As he grew old, he seemed to be both the physical and the spiritual inspiration for Montgomery Burns.

Call me old fashioned, but in my day we had the decency to wait until the body was cold before unleashing the hatchet job postmortem.

with more money than Alex Rodriguez and Scott Bora put together

Was Caple in such a rush to get his tirade to press that an editor didn't at least take a quick glance at his copy?

Of course, I don't know much about this Carl Pohlad guy. Maybe he really was one mean-old SOB.

Scott Bora? I hate Scott Bora!

Pohlad owned his team longer than any current owner other than George Steinbrenner, purchasing the Twins in 1984.

I hadn't realized Jerry Reinsdorf had died.

A good start to 2009. These things happen in threes? Ted Rogers, Carl Pohlad,....please be Bud, please be Bud????

The world is a slightly better place today. Good luck foreclosing property in hell, Carl.

Call me old fashioned, but in my day we had the decency to wait until the body was cold before unleashing the hatchet job postmortem.

Call me older fashioned, but in my day, we didn't wait until the person was dead to unleash the hatchet job.

De mortuis nil nisi . . . ah, screw it.

In the immortal words of Marshal Thibido: The day they lay you away, what I'll do on your grave won't pass for flowers.

Or to paraphrase Louis Armstrong, "I'm so glad that you're dead, you rascal you."

I'm still shocked that no one here is bothering to, at the very least, disguise their joy in another person's death.

I hadn't realized Jerry Reinsdorf had died.

The Tribune Company has also owned the Cubs since 1981, but that may not count, since the ownership of the Tribune Company itself has changed.

We went over this yesterday. He was a good man who gave away tons of money and lots of time to many fine organizations in his life. He founded Boys and Girls Clubs in Mpls for goodness sake. He wasn't a monster. He was formed in the Depression and insisted on running his businesses in the black. With a small market team that meant a small payroll. But when he had good home grown talent he wrote the checks. And when the revenue sharing started in the mid-90s he was right there improving the team and eventually showing up in October. When he reached the point where the stadium was within reach he threw down $150m. He was thrifty, sure, even sorta cheap, but as an owner he had his good points. Compared to Calvin Giffith he was Mr Vegas. There were certainly moments of utter cheapness (Knoblauch? David Ortiz? Viola?), but they didn't compare to the parade of middle to good talent that was shoved out under Cal (Carew, Smalley, Wynegar, Gary Ward). MN fans have seen brutally cheap ownership and Carl fell short of the established mark.

The only things to really hold against him were the threats to move the team if he didn't get a stadium and the profoundly evil threat to contract the team. The former happened in several cities (Hello FL: is Magowan this vilified in SF?) and the latter is simply inexcusable. In time that'll likely overshadow much of the good he did in his life. But geez, it's a 93 year old guy with a family that gave tens of millions of dollars to charity every year, cut him some slack the week of his passing.

The only things to really hold against him were the threats to move the team if he didn't get a stadium and the profoundly evil threat to contract the team. The former happened in several cities (Hello FL: is Magowan this vilified in SF?) and the latter is simply inexcusable.

Magowan never threatened to move the Giants to Flordia. In 1992 Bob Lurie, the previous owner, was about to sell the team to Vince Naimoli, who would have moved the team to Tampa. Magowan and company stepped up and bought the team to keep it in San Francisco. They signed Bonds in 1992/93 offseason (before even completing the sale of the team) and announced the privately financed Pac Bell Park in early 1995.

I never understood the don't knock the guy right after he died. If the guy was dick are you supposed to pretend that he was a great guy when discussing him?

But I also don't see a point in pointing out he may have been a dick unless you just have people talking about how great he was. I'm not going to espn.com so I don't know if there was a pro-Pohlad article up today.

Note: I have no idea if Pohlad was a dick or not and I wouldn't suggest going to his funeral to call him a dick.

Call me old-fashioned, but in my day we didn't say "dick" four times in five sentences about a guy who just died.

Three times, max.

I should've tried to work in a few more dicks. (That's what she said!)

