Deja Vu All Over Again

We've slept through enough history classes to know the darn thing repeats itself (even if the teacher never did). It's true for government intervention into the mortgage markets. Dodd-Frank legislation and FDIC proposals regarding Qualifying Residential Mortgage policies aren't much different from what happened in the 1940s, according to Colliers analytics wiz KC Conway.

We hung out last Wednesday evening at 1717 McKinney with the Colliers International folks. KC says programs designed without an understanding of the problem are doomed to be ineffective and if at first Congress doesn't succeed, it'll create another program. KC says the mortgage crisis continues to challenge the banks. JP Morgan and Bank of America reported some iffy news in their Q1 earnings releases with JP Morgan shrinking 4% as its loans on the books fell to $686B. BofA missed earnings by more than 30%, he says.

We snapped KC with Gabe Hill, managing director of valuation and advisory services in the Dallas office. Effective eavesdropping informs us that Colliers is being run by a committee right now as the search is on to replace managing director Mark Noble, who left the firm in April. KC singled out a shining star: manufacturing, which climbed .8% in March following a .1% increase in February. It's the eighth straight month of growth with 2011 on track to exceed 2010?s record year of $5.5 trillion in US manufactured exports. He says US factories are benefiting from gains in business investment, expanding economies overseas, and inventory rebuilding.