Pot-Laced Tour Bus Becomes Property of FDIC as U.S. Banks Go Up In Smoke

[marmar]

Marijuana-Reeking Tour Bus, Red Ferrari Are FDIC’s Crisis Booty
By James Sterngold


Dec. 22 (Bloomberg) -- The financial crisis that popped the real estate bubble and pushed U.S. bank failures to a 17-year high landed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. a rapper’s tour bus that reeked of marijuana.

“It smelled so bad of pot after one tour that they had to completely pull out most of the interior and replace it,” said Jerry Jenkins, who sold the bus at Penny Worley Auctioneers after the FDIC acquired it in the collapse of an Atlanta bank. “By the time we got it, it was almost brand-new.”

Worley Auctioneers, based in Maineville, Ohio, has the FDIC to thank for the bus, not to mention a red 2001 Ferrari, an eight-foot palm tree and stacks of unwanted office furniture -- the detritus of 140 banks closed by the agency this year. Worley Auctioneers, Rick Levin & Associates and Tranzon Asset Strategies, the three firms hired by the FDIC to sell furnishings from shuttered branches and warehouses stuffed with repossessed collateral, are having a banner year.

The FDIC has reaped $6.2 million from the sale of so-called other assets in 2009, six times the total last year, according to the agency. While that’s a sliver of the $38.3 billion of failed bank assets that the FDIC held as of Sept. 30, any cash is useful after the surge in crippled lenders sent the FDIC’s deposit insurance fund into the red.

“Business has been good,” said Penny Worley, who opened her firm in 1993. “This can be a daunting task, because there are so much and so many different things. There’s an occasional Dali. There are rare gold coins.” .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aUtZYWxFdgcI&pos=10

[Swamp Rat]

1. I want it, i want it, I want it, I want it ........

Every day I get in the queue (Too much, the Magic Bus)
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Think how much you'll save...(You can't have it!)]
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Thruppence and sixpence every day
Just to drive to my baby
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'Cause I drive my baby every way

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As I drive my baby in my Magic Bus (Too much, the Magic Bus)