A lot of us are optimists. That once this housing crash is over, many good things will come.
So, today's question is simply:
What are you looking forward to?
December 02, 2007
HousingPANIC Stupid Question of the Day
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68 comments:
i look forward to people being less concerned with looking poor and being more comfortable with who they are; people (hopefully) realising that what matters is not the toys and cars and mcmansions one has, but the friends, family and good times.
i look forward to people discussing something other than f*@king real estate at social gatherings.
i look forward to a return to a time when, like when i was growing up, it will be considered extremely poor manners to discuss how much your house is worth, how much money you have made or how much your new car/home addition/vacation/recent acquisition cost.
i look forward to the people who thought they were financial geniuses returning to real work and learning that wealth is something that does not come easily.
I'm looking forward to homes getting back to their historic price to income ratio which we all know they will!
I am looking forward to being able to buy a decent home for my family at a reasonable price and if I am lucky picking up a deal on a lake house with a couples of hours of home.
Are you kidding me. We have a LONG way to go to adjust housing back to its historic relationship with incomes. I give it a 60% chance we are headed for a great depression. Why? The American consumer is OUT OF CONTROL. The majority are underwater in debt...housing debt, car debt and credit card debt. Things are going to get MUCH WORSE before they ever have a chance to get better. Americans will have to learn to respect money.
Mark
2010 or 2011 when this mania will have run its course. I then plan on buying 2 houses.
QWEEFER,
The crash IS over dude. The bailout is here. Freddie/Fannie will start up the 0% down $1M mortgages soon enough.
Whatever was to happen, has happened.
Two lessons were learned:
1. Lesson by home buyers that they can stretch as much as they can with no consequences. Big Daddy Govt will be there to bail you out.
2. Banks can lend whatever the fuck they want. Doesn't matter if the borrower can pay pack the money or not. Big Daddy Govt will be there to pay it back for them.
Only question now is this: will the next bubble happen 5 years from now or 3 years from now.
Andrew, the first comment on this listing is totally right! I had seven friends from my High School years that remained in the area and we all still gather together several times per year.
Over the span since the 70's they have married, had children, bought houses, etc. Two of us are "retired".
What I noticed was that in the 80's and 90's a "creeping superiority" began to become a part of conversation and comparisons with "who is still stuck in the city", "who failed", etc. One is so delusional that when his wife inherited a fortune and they moved to a rich suburb he forgot over time that we all remembered how he acquired his wealth. Now at reunions he tells us how he worked hard to get where he is, etc.
A few are workaholics. Others can't retire or they won't be able to maintain their suburban lifestyles. All tend to look down on the next friend "under" them.
This is shameful! They were good people once. My "failure" was that I dropped out and retired. I returned to college and earned the degree that was interrupted by careers, graduating in '06 magna cum laude but because I'm in my 50's it is tough to get a job.
I've been"retired" for 7 years now, watching them work 40 to 70 hours per week. They are now on pills for various ailments and look terrible, some near death and cancer is starting to knock at our doors.
With an eye on eternity, I returned to faith. I ran into one of my old friends the other day. "I paid off my house" he said. I asked him about faith issues. "I have no time for Church". He replied. Very sad.
Something has to be done to return to sanity. Pursuit of money is worthless. I know. My brother-in-law was one of the worst. He wanted to be a "big, important man". He invested in property for his future retirement. At 65 he caught serious cancer. He has been taking treatments, but gave up after the treatment was worse than the cancer and it has apparently spread, so we are now waiting for the end. He is still stubborn, still "superior", and still looks down on our lives compared to his "success". What a croc all of this is!
Another old friend anticipated that the combined salaries of his wife and he would contribute to future suburban living and wealth. Now, he has leveraged his home twice and has no more equity, lives in the suburbs but in an apartment separated from the wife who is spending money quicker than he earns it, and divorce proceedings are underway. In the end, he anticipates losing it all, but at least he still has his faith intact and looks upon all of this with a bit of humor, although suffering from depression and stress, he still hopes.
Please wake up folks! Time is very short and with the way the government is running our economy they are going to steal everything anyway. It won't be long now, months.....
My tax refund so I can buy some food.
The end to the REIC as we know it and houses being considered homes and not investments.
Houses become a commodity, and mass psychological shift to spending the least amount of your take home pay toward the house. What a brilliant idea. Doh! you guys already thought of this.
Not actually looking forward to it but, GOING BACK TO WORK!
