Forbes' publisher needs to check facts

Orange County Register business columnist Jon Lansner writes that Forbes publisher Rich Karlgaard needs to check his facts before he goes off slamming business journalists for leading the economy into a recession.

Lansner took particular offense at Karlgaard stating that the savings and loan crisis costing $700 billion.

Lansner wrote, “Sounds good. But wrong. $700 billion? Where did he get that? So you know the true history, which your blogger lived as a reporter, it goes like this from government docs (like THIS ONE) ….

• The government’s Resolution Trust Corp., between 1989 and 1995, liquidated 747 failed S&Ls that owned worth $400 billion in assets. (Most of the assets were worth more than a few pennies.)
• RTC losses on those S&Ls was estimated at $87 billion.
• Add in the cost of S&Ls that failed from 1986 to 1989 and the cost bumps up to $156 billion. (82% of that was taxpayer funded, by the way!)
• If one assumes those outlays were made equally, on average, from 1986-95, in today’s dollars the S&Ls added up to a $250 billion mess.

“Sadly, the subprime crisis is approaching the cost of the S&L crisis. And, perhaps worse, many of the bad S&L debts were to developer types — not to mom and pop home buyers who took out subprime loans. So, Rich, do your homework before sliming your own craft!”

Read more here.