November 13, 2007

HousingPANIC Stupid Question of the Day


Is the housing crash and mortgage meltdown the best thing that could have happened for America (after the housing bubble)?

If it doesn't kill us, will it make us stronger (and wiser)?

77 comments:

Anonymous said...

A Bushectomy would be best.

Anonymous said...

No, because as always, 90% of the benefit will go to 1% of the population. A few people made $$ as collateral damage, but overall the american population gets hosed. Ultimately, all markets will end up being set back a few years, including your precious gold. Side effects with currency devaluation and loan-issues will be hungover for years to come.

You still don't get it Keith - you're not rich enough to truly benefit from any of this.

Anyone got suggestions on the best way to clean up crappy shredded pine mulch btw? Need to remove it from a planter bed/area so I can put down some good hardwood stuff.

Anonymous said...

Pride goeth before a fall. Citizens in both the U.S. and China will learn firsthand the wisdom of that proverb.

This mistake is a generational thing IMO. We've forgotten the lessons learned 80 years ago.

Devestment said...

You still don't get it Keith - you're not rich enough to truly benefit from any of this.

This is a good point. The wealth being sucked from us all is across the board.

Anonymous said...

Funny how many people want to blame Bush for the greedy American nature.

Politicians are at best a reflection of ourselves, not a determinant.

Besides, look at all the lovely San Francisco liberals who are part and parcel of the housing greed paradigm.

That said, we will end up wiser, whether it kills us or not.

Abrey said...

Yes and No. It will take a crash for people to abandon their fantasy-based thinking that has characterized the American economy over the past decade (at least), including what people think about money, banking, investments, manufacturing, thrift & savings, real estate, business in general, and so on. Will people benefit? Largely No, until people's thinking changes. Two questions for you Keith: 1) do opinions rather than actions make and break bubbles? I have often wondered whether talking up and down a bubble is a self-fulfilling prophecy. 2) What will the general population learn from this, if anything? I am skeptical. Perhaps this can be a topic for you.

Anonymous said...

“Anyone got suggestions on the best way to clean up crappy shredded pine mulch btw?”

Try humbling yourself by getting down on your hands and knees and picking it up using a mini-rake, you arrogant, overeducated, condescending jerk!

Anonymous said...

No.

The cure will be worse than the disease......just as the housing bubble was the excuse for an economy that was foisted upon us after the dot com debacle, so the next bubble/bailout will lead to even more insanity, one way or the other.

Anonymous said...

Yes! This most definitely will have been the best thing collectively to happen to America in the past 5 years,
Why?

Well, for starters, the arrogance and evil that went on in the housing market will have been evaporated. The smug elitist attitude has already disappeared from many evil doers in the REIC. Many people, including myself and the author of this blog, believe what went on was truly "evil". Housing is supposed to be something "holy" that involves the notion of "family" and "society." This was all prostituted in the name and pursuit of "Greed". Think about it, all the flipping that went on, all the water cooler gossip about how much money you made, all the cash-out HELOC, all this was about VANITY AND GREED. And now much of this is reversing.

Secondly, on an economic scale, the purging will be very difficult indeed for many people, but that doesn't mean its not welcome. We need an economic purging even if it means we go into a 1929 style depression. We need to get back to fundamentals of good economics. Even if that means the dollar plunges even more and we as a country have to actually start producing "goods" instead of importing all the "crap" we get from China.

Thirdly, hard times bring out the best and worst in many people. These will be the times when hard work (as opposed to flipping, and lying on stated income) will become more the norm rather than the exception. In tough times, thats when you see who your real friends are.

Maybe this is exactly what the doctor ordered.

Anonymous said...

No, because we're still not treating the "cancer." By trying to manipulate economic cycles and create artificial prosperity, we lay the foundation for more bubbles. We might still see another bubble, perhaps in the stock market as the 2008 election approaches, before the whole house of cards collapses.

Anonymous said...

Maybe.

Good will come out of it, much like how the Great Depression precipitated changes to the banking system that were necessary.

I believe that the stock market, gold and housing are merely the battlefields of a fight that actually is over ideas.