Great site, Keith. I'm looking forward to being able to buy nice home at a half-decent price finally. I'm a 23 year-old economist in Northern Virginia, and I saw this bubble coming back when I was a poor schmuck student at Florida State. I knew it was awful here, because, having spent a lot of time in Atlanta (much -- most? -- of which seems to have escaped the bubble), I've seen identical houses here in NoVa sell for three and four times what they were selling for in the Midtown area of the ATL.
I'm simply amazed so few saw it, and that so many others were arrogant enough to believed they were too smart to get caught when the bubble popped.
The crash is getting nasty in DC's outer suburbs. It doesn't seem to have hit inside the Beltway yet, but that time will come.
I am looking forward to more war, higher inflation, high unemployment, rampant immigration, consumer pessimism, and disease.
I look forward to shopping for a home now without driving back to my rental unit swearing and going off for 2 hours about home prices, phony wanna-be yuppie trash, and discussing over and over how someone could afford these $500,000 homes.
I am looking forward to life being alot more simpler. Being able to sleep like a baby and not having this tremendous stress of not knowing the bottom of the bleak future, not knowing when to move on, going month to month in the mortgage business, having a good Oct , terrible Nov, when to close up shop, should we hang in there for the long haul, is it even worth it. Right now, no frickin way. Hangin on thru xmas and then time to reevaluate. Taco Bell even sounds like a life improvement right now. ha
What am I looking forward to Keith?
6 Billion of you useless eaters dieing so I can raise my kids on a farm.
Not asking a whole lot ...eh Keith?
www.dieoff.com
Cheers
First off I would like to say great blog Keith. I have been reading for a while but this is my first post.
I think the nation as a whole is to blame for this whole mess. We, from the federal government down to the illegal allien working for the landscaping company, have been living on credit. We are and have been bankrupt for some time now but we are ignorant to the fact we are spending money we do not have. We arent even spending money the banks have. It is all imaginary, fiat, monopoly money. We are living far beyond are means.
Since the first settlers arived our prosperity has always come from service and manufacturing. The WWII time period should be an insparation to us all. Even with our entire fleet destroyed and our military inexperienced, we won the war with determination and work ethic. Or industry buckled down and created such industrial might that the admirals of Japan's navy were basicly saying "what have we done?!". The determination, honor and down right stubornness was unrivaled.
Today, we have outsourced all our manufacturing and service. India, china and others have a larger stake in our ecconomy then we do and that is sad. Eventualy we will get to a point where the proverbial fiat credit card company starts harrasing us for our long overdue payment. China and India will no longer want our dollar, Japan will stop exporting vehicles to us, and the middle eastern states will no longer sell us oil.
The question is not whether or not the depression will come but when. And this time it will be worse. MUCH worse. Then, when people lost everything they started over from scratch. Now, when we loose everything, we will start over still in debt.
Total ecconomic crash is what I am waiting for. We need a good kick in the butt. And those who have made smart decisions will be able to pick up the pieces and prosper from others stupid decisions.
My only hope is that our "benevolant" [/sarcasm] dictatorship does not capitalize on this to steal more money from us.
jazzman
ps vote Ron Paul 2008
I look forward to the people who thought they were financial geniuses returning to real work
Andrew, people DON'T want to do real work. It is human nature. People will always look for the easy way out. It will take real HUNGER (for real food, that is, not toys) for Americans to lower themselves to do anything resembling real work.
I am an electronics engineer and I have seen the demise of the US manufacturing economy, first hand, over the last 25 years (yes, I'm that old). It is now to the point that when I tell someone what I do for a living they just sneer or they say "thats nice" and walk away. I was at a social function, not long ago, and a homebuilder had a crowd of people (no kidding) around him, captivated, as he told them that he just built a 2 Million dollar house. It was as if he had just told them that he had found a cure for cancer (actually, that is wrong because people would not be that excited about a cancer cure).
No, I don't see this changing short of horrific economic upheaval. It is simply too easy to make money by trading financial instruments, and make no mistake, housing relates to financing more than it relates to construction.
I have some affinity for the belief, as some have expressed here at this blog, that all the powers of the earth, economic and otherwise, will be used to prop up the American and Euorpean real estate markets. They are simply too big to be allowed to fail.
It certainly won't be allowed to happen on Bush's watch.
Values driven by fundamental conditions rather than by hype, emotion, and frenzy.
What are you looking forward to?
