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From: jeffrey E. [jeevacation@gmail.com]
Sent: 5/17/2016 1:56:20 PM
To: Gerald Barton
Subject: Re:

thanks for filling me in

On Tue, May 17, 2016 at 3:53 PM, Gerald Barton [REDACTED] wrote:
My Extraordinarily Talented, Outrageous Friend,

Thank you for asking how I am doing. The short answer is very well. I hope that you are in good health and continue to use your special talents to make the world a better place and for your somewhat unique amusements.

The longer answer to your question is that at the end of 2014 I closed down the office of Landmark, transferred all of the assets to pay all of the major creditors, except me, and found myself as broke as I was when you first called me that Friday after Thanksgiving, with my only remaining assets, a large capital loss, my reputation, and my energy.

Since then, our luck has been better than even an optimist like me would expect. Being free of the $500,000 a day I was fined by the OTS, after several years they abandoned this fine, which was initiated strictly to ensure that I had no opportunity to finance any new developments, I became involved with an extraordinary, large, important real estate development in Oklahoma City and two others in the D.C. area.

The bad news is that my dear friend and good partner, Aubrey McClendon, was killed in a single car accident on March 2nd of this year and the development with great potential is now either delayed or abandoned. The good news is that our involvement in a 1,000 acre development on Deep Creek Lake in western Maryland is in the process of being financed and should be underway sometime this summer. Our second project is a 405 acre development in Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, that is probably the prettiest piece of property I know of in the U.S. that is zoned and developable. Its business plan is now underway and we should be in the financing mode this fall. My impression is that there is a tremendous amount of money on the sidelines, but the top 5% or 10% that control it are terribly frightened of losing money they don’t need, while the 90% to 95% of the citizens are continuing their daily labors somewhat frightened that they are not certain where next month’s or next year’s mortgage payment is coming from.

On a lighter note, Donald Trump recently bought our development in Ireland, Doonbeg Golf Club. It has been rated the first or second best resort in Europe. To-date, to my surprise, he is managing it reasonably well, probably because he is presently devoted to an endeavor that amuses him.

Jeffrey, I want you to understand that I am extremely pleased and not at all melancholy about my present circumstances. Whenever I get an opportunity, I always visit those assets I helped create and almost without exception, I wish I had been smarter, but generally satisfied that I made a positive contribution and one much higher than normally done by my competitors, because I am fortunate that the labor focus of my life has not attracted the best and the brightest.

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