It's the same as with a ballplayer. We only really see a small part of the person's life. Folks who are routinely villified in public may be wonderful people in person and vice versa (see another Twin connection). I don't like how Pohlad dealt with his team and thought he was a crappy owner. That doesn't mean he was a bad guy. I don't think we're obligated to gloss over failings in a person at the time of their death but I think we are obligated to take a bigger picture look at the entirety of their lives. Very few of us could get no one to come forward to call us a dick and very few of us could get no one to come and defend us.


Oh, and dick.

####, balls.

Well, I don't know when your day is, but as long ago as 1599 people knew that The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones;

As he grew old, he seemed to be both the physical and the spiritual inspiration for Montgomery Burns.

Call me old fashioned, but in my day we had the decency to wait until the body was cold before unleashing the hatchet job postmortem.

I read stuff like this about Pohlad long before he died.

I have tried to stay out of this because I am an old-fashioned and want to let family the chance to grieve.

But let's not let recent events color our view of someone's ENTIRE life.

Just look at the article in the local paper. Carl got his career going by handling foreclosures of farms. (As some may be aware, I am a retired farmer with family throughout the Midwest.) Sure, somebody had to do the work. But let's not overlook that not just ANYONE can handle this role. And the process was a LOT more blunt than it is in modern times. In fact it typically involved showing up with a deputy and telling families to get out. Immediately. And if someone wants to call "BS" I suggest you do your homework first.

In the same article his son is quoted (I believe it's his son) who discussed how his father took "distressed companies" and made money. That means Mr. Pohlad either liquidated or restructured companies. Again, nothing wrong with that. But he was an early version of what became commonplace in the 1980's and 1990's. So he was a bit of a trailblazer which is to his credit. But again, not pleasant work. Profitable. But I doubt too many HERE are comfy with someone who pushed workers on the street for monetary gain.

That was his professional life in very broad strokes. Can't speak nor won't "guess" as to his personal life.

Mr. Pohlad did things to make money.

Mr. Pohlad did things to make money.

I have no doubt that many of those things were rather unsavory, as you note. Yet, by all accounts, Mr. Pohlad also gave a good chunk of that money away to worthy causes. People are complicated.

"I should've tried to work in a few more dicks. (That's what she said!)"

Mr. Brown - I mean all the time, morning, day, night, afternoon, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick.

Mr. Blue - How many dicks was that?

Mr. Brown - A lot.

I have no doubt that many of those things were rather unsavory, as you note. Yet, by all accounts, Mr. Pohlad also gave a good chunk of that money away to worthy causes. People are complicated.

But if you grew up in Minnesota as a huge baseball fan (as I did) there is nothing that will ever make up for the fact that the bastard tried to contract the Twins.

I'm a logical person and I fully understand on an intellectual level that I know about less than 1% of the things he ever did and that he was partly responsible for some moments of great joy in my life (1987 and 1991).

On a visceral level, though, (and the visceral level is where we all presumably love baseball as opposed to the logical level where we appreciate and study it) he tried to take something that legally belonged to him and make it go away when there were thousands of us who felt that in some way it was ours and he had no business conspiring with the loathsome Mr. Selig to take it away. The "don't judge him by one act when he did a lot of other good" argument was also tried by the Manson girls' lawyers and I found it just as convincing then. Plus, he threw us in a bucket with the frickin' Expos. The EXPOS!!!!!

Dick ain't strong enough.

he only gave away a teensy weensy bit of his ENORMOUS fortune

i know good n well that he made his money by hurting other people. you have to be completely indifferent to the existence of other souls to do what he did. over and over.

and his forclosing stuff is what he wanted to do with the twins franchise. he didn't NEED the money, he could perfectly well have just sold the team. but the fact that he would injure millions of other people is like - so what - to someone like him

you can't make up for that by giving a few dollars to a few charities here and there

- don't think that dick is exactly the right word.

prick neither

or any other word that has anything to do with penises. or testicles.

I have no doubt that many of those things were rather unsavory, as you note. Yet, by all accounts, Mr. Pohlad also gave a good chunk of that money away to worthy causes. People are complicated.

Guilt, the 19th century robber barons also tended to be quite charitable, especially in their later years.

this is from Wikipedia:

Pohlad got his start in the banking business by foreclosing farms during the Great Depression, his ruthlessness, and unmeasurable capacity for seeing people homeless was chronicled in several folk songs of that era.