The get-rich-quick crowd has preached for years that “who needs rock when we have perfectly good sand to build upon.” Too many people, seeing their riches, fell into this backwards philosophy.

It will be a hard lesson, as many of life’s lessons are, but I think we will be stronger for it

Anonymous said...

I think this will shake out, hopefully with minimum cost to those of us who have our head screwed on and did the right thing. This will help in the long run by getting people's perspective on what they really need, where they are really at in this system, and what to do about it. Like Bob Dylan said, when you got nothin you got nothin to lose. I for one had any latent materialistic consumerist impluses nipped in the bud by watching some of these Yuppie posers and 24 karat bubbas slip into bondslavery and rue the day as they drive 50 miles each way on $4 gas to their sheetrock palaces. I ain't gonna say i didn't get a couple goodies with a small HELOC but I knew when to leave it alone and paid it up quick. Yup - I think this was a tonic and will be even more so as the lean times grind on.

Anonymous said...

I've been asking myself that question a LOT lately. As much as I try to keep my chin up I keep getting feedback like BofA, Wells Fargo and Lehman REFUSE to do loans in Mass. if state regulators place restrictions on YSP.

I'm really, really trying to be positive here (after years of praying for the bubble to burst) and all we're getting are lame 11th hour damage control measures?

I hope we'll be better for it. I really hope so.

DinOR

Anonymous said...

RE: CRAPPY SHREDDED PINE MULCH DUDE....


Try using your hands!

Anonymous said...

11-13-2007

The PPT is out in force this morning trying to keep the S&P from breaking a key support level. Central banks are whacking gold below $800 to "prove" there is no inflation. Our good buddies on Wall Street need to hold it all together for another five weeks, can they do it?

enemyterrain said...

America has become a bloated and corpulent nation. We are defined by our lack of self control. The greatest generation had their great depression. Good steel comes from hot furnaces. Hopefully this depression will be the high colonic that will force us to become self reliant once again, instead of always clamoring for the governments intervention.

Anonymous said...

IMHO - In the long run yes. The lessons taught will be eventually lost because that is human nature but the generation or two that comes afterward will be stronger, more mentally tough and less likely to be duped into bullsh*t schemes. Eventually, a few generations down the line, the hard learned lessons will have to be re-taught. Apply, lather, rinse, repeat. Same as it ever was, and the days go by....

From shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations.

Anonymous said...

Too many 2nd and 3rd generation "super consumers" to consider a moral aligning. People will suffer and nobody will learn.
Did we learn form 911? Our response was a stupid, wasteful war and a shopping spree. Sure I try my best to buy silver and gold but I'd be wiped out like you all.

Anonymous said...

Long term - YES (or do we want a 20 year "softlanding" like Japan)

Short term - NO (and the FED is thinking very short term)

JimAtLaw said...

If we're lucky, people will remember it for a few years, but even that is doubtful.

The REIC bought-and-sold MSM will continue to spin the story until those responsible are forgotten, the REIC bought-and-sold politicians will do likewise and perhaps pass some more laws to confiscate wealth and earnings from the people and transfer the wealth to their campaign contributors, and the sheeple will continue the long slow slide back to true serfdom.

Anonymous said...

How much pine mulch are we talking about? If it's not that much, a simple coarse screen and shovel should do the job in about an hour.

Anonymous said...

it is just part of a overall plan to destroy america. it will not make us stronger because we will lose what freedoms we now enjoy and will be debased to third world level. too many americans have this notion that somehow they are free and this causes the banking establishment a lot of headaches because it is this feeling we have that causes us to be more difficult to whip in line. so now they are making a move to destroy america, financially. they are dead set on destroying the american middle class and stealing every dollar the baby boomers have saved up over the years. what they want is obedient slaves and they will attempt to make it so, no matter how long it takes. we stand in the way of world government and they are running behind schedule, so now the pressure is on us. either we stand or we fall. another problem they have is that so many americans are well armed. this is a problem for them at this time. the founding fathers put the second ammendment after the first because they knew that sometimes you have to use your guns to protect the first ammendment. all i can say is this. prepare for the coming world in all the ways that are necessary. for the first few years after the global depression has started, and the police state has been implemented , survival will be the major goal.

