@gpo613 -I never worked in public accounting, my entire career was in corporate accounting ( which I loved).
Agree with everything you said.
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@gpo613, I wasn’t in public accounting either but have done a lot of things. I mostly agree with you. The PPP thing was helpful for some smaller companies to keep staff on but the overall effect was mostly to pay lots of companies that did nothing for employees.
With a few exceptions (like 3G Capital), most PE funds by definition have a 5-7 year investment horizon. While I have seen some painfully inefficient companies that would have benefitted from a shot in the arm from an activist or PE investor, I see a lot of short-term plundering by PE firms. And their interest may squelch productive investment: I had a biotech client that essentially stopped anything new while it was being stalked by an activist investor.
And tax laws are clearly unfair to salaried employees relative to those with capital and flexibility.
Alas, that is the world in which we must make decisions.
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I agree with what you all are saying, but one quick thing on PPP - I sit on the board of a small non-profit daycare center, and the PPP loan was the difference between staying open and closing, for us. So I think they were not all bad! (I’m on the board because all three of my kids went there and I started as a parent rep.)
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I have a relative who is a single medical practitioner.
The PPP loans were essential to keeping the practice open and everyone employed. In our state, almost all elective medical procedures were stopped, it was tough
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@fretfulmother and @deb922 I agree that there were a lot of people who needed PPP loans and it kept them afloat and people employed. But there were a lot of people who abused the system (including a family member of mine). Interesting that there seems to be no outcry over “fraud” within that system.
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I once had the chain come off and fly across the lawn (it fortunately missed me). I have not used a chainsaw since.
I find that a business card, a phone, and a check book used in the right combination are very effective at cutting down trees.
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I totally agree, I’m going to try to steer in that direction for some of the dicier trees.
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Totally agree!
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So… I’m sitting at the major bank that we’ve banked at for 25 years, borrowed plenty of money from, never a late payment. Borrowed probably ten million over our lifetime, never a bad loan or late payment, good pension income, refinancing a HELOC on a property that has no mortgage and will be 20% loan to value. Gave them 25 times the liquid assets they required, and now they want about 80 pages of statements to show them our small accounts.
Nothing you give them is ever enough, and I’m wondering if long time customers with 40+ years of credit history and assets are having such a hard time, who are they lending money to?
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Had a similar experience. Co signed with S on his coop mortgage to get a more favorable rate. Have significant assets at this bank, but had to fill out/provide a lot of documentation on my credit. Asked my FA what was up and it had to do with the Bank wanting to resell the loan which required a set standard of documentation and disclosures.
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Maybe that’s it, reselling the loan? I was thinking it was that they were a giant machine, not looking at the overall picture that we’d had several HELOCs with them before, and a 25 yr history, they just have to check all blocks.
I was thinking about a loan officer that we used to deal with at this bank, who has retired. One time she was on the phone with the underwriter, slapping the table and yelling, “Give them the money! Give them the money!” 
Seems that you got all these old people who are in a stable situation, with zero risk, give them the dang money or they might just move on. I hate borrowing money.
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IDK about fraud within Private-Public Partnership (PPP) – it depends on overseeing. It seems there has been a lot of fraud with small business loans in CA (and maybe in many other states).
But this is getting off topic.
The difference is having retirement income versus being a working person.
A friend of mine made sure they purchased their second (and what is going to be their ‘forever home’) while her husband still was employed. They both had very high-earning careers - she just happened to be with one employer for a long time and could retire earlier (both in the oil business/Houston) on the data/business side of things. Once they purchased the home, they made improvements. They had a water problem in their Katy TX home and had to get that repaired before they put that on the market.
You probably are just dealing with bankers that have a lot of employee turnover, have employees making bad decisions, and/or ‘feel better’ by having a ton of information to make a decision.
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We got a very hard time from our credit union getting the HELOC we have now because by the time they finished with the application process (it took about four months due to their incompetence), we had retired. They couldn’t seem to conceive that a pension is actually more stable than a job that you could be furloughed or fired from, and didn’t want to use retirement assets to qualify us.
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I get it, and most people with sense would get it as well. Somehow in some financial circles you wonder how they got there. Totally agree about pension income, but you must have gotten the HELOC pushed through…. did the credit union say what took so long? You say incompetence - were you dealing with back and forth between their approval offices? I can’t imagine you not having ‘elevated it’ as the CU fumbled along…..
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I got it elevated three to their board three times for various ridiculous issues. Like telling me I had to double my homeowners insurance to match the estimated value of the home, not the rebuild value. Of course, no insurance company will insure the land, which is probably 70% of the value of our property. And telling me they couldn’t consider our 401K’s to be assets, along with thinking our pensions weren’t really income. Just stupid stuff.
Two times they acknowledged receiving ridiculous amount of documents, then two weeks later they’d ask me to send the same ones, claiming they hadn’t been received. It was so much incompetence in action, I can’t believe got approved. It wasn’t even a large amount. It’s making me irritated just thinking about it. 
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I think 401ks are protected from creditors so they wouldn’t be considered collateral.
For them not to acknowledge that 70% of your property value is land and not the home…..wow, just wow.
Of course, we had a relatively new loan agent, and she knew the vehicle was used - but she didn’t communicate that the car needed to be a year ‘newer’ for their auto rate. Wasted my time, my DH’s time, and our daughter’s BF’ time.
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I think the collateral for a HELOC is the home you’re borrowing against. Should you default, I believe that’s the only thing they can go after. I’m guessing maybe they’re looking for other assets to make them feel better that you have cash to assess if you need it to pay your debts.
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Tax cuts to Seniors are good for Seniors today. But not tomorrow. I’m not sure any of us are planning for - what if our social security is reduced.
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