Lou Barnes

Contributor

After five years as Marketing Manager of a mountaineering clothing and equipment manufacturer and retailer (a great way to enjoy your 20s), Lou Barnes built 45-broker, two-office Spruce Real Estate in Colorado from 1978-83, spending most of his time guiding the firm through extremely high interest rates. The world of money was more fun for him than real estate, and Barnes sold Spruce and joined investment banking ranks for five years as Managing Partner of RCM Government Securities, a broker-dealer working on the early flow of mortgages to Wall Street and their related derivatives. Two of those years involved work on the heart of the savings and loan meltdown -- one of the "consultants" commuting to Texas, Arkansas and other Southwestern garden spots (fortunately, he spoke the language: his family were Okies), he was asked to figure out how deep the hole was going to be. He wrote one of the earliest accurate estimates of the ultimate cost in 1986, and was one of the first to address the necessary asset workouts. Some people thrive in a career on airplanes, and Barnes was not one of them. In 1988 the homebody began another career as a mortgage banker in Boulder, just in time to catch the terrible peak of foreclosures afflicting the greater "Oil Patch" and "Savings and Loan Belt." The firm, Boulder West, survived and thrived as a small mortgage bank -- very old-fashioned, strictly "A" paper, and based on long-term relationships with Realtors and past clients. Even with that strength, Boulder West closed in 2009, and Lou and many of his colleagues joined far-larger Premier Mortgage Group. As a marketing tool and for sanity, Lou has written a weekly column on the financial markets every Friday for 20 years.

The illusion of economic stability

Commentary: A losing battle to control banking system

Apr 17

Reality trumps Wall Street 'glee'

Commentary: New refi, loan-mod programs fall short

Apr 10

Hope for a 'decline in the rate of decline'

Commentary: Foreclosure backlog amasses

Apr 3

'Do not underestimate the power of the Fed'

Commentary: Bankers, get your priorities straight

Mar 27

Economy demands full attention

Commentary: Fed can't fight 'fire' alone

Mar 20

Search for bottom offers peek into abyss

Commentary: Administration's waiting game wears thin

Mar 13

Asset decline, but no 'Grapes of Wrath' rerun

Commentary: 'Full-on emergency requires full-on response'

Mar 6

Budget plan strands financial stability

Commentary: Yes, we can do better

Feb 27

Credit flow hinges on big-bank 'stress-test'

Commentary: Workouts won't stop 'inevitable foreclosures'

Feb 20

Treasury launches Normandy-like bank rescue

Commentary: 'Time is not on our side,' but this is best bet yet

Feb 13

Borrowing our way out of trouble

Commentary: Douse recession with credit 'hose'

Feb 6

No sign of 'weapons of mass inflation'

Commentary: Bankers, get on track or risk 'nationalization'

Jan 30

An economic Manhattan Project

Commentary: Conventional weapons can't fix financial mess

Jan 23

Judgment day for 'imperial' CEOs

Commentary: Federal recovery plan may be $2 trillion shy

Jan 16

Intercepting the credit-default spiral

Commentary: Can Obama team jumpstart lending?

Jan 9

Expect Fed to take more giant steps

Commentary: 'Foreclosure plague will defy all solutions'

Jan 5

The 4.5% mortgage myth?

Perspective: Borrowing into trouble easier than borrowing out

Dec 19

Congress forgets role in $350B whodunit

Commentary: TARP tells tale of too little, too late

Dec 12

'Mortgage Fairy' can't save us

Commentary: Financial emergency may prompt pre-Obama action

Dec 5

Fed seeks to avoid Great Depression II

Commentary: Just in time for Thanksgiving

Nov 26

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