AndrewHac said...

Yes, it is the best thing that can happen here in this land of the Americano. The God-send meltdown will teach mortal Earth people that one should live within one means. Don't climb to a higher branch in the tree if you are a fat-ass bear. You will only fall on your ass harder. If you are a McDonald cashier, a pizza-hut delivery man, you do not have the right, I REPEAT: you do not have the right, or the privilege to purchase a house, even if it is in the remote region of the Appalachian mountain. Not every one on Earth here is being created by God equally, just like in the Africa sahara desert, there are LIONs and GAZELLEs. Lion eats gazelle, gazelle do not eat lion. That's just the way life is. You got that, Bubba ???

Frank R said...

Yes. The garbage needs to be flushed out.

The few normal people I know who still live in Arizona are thrilled about the crash because the fake scum who took over Scottsdale the past 5 years are getting wiped out and there's a chance the town will return to some degree of normalcy.

Anonymous said...

Merle Hazard feels our pain: "The working man gets hurt the worst, If you don't save the rich ones first!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8PwqQ5guYk

Anonymous said...

Bubbles encourage risk taking, and some risk taking is good. If the following bust is too deep, however, it can have negative consequences far in the future. I read recently that there were too few people with IT knowledge looking for jobs, because the dot-com bust discouraged that career path.

Anonymous said...

Frank,

YES YES YES YES YES YES!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Unless new laws and regulations are put in place this will all happen again in the late 2000-teens. It's a cycle that has repeated itself many, many, times.

Do you really think sheeple will learn? They will continue to jump head first into the next get rich quick scheme.

Problem is the elitists are always way ahead of them with a master plan that steals those riches the sheep so strive for.

I

Anonymous said...

Somehow I dont think that pine removal jerk was expecting an answer. He could have at least ended the statement that his flowers were in bloom

Anonymous said...

What did Angelo Mozilo learn anything from this?

consultant said...

Keith,

Have you seen this:

http://www.reuters.com/article/inDepthNews/idUSN1246626320071113?feedType=RSS&feedName=inDepthNews&rpc=22&sp=true

We haven't begun to see the end of this ugly mess.

I agree with one poster. BushCo is organizing this Wall St. fund to just put this collapse off so it happens on the next President's watch.
There ought to be a special court for these fools.

Anonymous said...

people may learn for a generation, and then they'll forget since people don't learn about history.

crime wave follows foreclosures:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21773482/

"An expected surge in home foreclosures will cause U.S. property values to sink by $223 billion"

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21774024/

Anonymous said...

Let it go folks, the crooks from Wall Street had a meeting to create more smoke & mirrors and pump the market, with the help of the corrupt CNBC. They need more fools to buy their stocks.

Does anyone believe today's market rally? Not you DOPES.

Anonymous said...

Its been good in the S/E USA because it has slowed the development beast down to a crawl.Sure...Beaser,KB & the others are still building 300 home Mcmansion developments on every available swamp...but it has slowed from the torrent pace of just a few years ago.Due to the major impact on roads & schools in our area...taxes are soaring.We are the next NJ...Tax'em till they leave.The builders associations (mafia?)scream & throw crazy money at ANY attempt to make them pay as they congest our towns.May the bubble last...may the slowdown continue...its our only hope to maintain our past quality of living.

Anonymous said...

Funny how many people want to blame Bush for the greedy American nature.

Amazing how there are still idiots who still try to defend that monkey. Man, you need some serious help because you are a mess. You can only be one of those corrupt, with no principles, a con man, who needs to troll for the evil GOP to make a dirty buck. Or you are retarded.

Note to Bushbots: You are trolling on the wrong blog because nobody here will ever like Bush. So move on, go share your thoughts with your hick family, trailer trash.

Anonymous said...

>> Secondly, on an economic scale, the purging will be very difficult indeed for many people, but that doesn't mean its not welcome. We need an economic purging even if it means we go into a 1929 style depression.