U.S. Gasoline shortages.
I'm looking forward to the possible avoidance of WWIII. With the U.S. burning up a disproportionate amount of oil and coal and all the pollution, a move to fewer and smaller housing units may allow us to better protect what's left of the environment.
If not, bad harvests plus huge population in the world may precipitate warfare to "clean out" excess humans. With no natural enemies, we have to be our own predator if we aren't smart enough to create a balance between human population demands and resources available by other means.
Once the scales start to tip towards war, I think there's little chance of stopping it. My favorite place is Washinton's Olympic peninsula. It has no strategic targets, the wind blows east from there and it's close to Canada. Also, the Chinese would never plant a bomb that close to "Hongcouver" i.e. Vancouver BC, because too many of their relatives live there. Our problems with Islam are mostly due to overpopulation in those places. Not satisfied with US killing large numbers of them, they convienently come up with different versions of Islam to give them an excuse to kill THEMSELVES. Read the book "Constant Battle" if you want proofs of the Uncontrolled population growth combined with bad harvests (or other resource scarcity) leads to war hypothesis.
Of course, there's always the plague option. Perhaps the "bird flu" will mutate and kill many without masks, eye protection and antiseptics. One can hope??
Im looking foward to alot less illegals in construction jobs
Preying on the misery of others that deserve it...
Seeing Families (including the aged, infirm and young) cold and hungry and displaced into the streets with 2 SUVs in the driveway, both out-of-gas and For Sale -Take Over Payments. All thier belongings piled into the gutter including plasma TV bot on credit at Xmas 2007.
If the government allows ANY KIND of BAILOUT whatsoever, I expect my mood will diminish further into a rather cruel one indeed.
I will leverage my cash (how about 1% on the equity dollar?)to keep these idiots down forever.
A 2 tier system will develop. The have nots will have earned and deserved their plight.
They CONTINUE to DIG THIER OWN GRAVE, let them reap the whirlwing of their actions.
NO MERCY. NO BAILOUTS.
Welcome to Hillary Country.
Welcome to Hell.
I look forward to the collapse of the welfare/warfare state and the suffering of all those cretins who support government and taxation.
I look forward to owning a personal jet and having sex with 3 Playboy playmates at the same time.
My goal is about as realistic as your buying homes for pennies on the dollar.
Buy hey it's fun to dream isn't it.
I look forward to free healthcare so I can continue my promiscuous lifestyle and depend on the taxpayers to pay for my $5000/mo AIDS cocktails.
I'm looking forward to it being same as it ever was.
I look forward to fresh chicken eggs and year-round veggies from my backyard greenhouse and garden when the store shelves are empty as the market breaks down due to hyperinflation.
"It is now to the point that when I tell someone what I do for a living they just sneer or they say "thats nice" and walk away."
Freaky, isn't it? People are so divorced from reality that they don't understand that engineers design all the stuff they buy. No engineers, no stuff No television. No cars. No cell phones. Same thing happened to farmers decades ago. They got so good at what they do that people take them completely for granted, and assign them the lowest place in the social order. No farmers, no food...and since it doesn't pay, fewer people are doing it, to the point we actually IMPORT food...from CHINA? This should end well...
I got a little understanding of why this is, at a friends house the other night. I don't have television, so whenever there is one on I'm absolutely riveted by it. His wife was watching the "E" channel, which is apparently the 24 hour spawn of that old "Entertainment Tonight" show. The only discrete show I could pick out of the mass was "America's Top Model". Jeebus Tapdancing Keerist on a Motorscooter! For a while I thought it was satire...it isn't. People are really into this crap...they really DO build their world view around it!
My hope for the future was that after this housing thing got straightened out, I could go back to work and have my earnings actually mean something. I dropped out when I realized that the 130k a year I was making wasn't going to get me anywhere. After seeing what is on the minds of the monkeymass, I don't think we'll see a return to sanity in my lifetime. We will just march on to the next stupidity.
If I do end up needing to make money again, I won't be bothering with trying to do something useful. There is an ocean of suckers out there, and how they think is laid bare on the cable channels. There will no satisfaction of having created something, but the money will be easy.
PT Barnum is still right.
That's really all you need to know to make money.
I am looking forward to justice: justice in this case is financial ruin to all these fu%king investors, all these fu%king illegals, and all these people who LIED on their loans. They have what is coming to them, which is financial ruin and devastation. So my parting words to these people is:
FU%K YOU, and may FINANCIAL DEVASTION CAUSE YOU STRESS AND ANGUISH THE REST OF YOUR PATHETIC LIFE!
miner_tom said...