There's no cite for that quote, don't know if its true or not, but if there were songs about Pohlad I'm sure some enterprising Primate will find them.

don't think that dick is exactly the right word.

prick neither

or any other word that has anything to do with penises. or testicles.

But it isn't too far away, is it?

Anyway, my comment that people are complicated was not intended to excuse any of the bad that anyone does, or minimize the specific bads that Pohlad did, or to somehow balance the books on his life. Just that we shouldn't be surprised to find that bad people do some good things, or vice versa.

Post 25:

Well, a poster earlier termed him a "good man". I believe that characterization to be up to each person's judgement and as such cannot shut down others from having alternative views.

I have no doubt that many of those things were rather unsavory, as you note. Yet, by all accounts, Mr. Pohlad also gave a good chunk of that money away to worthy causes. People are complicated.

Not that giving to charities isn't a worthy cause, and not that extraordinarily rich people that donate portions of their largess shouldn't be lauded and thanked for it...

...but have you ever heard of anyone worth 8 to 9 figures that didn't donate sizable sums to charity?

As far as how Mr. Pohland made his fortune, well... buzzards and vultures gotta eat, too, I guess - but I'm certainly not very objective thanks to a story my grandfather (also a farmer) told me about the double suicide of his depression-era neighbors the next farm over.

"I should've tried to work in a few more dicks. (That's what she said!)"

It's Cole Porter time!

I'm a maid who would marry
And would no longer tarry,
I'm a maid who would marry,
May my hopes not miscarry!
I'm a maid mad marry
And will take double-quick
Any Tom, Dick or Harry,
Any Tom, Harry or Dick.
Dick, dick, dick,
A dicka dick,
Dick, dick, dick,
A dicka dick,
Dick, dick, dick,
A dicka dick,
Dick, dick, dick,
A dicka dick!

It has been interesting to read some of the articles this week about Pohlad's great loyalty. If you earned his loyalty, he was loyal forever. He had handshake deals for a contract with his GM. Once he liked his manager, he said publicly that they'd be with the team as long as they wanted to. That's all folksy and great, and it worked out well in many respects. but I think that is also his downfall in many respects. I think he grew to be very loyal to Bud Selig over the years, and Bud convinced him that he needed a stadium to compete and he had to play hardball to get it and that if he couldn't get a stadium, he needed to just get out of the business. He tried to sell the team, but there were no takers and MLB offered him more to contract it. It was more than that, but in the end, that's what it boils down to. It stunk as a fan, but he ran his team like a business and got some unfortunate advice. He wasn't making much money, and he found someone willing to pay him more than anyone else thought that the team was worth. He only got into baseball to save the team in the first place, and no one was around to bail him out when he was tired of it. He could afford to do otherwise, but I don't expect anyone to make bad business decisions to support my entertainment.

I've always been confused by his beginnings in foreclosure. It's my understanding that banks don't make money on foreclosures. If the property is worth more than is owed, then the owner can sell it and make some profit. If it's not, then the bank takes it back, but gets back a property that is worth less than they lent....so they loose money. Maybe there is a strategy about foreclosing on certain properties at certain times to get back relatively more from your bad loans than the next bank, but I don't see it as a grand money making scheme. Maybe there was something else going on that I'm not aware of, but the demonizing of bankers doesn't make sense.

I've always been confused by his beginnings in foreclosure. It's my understanding that banks don't make money on foreclosures. If the property is worth more than is owed, then the owner can sell it and make some profit. If it's not, then the bank takes it back, but gets back a property that is worth less than they lent....so they loose money. Maybe there is a strategy about foreclosing on certain properties at certain times to get back relatively more from your bad loans than the next bank, but I don't see it as a grand money making scheme. Maybe there was something else going on that I'm not aware of, but the demonizing of bankers doesn't make sense.

The process was a very, very, very different animal 70+ years ago.

It's my understanding that banks don't make money on foreclosures.

You can most certainly make money on foreclosure. An easy example is you have Ma and Pa Kettle on property that is now worth X but when they bought it was worth X/10. And now they are behind. Kick them off and sell. Pretty simple and profitable.