BUT - and no one here talks about it - WHAT HAPPENS AFTERWARD? The implication is that everything will finally be "fixed" and we'll all live happily ever after.

I believe the "fix" is in, alright. We're going to get 1 of the following:

1. The same shit as before

2. A hellish, one world government a la conspiracy theories

It seems that everyone here thinks it's going to be the proverbial "good defeats evil", where everyone becomes good, honest, law-abiding, and that this will never, EVER, happen again.

I believe the financial collapse coming is just the *beginning* of the end for US...

Anonymous said...

Nation, this country has been hijacked by shady groups that will create bubbles and chaos indefinitely until the true Americans with balls kick them out.

That's how the shady group make their money: They create 9-11s, they make up bogeyman like terrorists to keep the sheeple afraid and to give multimillion contracts to themselves, the Zionists create financial bubbles which when it bursts the taxpayer picks up the tab, they pump millions of illegals a year to keep the overall population stupid and depress wages, and the list goes on and on.

The only way to take this people out is by brute force.

Anonymous said...

No, it isn't the best thing that could have happened to America.
It is the best thing that's ever happened for a few bloggers who make a living from their bubble blog advertising and "make a donation" buttons. Makes them feel masculine again after their real-life failures.

Anonymous said...

You can point fingers all you want, blame this group or that leader. The bottom line is that it won't matter because the economy will crash and burn and most of the sheeple won't know what hit them.

The only thing that will matter is taking care of your own. This will bring people together, for how long remains to be seen.

The next president will be overwhelmed by the chaos and will likely be ineffective. Time will tell. Just hold on to your hats for the ride of our lives.

Princess Mononoke said...

The housing crash and mortgage meltdown has inadvertently exposed all other corruption by major corporations. This is EPIC!

I've been left wondering what is going to do us in first? The Economic landslide that's coming or a Natural Catastrophe?

Will it make us stronger or wiser? Unfortunately, most people on this planet take the AIR they breathe for granted. The dollar has more value than lives. Humans are resilient like any other animal.

I will continue to have faith in Humanity and hope for positive changes!

Princess Mononoke said...

Today’s market rally is nothing more than a mere aberration!

The “Power’s that Be” are trying to deviate, delay and cloak the TRUTH!

Don't be FOOLED... Be prepared!

Anonymous said...

Anon @ 9:29

You are an idiot. The poster didn't say he supported Bush. Is your mind is so clouded with left-wing hippie liberal garbage you can't give creedence to a sentence that doesn't mock Bush?

The guy is a tool no doubt about it. The poster was trying to say that people need to blame themselves and not a President, or treasury secretary, or Federal Reserve

Anonymous said...

I am saving this standard response because I know that I shall need it frequently:

Whenever someone makes a comment critical of the Bush administration on a high traffic blog such as this one there almost invariably follows another comment which seeks to deflect blame somewhere else. I cannot help but think that the Bush defenders are on the payroll somewhere, as a paid contractor, a corporate boot licker, an MIC / intelligence hack, an employee of big gubbermint, or combination thereof. IMO G.W. Bush is the worst president this country has ever seen. He is a hideously cruel combination of both incompetence and corruption. I feel that the PTB must have installed that lummox into the highest office in the land in an attempt to purposely destroy what is left of this once proud nation. There can be no rational defense of this man, or his policies, or his administration. History will judge harshly the entire Bush clan and the thug licken party for what they have done to us. [/rant]

Anonymous said...

It never takes long to blame the Jews, does it?
I am a Jew, and I would like to know, where's my stuff?? I started my own business, and I don't seem able to grab a piece of this Jew-Money pie you pieces of sh!t seem to be accusing me of hogging.
Seeing as you pieces of sh!t seem to know the conspiracy theories so well, due to your extensive internet research, perhaps you could enlighten me. I should be able to get a piece of the Jew-Pie, and with your help, it should be easier for me too.
So what do you say, pieces of sh!t, would you help this struggling Jew get his piece of this incredible fortune that is out there for me just to grab? Because apparently Jews are not one of the most productive, hardworking minorities in this society. From what I gather, we few are able to control it all.
Because this hard work is rough, I would rather just steal it all (as you so well know).