Andrew, people DON'T want to do real work. It is human nature. People will always look for the easy way out. It will take real HUNGER (for real food, that is, not toys) for Americans to lower themselves to do anything resembling real work.
i don't think it is necessarily human nature to avoid work. people have just been convinced via easy credit that real hard work is for fools; i mean why bother working and saving when you can borrow and borrow and get bailed out when you screw up?
the easy credit is gone, so it is time to get people to do real work. The real estate boom sucked a lot of bright minds into a business that does not require much of one.
I realise while re-reading my comments they are a bit naive and utopian sounding. however, i am hopeful that something good could come out of this.
you can judge a society by how it deals with its abundance. do they build hospitals for the poor, shelters for the homeless and schools for children with learning disabilities? or do they buy fake tits, hummers, and $300 jeans.
with less credit available, people will have to find new ways to spend their time once they can no longer afford to consume as a recreational activity.
perhaps they will get together and tell stories, clean up their neighborhoods, help their neighbors, spend time playing with their children or friends....or maybe they'll just be scheming for the next boom.
as for people not wanting to work
One of the best threads ever done on HP!!!! Particularly (so far) the first comment by Andrew and" Anon's response to Andrew-
"Andrew, the first comment on this listing is totally right!"
From things that Keith has said, I think this thread cuts to the core of what HP is all about. The trolls come around and say we are laughing at the pain of others, that we are "sick" people. The truth is that we HP'ers are SICK of the MATERIALISM, the GREED, the looking down your nose at your neighbor, the wasteful excess.
I grew up with station wagons full of kids and uncles that were farmers and going to the drive in movies. Then I remember when one of my neighbors got a new BMW 2002 and thought he was just a little cooler than everyone else. (That's just an illustration-No car wars please).
I remember when everyone in my dad's neighborhood was upset because a McMansion was being shoe-horned into their modest community.
Now we see CEOs raping the companies they run into the ground and developers squeezing as many particle board manisions on every scrap of productive farmland they can acquire. Happy to see this crash? Damn right!
Buying the BKs stuff at pennies-on-the-dollar.
Gotta catch-em at just the Right Time of desperation, then the sky is the limit for values!
Keep Charging America.
Peak Oil.
I'm looking forward to peak oil, the end of suburban trash, and a return to country living. I'm ready -- I can grow food & preserve it, manage cattle and livestock, and can hunt & fish.
Plus, if the DEA can't afford their constant overflights, we will all feel a little better.
Coke Out.
I`m looking forward to buying some toys for pennies on the dollar.
First up, Mustang GT with manual transmission.
Second, Polaris RZR (razor), these things are a hoot. I can just see myself so self-absorbed in this fun little machine, power sliding along the trails, rooting thru mudholes like a hog on crack, hell I might even forget that we`re all going to die from a nuclear blast vis-a-vis Russia.
Nice try Keith. Depression, die-off, peak oil.
Now what what is you said a while back about HPers because fundamentally optimists?
I look forward to the crash in prices and buying my first home paying cash (want to start at about the $120K level). I've saved about 30% of my monthly income since college graduation 5 years ago. I want to hold out another 2-4 years before buying and keeping for a long time. This will NOT be a business deal where I plan to sell and get rich quick.
If I do sell it will be because of a new job, marriage, kids, etc...real events that require different housing.
However, I do fear the idiot yuppies moving into these areas cause they can't afford a $500K house making $35K a year like they were able to for the past 4 years. Gawd it will be a nightmare if these idiots move here.
I really enjoyed the post from the guy who wrote about his friends from the 70's and how they've fared.
I hope things get better, but it's hard to be optimistic.
Folks, stop living on credit. Learn to "travel light". Get "crunchy". R.
some of us with enough guts tarring & feathering the Wall St. (to LA execs.
who maneuvered this criminal debacle)
stripping them of their assets
and putting them on our much needed
Devil's Island
a return to genuine productive work & export chain
(including deep sixing 90% of adv. babysitting programs in univs.
I'm in no way happy to see the housing market crash, since it's impact will be felt across such a wide area of our economy.
Perhaps some realism will come to housing prices in 2-4 years, but for now we have the much bigger problem of keeping our economy going *without* taxing citizens to death in order to do so.