And if you are going to ask why the owner doesn't sell it's because the owner doesn't WANT to sell or the owner doesn't know the land's true value. Remember, this was 70 years ago. Folks had minimal means of getting information.

Setting aside making money being the agent dealing with these matters takes a certain type of person as the process can be very emotional for the folks being impacted. In the Star-Tribune Pohlad as a young man was described as "emotionless".

Jeez, this is an absolute lovefest compared with what people said after Bill Wirtz died.

Emperor Palpatine was a candy-a** compared to Wirtz.

An easy example is you have Ma and Pa Kettle on property that is now worth X but when they bought it was worth X/10. And now they are behind. Kick them off and sell. Pretty simple and profitable.

Plus, with a family farm foreclosure, you can knock down the house, the barn, etc., and sell 100% of the land as farm land to agribusiness.

Jeez, this is an absolute lovefest compared with what people said after Bill Wirtz died.

'course, Dollar Bill made his money in liquor, so he had that going for him.

Jeez, this is an absolute lovefest compared with what people said after Bill Wirtz died.

Blackhawks fans booed during the moment of silence for him. That's how hated he was.

Depression era? How the hell old was Pohlad? I mean, if you are 90 today, you were, what? in your teens in the depression? How was he some great banker in his teens?

Blackhawks fans booed during the moment of silence for him. That's how hated he was.

I thought that the booing was because, immediately preceding the moment of silence, a statement was made about continuing to run the franchise in the way that Wirtz would have wanted.

In terms of hated owners, I'd have to guess that Harold Ballard would also be among the all time leaders. Actually, now that I think about it, it seems like there would be a lot of hockey guys on the list of most hated owners.

bunyon:

He was 93 when he died and left college to work for his family.

Which fits actually. Foreclosing WAS a dirty business, a young guy could get ahead doing what others didn't want to handle and if you got RESULTS you could springboard a career.

Which is exactly what happened.......

let me ask how many of all yall guys would have CHOSEN to do what he did for a career

he had complete and total unawareness of other human beings as human beings

- it is people like him who i would love to hear their defense of their life on judgement day and yeh i know theres lots of you disbelieve in judgement day. but as for me, i wonder how people like pohlad ever justified their actions to themselves

i wonder how people like pohlad ever justified their actions to themselves

Probably something like, "It's not my fault that some deadbeat can't pay his bills."

I suppose that works out, HW.

He was 93 when he died and left college to work for his family.

Now that's what I call multitasking!

I have no doubt that many of those things were rather unsavory, as you note. Yet, by all accounts, Mr. Pohlad also gave a good chunk of that money away to worthy causes. People are complicated.

Rich men often try and buy their way out of hell.

Rich men often try and buy their way out of hell.

Satan doesn't want him--he's afraid he's come to foreclose.

Best Regards

John

Maybe there is a strategy about foreclosing on certain properties at certain times to get back relatively more from your bad loans than the next bank, but I don't see it as a grand money making scheme. Maybe there was something else going on that I'm not aware of, but the demonizing of bankers doesn't make sense.

Generally speaking foreclosure is loss mitigation from the bank's POV
but laws vary from state to state
you have had in various times and places schemes whereby:
1: House is worth 10
2: Owners fall behind, when owing 8, and get foreclosed
3: Bank buys house at foreclosure sale with bid of 1
4: Owners still owe 7 (8-1)*
5: Bank markets and sells house for 10 (which means bank has come out ahead)
6: Owners still owe 7 - any penny of that collected by the bank represents a windfall-

In most states such schemes have been cut off by changes in the law- in the state I practice in 9/10 foreclosures are loss mitigation- the bank is not profiting merely minimizing their loss.


*This is called a deficiency judgment. In some states a homeowner still owes the difference between the foreclosure sale amount (no matter how low) and the mortgage amount. In some states the bank is only entitled to the difference between the house's estimated FMV (which they have to prove) and the mortgage amount.

When the economy is bad (like now) most foreclosure sales end up with the bank winning the foreclosure sale- because they don't bid "real" money- they bid the mortgage amount (Banks' calculate an upset price- if the bidding exceeds that amount the bank stops bidding and lets whoever bids more buy the property).

- it is people like him who i would love to hear their defense of their life on judgement day

"I was only following orders"


or

Probably something like, "It's not my fault that some deadbeat can't pay his bills."