Anonymous said...

No and no. Did the dot com bubble make us stronger or wiser? Not really. Otherwise we would not be in this housing bubble.

BTW the housing bubble had started while the dot com bubble was in full swing (at least in California). Bursting of the dot com bubble slowed down the housing bubble a little.

While the housing bubble was deflating another bubble has started to grow. It appears to be a set of bubbles but they are all related: foreign exchange, oil and gold. Their is no stopping for this bubble now. Another few years and we will have another major meltdown. Only this time it would be the Exxon instead of Countrywide.

What would be the next bubble after Oil? Maybe healthcare. More precisely biotech. That is what my crystal ball told me. Then it bloated into a large bubble and bust.

Princess Mononoke said...

Way to go Edgar! Well said...

Princess Mononoke said...

Can everyone here please watch the movie, "Titanic" again? This will give you an idea of how the current state of affairs will play out! Literally.

Anonymous said...

andrew hac said "If you are a McDonald cashier, a pizza-hut delivery man, you do not have the right, I REPEAT: you do not have the right, or the privilege to purchase a house"

andrew, I don't know if you are being facetious here or not; but if not, you are a corpgov shill. You have been taught your place, and that place is to make corpgov rich, and now you are preaching to others to keep their heads down and serve the elite because that is their place.

You are moralizing to others that they should just spend their lives never aspiring to what the wealthy own, because they are not chosen to BE the wealthy, but only to serve.

Your remarks are exactly what corpgov wants -- docile sheep who take the rigged social order for granted. In the Revolutionary War, you would have been a Redcoat sympathizer.

Unless, of course, your CorpGov BushLove comments were in jest.

Anonymous said...

After the crash....

....Real estate agents get mostly replaced by online/owner driven sales processes.

.....Those dusty old banking and investment regulations from the depression era may resurface (or not depending on the country). At least a generation of people become very reluctant to invest and speculate, dulling the power of wall street type institutions.

.....The real value of oil and other natural resources (and hence everything else) continues to ratchet up, stressing economies and industries (and further limiting people's capacity to invest spare cash).

.....This leads to a period of stagflation and rising international tensions over access to resources (further destabilising international investment patterns as people get more jittery over foreign markets).

....This leads to another major world war through small or big steps.

.....Somewhere in here epidemic disease becomes widespread again as people's general health and hygeine deteriorate.

.....And we slowly slip backwards through the last few hundred years of development into a new dark age over a century or two.

But most of us wont make it past the first few steps.

Frank R said...

Amazing how there are still idiots who still try to defend that monkey. Man, you need some serious help because you are a mess. You can only be one of those corrupt, with no principles, a con man, who needs to troll for the evil GOP to make a dirty buck. Or you are retarded.

I don't think the guy was trying to defend Bush. The point is that you can't just blindly blame him for anything and everything, which is exactly what people do today.

When the wildfires were raging in CA a few weeks ago, the libs actually blamed Bush for them. Talk about absurdity. I remember a bridge collapse was blamed on Bush, too.

I don't defend Bush at all, but please, don't blame him because idiots bit off more than they can chew and can't make their payments now. That's their fault for knowingly doing that, not Bush nor anyone else.

Anonymous said...

It could be great if people realize that 1300 square feet is plenty of house for a family of five (unless you have a morbid fear of ever spending more than five minutes in the same room with a member of your own family), that there is nothing wrong with driving a five or ten year old car (unless you like having to make a $400 payment every month), that you don't need a TV the size of a billboard (and 52 inch plasma doesn't make the crap on it any better.

But that's just crazy talk. This is Umerica and Homeland Security will think I'm a dadgummed commie or worse a progressive Democrat when they read this post.

The sheeple of Umerica will never wake up. When it all does come crashing down the sheeple will look to Washington and cry "Help me Mr. Wizard."


Bush and Cheney will smile and say they are here to help. If the thought of something making Dick Cheney smile doesn't make your blood run cold you might already be dead.