I'll have to lean towards agreeing with the Anonymous poster - the US consumer is definitely maxed out.
In fact, I was having lunch one day when I heard a girl and guy speak about a friend of theirs who was $40k in debt.
Who knows how much of this is really true (a bit of table gossip I'm sure), but it amazes me how in debt many people really are - pretty scary stuff.
I'm not so sure about a great depression, since our economy is rather diverse and (thank goodness) does not depend entirely on real-estate.
However, a recession is already in full swing for many people and working it's way up the economic ladder.
Anonymous said...
Are you kidding me. We have a LONG way to go to adjust housing back to its historic relationship with incomes. I give it a 60% chance we are headed for a great depression. Why? The American consumer is OUT OF CONTROL. The majority are underwater in debt...housing debt, car debt and credit card debt. Things are going to get MUCH WORSE before they ever have a chance to get better. Americans will have to learn to respect money.
If Ron Paul is not elected president I look forward to moving to Norway:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJ0B2xDzSgg
I look forward to the next season of Idol and Dancing With The Stars.
First off I would like to say great blog Keith. I have been reading for a while but this is my first post.
Gotta pop that cherry sometime.
Going to jail for a few months. It's funny how nice people are when they have nothing but other people in a barren environment and most everyone has been poor their whole lives.
I look forward to my children one day being able to afford a home.
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA
READ IT AND WEEP RENTING LOSERS. IT IS OVER. YOU LOSE ONCE AGAIN. NO MORE FORECLOSURES. EVERYONE GETS CHEAP MORTGAGES. EVERYONE BUT YOU. ENJOY RENTING FOR THE REST OF YOUR PATHETIC LIVES.
WASHINGTON -- In a sign that the housing crunch is increasingly resonating on the campaign trail, Sen. Hillary Clinton is expected to call today for a 90-day moratorium on home foreclosures, as well as a five-year freeze on the rates of adjustable mortgages, an idea the Bush administration is already considering.
The plan she is about to announce is striking on two levels. Calling as it does for a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures and a five-year freeze on interest rate adjustments for existing mortgages, the Clinton plan goes further than those of her colleagues. In addition, the centerpiece of her proposal -- a freeze on interest-rate increases for adjustable-rate mortgages -- is similar to a plan being concocted by President Bush's Treasury secretary, Henry Paulson. Indeed, news reports over the weekend about his plans, disclosed by The Wall Street Journal on Friday, are what prompted Mrs. Clinton to float her own proposal, which she is doing in the form of a letter to the Treasury secretary.
I have everything I could need but I'm worried about other people . I will not enjoy watching people go down the tubes and the stress that will cause .
What I will enjoy is watching the scum criminals get busted for mortgage fraud ,even if they don't get all of them .
I have never in my lifetime seen The United States be as stupid as they were during this housing boom, or real estate speculation mania / I have read about the 1929 stock market crash ,but I never thought American could get in a fix like those days again .
I look forward to the coming chaos because those with guns will come out ahead. I have more than my fair share of guns and ammo. Let's roll.
I live in Phoenix. The thing that made Phoenix tick was that you could live a wannabe LA lifestyle for the cost of a cheap Midwest city. Paradise for the ambitious second tier.
That's what I want back.
I think mark-to-market is too easy. We need a new measure. Mark-to-attempted-market. I am trying to sell my house. My contract is about to expire. Therefore the value of my house is presumably at least one dollar less than I am asking. Maybe 10 or 20 of 50K less.
However, in a few months, my attempt won't be listed as a comp. And people will only have some questionable deals earlier in the year to look as a comp.
Until people quit trying to prop up the old beast, my dream of a wannabe LA at an Iowa price will not happen.
When Mortgage Fraud SCAMs stop and banks start to lend money responsibly.
http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/
articles/2007/11/27/news/
mortgagefraud112707.txt
In one of the first local cases in a national crackdown on mortgage and real estate fraud, four people connected with a San Marcos realty office have pleaded guilty to charges that they went to great and illegal lengths to secure mortgages for financially unqualified consumers, thereby pocketing more than $1 million in fraudulent commissions.
In some transactions in the scam, the defendants used straw buyers -- consumers with higher credit scores and bank reserves -- to secure financing for other customers, fraudulently claiming those third parties would occupy the homes, according to prosecutors.
For others, the team altered financial information on loan documents to meet the lenders' requirements, or created false employment information and posed as those employers when lenders called to verify. They submitted loan applications with inflated bank account balances falsely substantiated with fictitious bank statements.
