Unstructured Finance

Two weeks of speechifying by the Dems and Reps has come to an end. Well not really–but the conventions are over. And for all the talk, there is one issue that got short-shrift–a solution to the nation’s still unfolding housing crisis.

Oh sure, there was talk about foreclosures and people struggling to pay the mortgages on their homes, but not a lot time for potential solutions.  And that’s unfortunate because as has been noted many times before, it’s going to be hard for the U.S. economy to take off as long as too many consumers are being crushed by mortgage debts they can barely afford.

Indeed, the disappointing August jobs report is a sober reminder of just how much work remains to get the economy humming again.  As we’ve said many times before on U,F it all still comes down to fixing housing, housing housing.

And after a long time without it, we welcome back Sam Forgione and his weekend reads:

From AR:

Managing a tail-risk hedge fund is trickier now than it was in 2008, writes Jan Alexander.

By Jennifer Ablan and Matthew Goldstein

Class warfare has been the topic du jour this year and is likely to be a major theme of the 2012 election. In a speech two weeks ago, President Barack Obama blasted his Republican foes and Wall Street as he portrayed himself as a champion of the middle class.

In a speech meant to echo a historic address given by former President Theodore Roosevelt in the same Kansas town more than 100 years ago, Obama railed against “gaping” economic inequality and pressed the case for policies he insisted would help ordinary Americans get through hard times.

Not surprisingly, some hedge fund managers were none too pleased.

In fact, hedge-fund industry titan Leon Cooperman “front-ran” Obama’s populist speech by widely circulating an “open letter” to Obama, arguing that “the divisive, polarizing tone of your rhetoric is cleaving a widening gulf, at this point as much visceral as philosophical, between the downtrodden and those best positioned to help them.”