Faith-based mortgage lender denied redemption

Sorry, but faith-based lending ranks right up there with faith-based civil engineering for the title of Most Unsustainable and Probably Dangerous Idea. Would you want to drive over a bridge built by engineers who trust that God will provide?

WSJ: Mortgage WoesTake Toll on Lender With Roots in Faith
While many mortgage brokers screamed through the real-estate boom with blaring television ads and exotic loan structures, HomeBanc Corp. positioned itself as the good guy.
Inside the company, executives opened companywide gatherings and internal meetings with Christian prayers. Every branch office kept a chaplain on call. The company's $365,000-a-year human-resources chief, Dwight "Ike" Reighard, was the founder of a mega-church in an Atlanta suburb. He says he encouraged employees to pray, put others first and become better workers -- and also performed weddings and funerals for employees. "People who never attended church would tell me, you're my pastor," Dr. Reighard said in an interview on Saturday.
But over the past few weeks, as investors fled securities tied to mortgages, HomeBanc's sources of loan funds dried up. Unable to continue originating loans, the company staggered under the burden of its expensive sales infrastructure.
On Thursday, HomeBanc filed for bankruptcy-court protection. It fired most of its 1,100 employees on Friday and is shuttering its 22 branches and 139 kiosks in real-estate and builders' offices, exiting the mortgage-loan origination business and processing no new loans, including ones in its pipeline. Countrywide Financial Corp., of Calabasas, Calif. -- struggling with troubles of its own -- said it was buying at least five HomeBanc branches.

Ah, faith. An amazing number of financial scams, from MLM's to Ponzi schemes (HYIP's, anybody?) proliferate through church groups like pinkeye at a daycare.

I'm not saying everyone who goes to church needs Richard Dawkins and electroshock therapy, but the gullibility quotient certainly acts like a magnet for people who need a steady supply of suckers.

I've got to give props to the former CEO though for dressing up brazen moxie as turning the other cheek:

Mr. Flood, the former CEO whose January severance package was $5 million, plans to start another faith-based mortgage company. He says HomeBanc employees and customers will take what they learned and plant the seeds wherever they land. "When Jesus got on the cross, people at the time thought that he failed because he died and the ministry ended," he said. "But people around him have cascaded it into the greatest movement in history. The company being a financial failure doesn't mean that the work has ended."

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Venezuelan engineers fleeing to the oilsands

WSJ.com:Fleeing Chávez, Oil Workers Flock To Frigid Alberta reported on Dealbreaker's Opening Bell

FORT McMURRAY, Alberta -- Before he left Venezuela in April for this petroleum outpost in northern Alberta, Freddy Mendez heard tales about bone-chilling winter cold and lumbering moose. Since he's come to town, he's seen two black bears in his neighborhood. Still, the toughest adjustment is the late-night sun.
"You get a lot of work done when the sun doesn't set until 11," he says, stifling a yawn. "But it's so hard getting the kids to bed."
The 45-year-old engineer is part of a swelling colony of Venezuelan expats who say they were driven into exile by a hostile government.

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That's right, make fun of our wildlife and our extreme latitude. The american media can always be counted on to reinforce stereotypes about Canada, eh.

Frankly, given the labor crunch here, Venezuela's loss is our gain. Last year I was talking about the labor woes in the oil patch with a friend in California, to which he asked "Would you like some of our Mexicans?" My response was "If they can weld or drive a truck, sure!"

I suspect that the reason that we're importing Venezuelans is because we've run out of Newfies and Nova Scotians. Believe me, latin guitar music in our pubs will make a refreshing change from fiddles and sea shantys.

Dealbreaker's Joe Wiesenthal of course had some good points to make about the situation:

This story could be titled: More Evidence of the Deterioration of Venezuela Pt. 32492432. Apparently, a number of oil workers, particularly engineering types, have decided to leave Venezeula and head for the rough lifestyle of the Canadian oil sands, in Alberta. By all accounts, the conditions are terrible up there. Totally cold and miserable and unlike anything in warm Venezuela. Even the oil itself sucks, since it's mixed with sand and other non-oil elements that cost a fortune to remove. So the fact that folks are heading up to the great white north says something about how bad things have become back home. Undoubtedly, Chavez still believes that the industry can just be run by "the people" as long as it's only goal is to serve the people, but we're guessing it won't be so easy. Meanwhile, these expats flocking to Canada must be turning their money into Canadian dollars, which only pushes up that currency's value, bringing it closer to US dollar parity. Hopefully they're sending back remittances and thus reconverting.

Despite his lame stereotype about our weather (it may be true, but it's still a stereotype), he's more or less on point about our resource economy continuing to push the CAD$ towards parity with the US$, no matter how unwillingly.

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