They purchased and submitted to lenders letters from tax preparers that misrepresented consumers as business owners, deposited their own money into clients' bank accounts to falsify certificates of deposit, and fraudulently sent lenders copies of social security cards altered to hide work restriction language, according to court documents.
Ambac is Effectively Insolvent & Will See More than $8 Billion of Losses with Just a $2.26 Billion Market Cap
http://www.safehaven.com/
article-8914.htm
The truth is that we HP'ers are SICK of the MATERIALISM, the GREED, the looking down your nose at your neighbor, the wasteful excess.
And when are people going to realize that those are exactly the values of the modern Republican party?
if somebody says, "be less materialistic, less greedy, stop looking down on the poor and stop wasting our oil and resources" they're accused of being an anti-American commie scumwad.
What are you looking forward to?
More stories like this and more people hating us around the world:
U.S. Credit Crisis Adds to Gloom in Norway
NARVIK, Norway, Nov. 30 — At this time of year, the sun does not rise at all this far north of the Arctic Circle. But Karen Margrethe Kuvaas says she has not been able to sleep well for days.
What is keeping her awake are the far-reaching ripple effects of the troubled housing market in sunny Florida, California and other parts of the United States.
Ms. Kuvaas is the mayor of Narvik, a remote seaport where the season’s perpetual gloom deepened even further in recent days after news that the town — along with three other Norwegian municipalities — had lost about $64 million, and potentially much more, in complex securities investments that went sour.
Narvik has $34.5 million in a second Citigroup-devised investment, known as a collateralized debt obligation, which has also lost value as a result of the broader market turmoil. The town stands to lose at least some of that money, too.
http://tinyurl.com/2cv2x6
I'm also in the Mortgage business and I am worried about what the future holds. When things started booming back in 2002, my wife quit her position to stay home with the kids. I supported that with the agreement that once the kids were in school she'd go back to work. I stressed to her that this was not going to last income wise.
Well, now she says she doesn't have the time to go back to work. The kids need to be run to too many activities and that's more important. So I am feeling this growing pressure to try to maintain this lifestyle. The income has dropped and yet my wife is budgeting like it's 2003 still.
My wife makes fun of my brother-- he bought a cheap run-down house which he paid off in 10 years. My brother tries to live as inexpensively as possible. That's his goal in life. He has a boarder that helps out on expenses so he gets by on less than $600 a month. He owns two cars-- the newest is 21 years old. He alternates between the two cars driving one while fixing the other. He works odd jobs when he needs cash and concentrates on writing. He hopes to publish a book some day. My wife says he has no ambition because he doesn't work harder to buy "STUFF". She says he's a bum because he never joins us for outings unless we pay. I'm beginning to see that he's the smart one.
>> 2010 or 2011 when this mania will have run its course. I then plan on buying 2 houses.
I look forward to at least some people learning a lesson from all this. Obviously, you're one of those who won't...
I'm looking forward to a return to old-fashioned American work ethic.
That's when we get rewarded for doing something and doing it well. Not for chasing the latest bubble (stock market, housing, gold, etc.)
Markific said:
"He owns two cars-- the newest is 21 years old. He alternates between the two cars driving one while fixing the other."
Hey, that sounds like me. My wife does have a relatively new car and asks me why I have two really old ones "why don't you just by a new one and get rid of the old ones". My answer is that I totally dispise car payments....talk about a depreciating asset. And yes, when you drive old cars, you need a spare because they do break down. I do most of the work on my cars myself and save a lot of money that way. Not that I have anything against auto mechanics, who, by and large, are pretty hard working folks that don't make a lot of money (don't talk to me about dealerships, however).
Also, I don't profess to be a Ghandi, or a Mother Teresa. I am as human as everyone else. But I am pretty well disgusted by a mentality that claims that "you are what you drive". When I see an old car on the road (I am used to having the oldest car in the parking lot) I think, perhaps, the owner is simply being frugal.
I look forward to the real skills I
have being of use and value.
I look forward to NOT being blown
off for: realistic spending concerns;
for saving and not discarding; for
using normal amounts of food, soap,
necessities; for using leftovers;
for making bread, etc from scratch;
for walking instead of riding; for
looking for ways of reusing, finding at garage sales; for using
hand-me-downs; for not taking "good
times" for granted; for not assuming everything can be continually replenished easily; for
not being "looked down on, mocked,
condescended to, marginalized" for
being outside the rather smug
entitled mainstream. In short for
being poor, thrifty, old fashioned,
old school, oh, yes, old.
pkk (grandma)...I think a few of
others like me might know something
useful...