JP elaborated on what I described above. And bankruptcy laws have evolved over time. It was almost certainly more punitive and bank friendly 70 years ago. Debt was regarded as a necessary evil and those who didn't pay as bad people.

Hence the shame.

I wasn't old enough to remember firsthand, but I certainly heard enough stories. This was a gutwrenching, lifechanging event for people. If this was Carl's stock in trade, much less at age 22, he must have been a different breed of cat..........

he must have been a different breed of cat.........

...........litter.

Best Regards

John

Thanks Harv, etc.

And if you are going to ask why the owner doesn't sell it's because the owner doesn't WANT to sell or the owner doesn't know the land's true value. Remember, this was 70 years ago. Folks had minimal means of getting information.

It seems like that is the key to the whole problem. If people were informed, there wouldn't be nearly as much of a problem. Of course if other investors/potential buyers/bankers were informed of the potential foreclosure, they could be proactive to buy/refinance the property as well. More information makes for a smooth running financial system, I guess.

More information makes for a smooth running financial system, I guess.

Only if people have an effective means of filtering out extraneous information. In a lot of cases, people are just overwhelmed by the mass that they have to dig through, much of which is intentionally designed to make this digging as hard as possible.

More information makes for a smooth running financial system, I guess.

Well, we have more information now than we've ever had. That smooth running financial systems are an illusion is a theory I'm starting to come around on.

Call me old-fashioned, but in my day we didn't say "dick" four times in five sentences about a guy who just died.

Is that even legal?

It seems like that is the key to the whole problem.

The actual problem during the Depression was tanking commodity prices, making it just about impossible for small farmers to make money. Home foreclosures weren't so much of an issue, because most non-rich people in cities were renters, and there basically were no suburbs.

When Harvey is talking about Depression-era foreclosures, he's talking about small farms.

When Harvey is talking about Depression-era foreclosures, he's talking about small farms.

One of the inter-chapters of the Grapes of Wrath does an interesting job of describing this.

The actual problem during the Depression was tanking commodity prices, making it just about impossible for small farmers to make money.

Correct. There was a huge boom in agricultural prices in the teens and '20's due to WWI, and the Communist takeover in Russia (Russia had been a HUGE grain exporter before WW I, and was basically removed from the market, and production plummeted).

This led to massive expansion of farming in the U.S. Farmers mortgaged their land to buy more land, and farming expanded to less productive land (a lot of the "Dustbowl" land was not good farmland, had recently been brought under cultivation, and was quickly worn out).

When the Depression hit, food demand fell, and that combined with general deflation (prices fell 33% between 1929 and 1933)caused agricultural commodity prices to collapse. Even without the demand fall, the farmers would have been screwed. If the price of your product falls 33% and your debt payment doesn't change, you're very likely finished as a business.

Irving Fisher wrote a landmark paper on the "Debt-deflation theory of the Great Depression'. Basically, when prices fall substantially, all debtors get ruined b/c their debt is denominated in nominal dollars, so actually goes up (in real value) when prices fall.

Well, we have more information now than we've ever had. That smooth running financial systems are an illusion is a theory I'm starting to come around on.

That still might not be enough information, though. If investors really knew the depth of the leveraging of credit default swaps, or if buyers of mortgage backed securities knew the questionable creditworthiness of the borrowers, many of the current problems might have been avoided in those two areas. There's nothing wrong with engaging in either of those areas, but they were way more profitable than they should have been because there wasn't enough information about the risk around. Either that or it was just mindless optimism about the future, but to me, mindless optimism is the definition of "not enough information".


When Harvey is talking about Depression-era foreclosures, he's talking about small farms.

I know. That is where I believe Pohlad got his start. But if, as you say, farmers can't make money, I go back to my original question of how the banker makes money by foreclosing on the fruitless, worthless land. Who's going to buy it for more than the bank was into it for?

"There's no cite for that quote, don't know if its true or not, but if there were songs about Pohlad I'm sure some enterprising Primate will find them."

Closest I could find was this one, but it's modern.

"In terms of hated owners, I'd have to guess that Harold Ballard would also be among the all time leaders."