The help that Bush Co. will provide for the Umerican Sheeple will come in the form of invading Iran, cancelling the 2008 election and offering to serve as president until things get back to normal which will never happen because we will always be at war with Eastasia and Eurasia, I mean Iran and Iraq.

JimAtLaw said...

Well said, 10:29. I'd like a piece of that pie myself, and apparently I'm entitled.

Anonymous said...

To Keith and all of the Gloom and Doom crowd. As usual, your prognistications of "Gloom and Doom" will not come true. I mean, how long have you folks predicted depressions, gold going through the roof, hyperinflation, deflation, massive unemployment, etc...? You all sound like a broken record. Sure, the real estate market is a bubble, but like all markets, it will
self- correct itself. As a matter of fact, that is happenning right now.

The markets will self-correct itself and we will march on to greater prosperity. Did you notice today that Walmart posted higher than expected sale growth and sales are very good? Oh I forgot, whenever government or corporate statistics agree with the Bear scenario, the Gloom and Doom crowd mentions them. But when those same statistics are Bullish in nature, you say "oh, you can not trust the government, that data is rigged".

You folks (the Doom and Gloom crowd) is ao pessimistic and so Un-American. It's a shame. But I and other optimistic Bulls will get the last laugh as we prosper and you pessimists are still holding on to gold in an underground bunker. LOL. LOL. LOL. LOL.

Anonymous said...

I bought a house for under $200K in 1998. I sold for just over $900K in 2006. Do I think good will come of it? A better question is do I give a shit? I got mine, I don't care what happens to my neighbors.

Anonymous said...

Impeach Bush immediately. Prosecute for high crimes and treason. Convict and sentence along with all remaining Bush supporters. Throw in a gulag and feed warm water and dead bugs. Hang upside down and beat with sharp sticks daily until urine contains blood. Require watching of endless Regis and Kathy Lee reruns or Larry King or Trump reruns. Now THATS cruel and inhuman, just like the convicted...

HE IS TO BLAME. DOLLAR WORTH 70 cents and falling fast due to this maniac. 41 = career dumbell. 43 = stupid felon and worst ever. Think about it.

Anonymous said...

No. It will make things worse sadly. No one will learn a lesson there will be more expensive regulation that we all pay for.. and more Sarbox bullshit that does nothing and employs worthless sacks of shit out of college and just drives more investment out of the US capital markets. You can NOT legislate ethics.

Anonymous said...

Edgar, your mind is clouded, Alcohol? Drugs? The current economic crisis has been building through four Presidents and fourteen Congresses. Some where run by Rs and some had Ds in the top spots. Your claim that this is all the fault of one man is just silly. Pick a different namesake for your alias - the real Edgar would be ashamed at your display of rank stupidity.

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry did I mistype the URL as dailykos? I was looking for a discussion on housing but stumbled on a communist meet up.

Anonymous said...

"I've never seen a President — I don't care who he is — stand up to them. It just boggles the mind. They always get what they want. The Israelis know what is going on all the time. I got to the point where I wasn't writing anything down. If the American people understood what a grip these people have got on our government, they would RISE UP IN ARMS. Our citizens certainly don't have any idea what goes on."

Thomas H. Moorer (1912 - 2004)

Anonymous said...

“Anyone got suggestions on the best way to clean up crappy shredded pine mulch btw?”

Go to the home depot and ask a Mexican to teach you how this and also how to do an honest days work.

Anonymous said...

Blaming Bush for the housing bubble makes about as much sense as blaming Clinton for the dot.com bubble (ie. none).

Actually even less sense, since the housing bubble seems highly correlated to blue states and a condescending faux-intellectualism of typical leftists.

Not defending the moron and agree he is a terrible president, but just stop imparting mythical powers on the man and assuming that political leadership is responsible for (or for correcting) every woe and wrong in society.

Anonymous said...

And to finally answer the question, yes it will.

Of all the people supposedly losing "their houses", how many of them really lost something more than their fantasy of cheap and easy money. Interest only? 0% down? You didn't lose sh*t. Stop complaining. Of course there are tragic exceptions.

