Time to Buy?--the whole store

Being a former Richmonder, I've been keeping an eye on the shares of Circuit City (CC).

It closed today at 37 cents per share. That's down from the all time high of $30.39 on May 30, 2006. Now, I know CC has had it's problems. But 37 cents?

That means the market cap today is $65 million. Circuit City owns 682 superstores and 11 other stores in the U.S. according to Yahoo Finance and did business out of 779 Canadian stores. They also own a retail electronics website business.

Let's do the math. $65 mil. divided by 1472 stores comes to a market cap of $44,158 per store. We'll throw the website in for free. I know, I know, they're sitting on $288 million in debt. Divide that by 1472 stores and add the debt to the price and it comes to $239,810 per store.

Circuit City is valued by Wall Street at $240,000 per store?!?!? Yes they're bleeding cash, but golly jeeez, that's $140,000 less than the median price of a home in California this year!

Anyone out there who can explain that, I'd like to hear. Something can't be right.

Double Entendre

A good friend told me yesterday that corporate execs are presently sitting in board rooms around the country making tough decisions that affect us all.

They don't know whether to lay Mary or Jack off. (. . . or jack off.)

Depending on how you read that, they're either choosing between Mary and Jack or choosing between screwing employees and pleasuring themselves.

I had to laugh.

WTF?

What are you thinking, McC?

Billary is/are the one/two who is/are credited with the idea of the government buying stressed mortgages up and renegotiating them. As an example, someone put zero down on a house that is now worth $20,000 less than they owe with an interest rate that has recently gone to 3% more than it was before it adjusted. Uncle Sam buys the mortgage and "re-adjusts" it to what the house appraises for now and at the current interest rate.

This is supposed to be good bc. the bank doesn't have to foreclose and so real estate prices supposedly will stop falling. The bank avoids suffering by dumping the bad loan. The homeowner gets to stay in the house and gets a reduced payment and mortgage. But the taxpayer has to come up with the money to buy the loan and has to eat the $20,000 loss.

Here's a clue, McC: Barry beat the snot out of Billary. He'll beat the snot out of you if you insist on this.

Picture this. My neighbor and I bought our houses at about the same time--2005, the height of the bubble. One of us put 20% down and did a 30 year fixed rate mortgage. One of us put 10% down with a three year ARM. The interest rate has now adjusted and we can't afford the payment. Prices in the 'hood are now down 20% so the former of us has a house that is worth what we owe, the other has a house that is worth 10% less than what we owe. One of us can afford to continue making payments, one of us cannot.

Billary and now McC want the government to buy the mortgage of the house that's under water, adjust the mortgage principle down and the interest rate down so that what's owed is now only what the house is worth. The tax payers pick up the dif. So the one guy gets a lower mortgage and a lower payment for nothing and the other guy was a sucker for saving up for a 20% down payment. Asininity at it's finest.

But "fair". I guess you can say that it's "fair".

Like hell.

There is no way that even this Congress could be so stupid as to pass this thing.

But I've been amazed before. If they do seriously consider this monstrosity, let me suggest a couple of riders to the bill. Anyone who gets this Stressed Mortgage Assistance is banned, for as long as they own the house, from having cable TV. They will be allowed one motor vehicle per family. Any extra cars, as well as any boats, campers, jet skis, or pleasure boats will be auctioned to the highest bidder before the government will buy their mortgage. Auctioned also will be the flat screen TV, DVD player, central air conditioner, dryer, and microwave oven in every one of these houses. Don't need 'em, use a clothes line. (This by the way should be named The Green Amendment bc. it will not only save the taxpayer money, it will save electricity and, thus, prevent global warming.) Limit cell phones to one per family. All credit cards are canceled save one (for emergencies) with a $1,000 limit. A vacation prohibition will take effect: anyone getting mortgage relief who is caught going to Disney, the Bahamas, Atlantic City, or on a cruise for five years will immediately forfeit all Stressed Mortgage Assistance.

Come on, McC, get a grip.