IIRC, Andrew Freedman (a much-despised turn-of-the-century owner of the NY Giants) once had to bribe a lynch mob at the ballpark with the day's gate receipts.

Who's going to buy it for more than the bank was into it for?

An agribusiness will. The land might not support a small farmer and his family, but if the land is utilized to its fullest extent (tear down the house and the barn and the chicken coop), it might be profitable to a large farmer.

And if the bank doesn't have immediate cash flow issues, it can afford to sit on a piece of land if they don't get the price they want, and farm land prices started going back up once government subsidy programs were put in place.

That still might not be enough information, though. If investors really knew the depth of the leveraging of credit default swaps, or if buyers of mortgage backed securities knew the questionable creditworthiness of the borrowers, many of the current problems might have been avoided in those two areas. There's nothing wrong with engaging in either of those areas, but they were way more profitable than they should have been because there wasn't enough information about the risk around. Either that or it was just mindless optimism about the future, but to me, mindless optimism is the definition of "not enough information".

This is the key. The risk models for the CDO's that the CDS's are based on didn't take into account a national bear market on real estate prices. There was no historical model for it. The rub is that the perpetual bull market models the rating companies were using also didn't take into account that the quality of the credit had changed. (Well, some took that into account and now they are rich beyond belief, those diligent, timely bastards.) The information was there, but it didn't fit the model so it was ignored. You're absolutely right that investors in CDO's had no idea what they were buying, most of them. In that sense, the information flow was vastly inefficient. I'm actually enjoying researching this stuff, as painful as it may be. It's the damnedest train wreck I may ever see.

Dick ain't strong enough.

okay, butt-head! but i don't generally use such strong language.

An agribusiness will. The land might not support a small farmer and his family, but if the land is utilized to its fullest extent (tear down the house and the barn and the chicken coop), it might be profitable to a large farmer.

And if the bank doesn't have immediate cash flow issues, it can afford to sit on a piece of land if they don't get the price they want, and farm land prices started going back up once government subsidy programs were put in place.

OK. I don't hear much about large scale agribusiness and banks with abundant cash flow back then, but I'll take your word for it. I guess that boils down to part of the "not enough information" argument. Or the ever-popular "government bailing out the wrong people" plan.

When the farmer was going under it wasn't JUST the mortgage payment. It was debt accumulated over time on having to borrow money just to buy seed, etc to grow a crop to maybe pay off a portion of what was owed from LAST YEAR. Which likely included SEVERAL years of debt. And it's important to remember that back then you could buy on credit from the different stores who had their own accounts. So the bank didn't carry all of the debt.

So even if the land has depreciated the farmer has paid off some of what is owed. The bank could recoup its losses and even make a small profit.

And not everywhere was a dust bowl in the 1930's. Hence the fruitless land does not apply.

And not everywhere was a dust bowl in the 1930's. Hence the fruitless land does not apply.

No, but that is the "typical image" of the displaced Depression farmer. The Okies, "Grapes of Wrath", etc.

And, the price decline on agricultural products was much worse b/c of the expansion to less productive land that happened after 1914. Also, the newer farms on less productive land likely had more debt, and less room for error when the market turned bad.

If you were farming prime Iowa corn land that your family had owned outright for three generations, you could probably muddle through. If you were farming marginal Oklahoma land that you just purchased in 1917 with a big mortgage, you were sunk.

Obviously, these are extremes, with a whole spectrum in between.

Reading this thread, Pohlad sounds like the character in Grapes of Wrath who takes a job knocking down the farm houses of the people who grew up with so he'd be assured a paycheck.

He was almost old enough to have been a member of Minneapolis's Citizens Alliance during the 1934 Teamsters strike. Jeepers.

Correct. There was a huge boom in agricultural prices in the teens and '20's due to WWI, and the Communist takeover in Russia (Russia had been a HUGE grain exporter before WW I, and was basically removed from the market, and production plummeted).

I thought the 1920s were generally lousy time for farmers. Wasn't is one of the "sick industries" of the 1920s?

Chris:

Commodity prices did steadily decline throughout the decade from the boom period around WWI. And then completely tanked in the early 30's.

I'd nominate the de Roulet daughters and M Donald for most hated owners, but there wasn't anybody in the park to hate them.