The crash will be bad, like dot.com. But good things will come of it, like tech companies that actually make money and compete well internationally came from the dot.com. Hopefully with double bubbles, the sheeple will pick up the pattern. But probably not. Bubbles are supported by human nature. The dumb and greedy lose, not unlike what has happened throughout human history.

Like the dot.com spiritualists telling how profits didn't matter to their new age business model, the real estate charlatans have been sent packing, hopefully bankrupted. Meanwhile, much of the construction, even if on boondoggle condos, has rebuilt our center cities and will stand for the next 100 years, even if vacant for the next 10. There will be lots of deals in a few years. I suspect some people here will benefit from buying at bottom and selling in the next upswing.

And that will make us all stronger and better off.

TM said...

I'd really like it to make us stronger and wiser, but I've become too cynical to have any faith that it will.

The case for making us stronger is, uh, the strongest of the two, just out of mere necessity. In the near future we'll export more and import less (hopefully) and learn to get by on less (what choice is there?).

As for making us wiser, I really doubt it. Most Americans are not interested in learning about finance, economics, the fundamentals of money, the nature of risk, history... modern Americans just aren't a very curious bunch, in general.

When confronted with hardships ahead, they'll be content to blame foreigners, immigrants, Jews and the various conspiracies attributed to them all. And that will be that. No personal culpability will even be considered, much less admitted.

Who was responsible for the Depression of 08?
"Why it was all the (insert opposite political party or outsider group here)'s fault, by God! Now change the channel, American Idol is almost on."

Anonymous said...

Cool photo.

A co-worker of mine has this exact photo in his office signed with every single players autograph.

Anonymous said...

The housing crash and the mortgage meltdown will not be the best thing for America .Thats like saying going through a car crash where it almost kills you will make you stronger .No the car crash will set you back for years and compromise your potential in life .

A event can be so huge that it causes trauma rather than good lessons . No ,it is never a good thing when a huge group of people lose their wealth ,especially the middle class in America. In some cases it took years for some of these people to save their money and it will be lost because of a stupid bubble ,never to be regained again .

The Great Depression created years of hardship and proverty and thats just a endurance game ,not a good lesson .Struggling just to eat is not a happy life .

You should see the life long damage the Great Depression did to the people that endured it .Those folks were always so afraid about money they could never enjoy spending money and they were fear based because of the trauma until their dying day.

You people think that depressions bring out the love in people ,but that just isn't so .You need air, food ,shelter and clothing and safety ,before you as a human can even consider being a nice loving person .

Had the bubble stopped in maybe 2003 ,and a recession took place after that ,people might of been able to learn some lessons. Instead the madness continued to mid 2007 ,so it created a set up for a event that will be to extreme for many people .

Doctors discovered many years ago that humans can take small bits of shock or abuse ,but if you hit a human with a major or extreme trauma in a fast manner ,it is more difficult to overcome .

Yes Americans are spoiled ,and yes Americans have enjoyed a lifestyle envied by the world ,but going to the opposite extreme isn't going to be good either.

It would of been much better had this bubble not gone to the extreme it did . Its never good for alot of people to be out of work . Crime will increase and there will be social disorder(never a good thing ). People who go through trauma sometimes can become numb and never function well again . I don't even want to get into the child abuse situations that come about when extreme financial stress hits a family .

The current housing bubble was a horrible mistake ,just like the 1929 stock market buying on margin was a horrible mistake . People were punished for decades after the 1929 stock market crash ,even if they never invested in the stock market, and the greedy mistakes that investors made took the whole Nation down .

The current situation is more like a 100 year flood ,or a Black Swan event ,that people need like a whole in the head .

I hope that it will be more of a recession than a depression and I hope that American can come up with some creative ideas to avoid a extreme event and set ourselves on a better course .

Anonymous said...

New World Order is right on track, as planned.

Anonymous said...

>> I bought a house for under $200K in 1998. I sold for just over $900K in 2006. Do I think good will come of it? A better question is do I give a shit? I got mine, I don't care what happens to my neighbors.

You go girl!!!

Anonymous said...

I think there will be long term benefits, but not in the ways everyone thinks.

