “equity”. It does make one pause to consider if perhaps their favorite bank is participating in this practice that borders on fraud and certainly will hurt the real economy in the long run, not to mention the depositors of those banks participating in such deals. (more…)