TC Sidewalks looks into the precipitous decline of one of Minnesota’s best-known salesmen: The rise and fall of Hecker reminds me about how central suburban greenfield development, home construction, and auto sales have become to the US economy. It’s depressing to think that so much of the US GDP depends on the mindless-construction of planned obsolescence homes in empty farmland, and selling new homeowners the broken dream of remote country living. Hecker honed this to a fine art, attaching his name to a package of car loans, home loans, and easy financing. It turns out, it was all a sham. Now he’s up to his neck in law suits, while the US auto companies, parts suppliers, mortgage brokers, investment banks, and construction firms go belly up one by one.
The Rise and Fall of Denny Hecker
Jun 29 2009 — 12:34pm
21 Reader Comments
12:52 pm
Nobody walks!
1:04 pm
While reportedly talking about Denny Hecker, TC Sidewalks soon slides into the tired old urban hipster surburban hate that we see too often on this site:
Suburban growth seems like a terribly wasteful way to operate a national economy. Much of the time, it means constructing brand new homes, shopping centers, schools, and sewers at the outskirts of town while simultaneously depopulating and tearing down homes, shopping centers, and schools in the middle of the city or in the first-ring suburbs. The network of real estate developers, banks, home construction firms, food corporations, big boxes, and auto dealers line US freeways in an endless loop of new construction and obsolescence, peddling giant homes and an endless stream of shiny products that nobody really needs… Is this really all we have to offer? Shouldn’t there be another way to make money? Isn’t new retail development just vulturing away the old retail development? Does economic growth have to come at the expense of our cities?
(Yawn) Save yer new urbanist rant for another time, city slicker.
1:14 pm
True that Bob…No mention of the multitude of condo developments and conversions, lining the pockets those same developers.
This whole fiasco comes down to one simple fact: We as Americans spend more than we make. We thought we could justify it by inflating real estate and thereby inflating personal wealth. In reality we never had the wealth nor the money that we so frivoluously pissed away.
Unfortunately the hangover rippled through the entire global financial compley.
1:36 pm
Let’s stick to Hecker. He’s asking court to change the venue of his personal bankrupcy hearings from Duluth to the Twin Cities.
Wondering: did Hecker list his Crow Wing County home as his primary residence to get a property tax break? If so, the court should say “no deal.”
1:41 pm
I wonder if Denny’s entourage stops for a caramel roll in hinkley on the way up to court?
1:45 pm
@justpbob: I wouldn’t be so quick to condemn “tired old urban hipster suburban hate.” The point he makes about new retail vulturing away at old retail makes sense, as does the uber-proliferation of chain stores and franchises on every street corner … especially in the city.
I have, for example, four Walgreens stores located now within a 3-mile radius of where I live; two are within a 1-1/2 of each other. Such a distribution might make sense in a world that was less dependent upon the automobile, but I have to wonder how successful each store is independent of the others.
It’s all done in the name of “economic growth.”
2:00 pm
This crowd won’t let you get away the moderate reason, Bob.
Denny Hecker sold Cars, Bob. Cars.
2:03 pm
I bet….just a hunch…that if you ask your average 80 year old “how far they like to venture out in their automobile?”…80 out of 100 would tell you no more than 3 miles.
I love walgreens, I can get sudafed a couple white t-shirts, a can of Ice tea and a squirt gun all for less than 20 bucks…
I love America…even if all the crap I buy is from china.
2:06 pm
Rat: Wayno and Vlad don’t seem to be here anymore.
While most of the rest of us are definitely pro-transit, those two were pretty much the only ones that were anti-car. And even vlad drove to the Boundary Waters.
2:13 pm
My hunch comes courtesy of the car ride I took with my grandma yesterday.
In her own words:
“I don’t like to drive to your parents house cause of that crazy newfangled intersection they put on the townline…it used to be a straight shot down Minnetonka Blvd”
The crazy newfangled intersection is a left turn yield onto highway 101 at the “townline” which refers to highway 62….BTW the drive was never a straight shot down Minnetonka Blvd, but for the sake of brevity I didn’t bring this up to her.
2:15 pm
note: When I am old and crazy…instead of making excuses to my grandchildren about why they have to cart me around I will simply tip my gabbardine cap and state: “I prefer to be driven”
2:16 pm
Denny started his own mortgage business, too. He’d sell anything you would buy, just as long as you weren’t walking.
2:20 pm
“It wasn’t much of a post, and though I still think it was a slanderous anti-pedestrian taunt….”
Our buddy the blogger hasn’t abandoned his suspicion.
He ought to switch to the freezer foil instead of the tinfoil for his hat. It’s a little thicker.
2:27 pm
While tinfoil is more comfortable, it doesn’t matter whether it was intended or not. Nobody Walks is the Hecker ideology in a nutshell.
The Segway is proof that technology is always striving to find a replacement for anything it can. In that case, a technological replacement for feet is the ultimate refrigerator to an eskimo. In Hecker’s case, his Ponzi attempts to sell you always more cars and houses is kind of emblematic. It’s like lifestyle fastfood.
2:44 pm
I am not sure about any Ponzi like elements. He catered to a riskier element and was paid handsomely for assuming the risk, unfortunately he didn’t save enough/charge high enough interest on risky loans or invest in safe enough vehicles to weather the downturn.
Whether or not he is actually guilty of fraud will play out in court.
2:51 pm
To my mind, the Ponzi element is that many of the jobs in our economy come from the construction of new homes, the sales of new products to go in the homes, the construction of the new freeways and cars to go to and from the new homes, etc. Then you get loans based on your jobs selling homes and cars to buy your own home and car.
A huge part of the post dot.com economy was predicated on consumer spending associated with the real estate bubble. And that is kind of a Ponzi scheme, in as much as it works only as long as people keep believing that their homes are increasing in value. But it sure seems like nothing really new is being produced, except for abandoned California real estate developments and trillions of dollars worth of bad loans that are ping-pong-ing all over the world’s financial system.
3:07 pm
I bet….just a hunch…that if you ask your average 80 year old “how far they like to venture out in their automobile?”…80 out of 100 would tell you no more than 3 miles.
I don’t think 80-year olds should be driving (lol). Let them call Metro Mobility, instead!
3:11 pm
“It’s like lifestyle fastfood”….and it’s gobbled up like a value menu. Denny Hecker put no income deadbeats on the road in new cars! I’m surprised he doesn’t have a thug army at his disposal ready to break him out of jail.
6:31 pm
Listen up justpbob!
“(Yawn) Save yer new urbanist rant for another time, city slicker”
If nothing else, TC Sidewalks presents ideas about the right way to live… but your post Mr. JustpBob, resorts to name calling. You city-hater, you!
7:28 am
The city used to take my milk money and taunt me when I was in school. I vowed one day I would have my revenge…
11:16 am
If nothing else, TC Sidewalks presents ideas about the right way to live…
…………….