The US, and western civilization, is winding down. I look to the Roman empire as a guide.

The housing bubble will accelerate the end of the US. IMO the date of the end was set when LBJ signed medicare into effect, ensuring bankruptcy in just over a generation's time.

We will have wars, loss of liberty, population die-off, extreme poverty, etc, etc. It will be a challenge to survive, and some of us will not want to rise to that challenge.

The benefits? The end will come before the US turns into a cross between Mexico and Brazil, population-wise, and before Europe turns into a mix of Turkey, Pakistan and Algeria. This will make it more likely that some shreds of western civilization can survive, and will allow a better civilization to be born hundreds of years from now than would otherwise be the case.

It also will accelerate the war between Islam and everybody else, and so ensure that everybody else will win.

I personally consider the threat of cancerous Islam so great that almost any sacrifice is worth the price of knocking it back into remission.

Anonymous said...

Anono 11/14 @8:25 AM said:
"Yes Americans are spoiled ,and yes Americans have enjoyed a lifestyle envied by the world ,but going to the opposite extreme isn't going to be good either."
------------------
Umm...try reading up on Darwinism. The coming crash may not be fun, but in the long run those in the future will be better off because of it.

-Mammoth

Anonymous said...

Oh my god, most of you guys are completely nuts.
I must be hired by the gov/jew/corp machine to monitor your every thought. Or just a troll because I don't agree with everything you have to say.
Bush is to blame for everything, New World Order, JEEEEEEEEWs.

WOW

Anonymous said...

This article by Kunstler nails it to the wall

http://tinyurl.com/2c8b4k

"Seen in this light, one can then understand the temporary value of these mutant financial derivatives. They allowed participants to conceal the fact that these "investments" were not directed at productive enterprise. They also provided a cohort of sharpies with "vehicles" for converting the leftovers of the industrial economy into assets for themselves -- a form of looting, really. Hence, the employees of Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, and Merrill Lynch gave themselves $50-million Christmas bonuses for trafficking in these inscrutable non-productive financial gimmicks, and were able to acquire fifty-room Easthampton houses, Gulfstream jets, and impressionist paintings."

We've been looted and and are now pwned.

Anonymous said...

mark, you have a right to your opinion. I will forgo the gitmo treatment. ;-)

Anonymous said...

I bought a house for under $200K in 1998. I sold for just over $900K in 2006. Do I think good will come of it? A better question is do I give a shit? I got mine, I don't care what happens to my neighbors.<<<

you are a very selfish hp-er.

Anonymous said...

I bought a house for under $200K in 1998. I sold for just over $900K in 2006. Do I think good will come of it? A better question is do I give a shit? I got mine, I don't care what happens to my neighbors.

Is that you Giuliani?

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...

Oh my god, most of you guys are completely nuts.
I must be hired by the gov/jew/corp machine to monitor your every thought. Or just a troll because I don't agree with everything you have to say.
Bush is to blame for everything, New World Order, JEEEEEEEEWs.

WOW

November 14, 2007 3:06 PM<<<


people like you, think that the JFK assassination was a conspiracy that never was solved and that is the extent of your conspiratorial thinking. so many think that the killing of JFK was planned and carried out by people unknown and that the government covered it up. yet you seem to think that , that one conspiracy was the only one that ever happened. its as if , evil men came to life for this one event and then they went away, never to be heard from again. i have some news for you. conspiracies are alive and well in this world and despite the fact that you do not believe it or do not understand it, nevertheless, it matters not. also i bet you watch a lot of television too. it all goes together. the american people are so brain washed and they don't even know it.

Anonymous said...

also i bet you watch a lot of television too. it all goes together. the american people are so brain washed and they don't even know it.

THE INTERNET IS THE NEW OPIATE OF THE MASSES.

Anonymous said...

Anon 12:41

Thanks for making my point for me. Keep talking, me and my fellow Jews are monitoring it ALL!!
I can just imagine how it feels to know so much about the world around you and be powerless to do anything.
Oh, being a Jew is such a power trip, you have no idea. You should see our command center. It looks kind of like a recording studio, lots of cool dials and buttons............