This is a story about Tammy Sue Lane in La Vergne, Tennessee and what’s happening there and elsewhere in the American housing market.
When the area was developed some fifteen years ago, whoever built the homes there must have had a daughter named Tammy Sue. He named one of the streets after her and I think it would be interesting to find her. She’s probably in her early twenties now. Where do you suppose she is? Do you think she knows about the modern-day disaster happening on her lane?
My god, here’s another thought: do you suppose dad comped her a home there and she’s still living in it? Spooky thought, huh?
The other part of the story is corrupt, but fascinating.
When I say ‘corrupt,’ I don’t mean any laws have been broken. I refer to the kind of moral corruption that infects the hinterlands in America as we become more estranged from one another and monied interests move against the well-being of ordinary Americans. You know the people I’m talking about—hard working folks that circumstance has put on the dark side of survival.
The story begins with Don Mullen Jr., shown above with his wife. Don is CEO of Pretium Partners, a hedge fund who bought up some 19 of the fifty or so homes on Tammy Sue Lane. According to the Washington Post,
“While the documents do not identify most of the other investors, they show that an outsize share of the potential profit was earmarked for Donald R. Mullen Jr., founder and chief executive of Pretium Partners, and others in the firm.
“Mullen is well known in financial circles for his tenure at Goldman Sachs, where he helped oversee that firm’s lucrative bet against U.S. housing and mortgage markets ahead of the 2008 crisis. That bet, a strategy popularly known as “the Big Short,” allowed Goldman to profit as markets plummeted.”