To 'the crash is over'
I wish it were..I think you think it's about housing...that's the size of the problem most can get their heads around...it's actually
more obscure and worse..
Think worm holes, swiss cheese
holes, devastating web virus,
infection of plague proportions...
The rescue we envision coming from
the Fed...this is headed by a bright man, following another
bright man, neither of whom completely understood the hedging
and derivatives...now does that
compute? That they will know what
to do? A lot of the securitization
had been invented 'on the go'
...how's that going to work out..?
Read bullnotbull.com/bull:
Where's the Cash? article...now there's a question...
>> My wife makes fun of my brother-- he bought a cheap run-down house which he paid off in 10 years. My brother tries to live as inexpensively as possible. That's his goal in life. He has a boarder that helps out on expenses so he gets by on less than $600 a month. He owns two cars-- the newest is 21 years old. He alternates between the two cars driving one while fixing the other. He works odd jobs when he needs cash and concentrates on writing. He hopes to publish a book some day. My wife says he has no ambition because he doesn't work harder to buy "STUFF". She says he's a bum because he never joins us for outings unless we pay. I'm beginning to see that he's the smart one.
Cheap != smart.
I am looking forward to the next ponzi scheme or bubble.
If anyone thinks this housing crash will adjust our way of thinking, guess again.
Americans in general now function under the notion that the government will be there to save them from their mistakes no matter what. Which, ironically, is the exact opposite of what our free market democracy stands for. In fact, it smells like "communisn" in here.
But ultimately, we never learn. Why? Because a large proportion of this population is exceedingly stupid and easily swayed. We laugh and snicker at those "savages" in the Sudan who made a big deal in regards to a teddy bear named after their holy prophet, yet at the same time, we engage in trivialities all the time. With the myriad of issues confronting our country on a daily basis, what did we focus on in the last major election? Gay marriage. Yup, us "civilized" Americans decided that the economy, the environment, the deficit or the war is a secondary issue to whether Hans and Fritz in San Francisco decide to call themselves husband and husband.
And you are telling me that you expect these same nitwits who prioritize themselves as stated above to suddently see the light? Not a chance.
This housing bubble literally came on the heels of the dot com bubble. We barely dragged ourselves out of the quicksand before following the next shiny.
So before the HPers here become optimistic about our countries future, take a look at an IQ bell curve chart and come to the realization what we have WAAAAY too many idiots in this country to fully transform ourselves. That would take sacrifice, hard work and intellect. And clearly, we are far too occupied watching America's Got Talent while wolfing down our KFC dinner.
I am looking forward to seeing the mortgage rate for my 650K mortgage FREEZE. That would be great, let all of you HP'ers live a life of thrift and I live life all the way and I get away with it. LOL. LOL. LOL.
Anonymous said:
I look forward to NOT being blown
off for: realistic spending concerns;
for saving and not discarding; for
using normal amounts of food, soap,
necessities; for using leftovers;
for making bread, etc from scratch;
for walking instead of riding; for
looking for ways of reusing, finding at garage sales; for using
hand-me-downs; for not taking "good
times" for granted; for not assuming everything can be continually replenished easily; for
not being "looked down on, mocked,
condescended to, marginalized" for
being outside the rather smug
entitled mainstream. In short for
being poor, thrifty, old fashioned,
old school, oh, yes, old.
-----------------------------------
I love your post. It reminds me of my grandparent's way of life being products of the depression and in many ways my own (I am not there yet Re: making bread from scratch, shopping second hand sales but really admire people like you who do.)
Markifc SAID:
The income has dropped and yet my wife is budgeting like it's 2003 still.
Markifc,
Your wife is toxic. She needs a financial intervention ASAP. It is up to you! It's time to take care of business on the homefront before she drives you into bankruptcy.
dinner at the firehouse tonight, I am a vol. firefighter. its a fish fry. im pretty hungry now
I am looking forward to seeing the mortgage rate for my 650K mortgage FREEZE. That would be great, let all of you HP'ers live a life of thrift and I live life all the way and I get away with it. LOL. LOL. LOL.
No matter what the size of the freeze is, my $900 monthly rent will still infinitely less than your mortgage. And you'll be a slave of the bankers for years, with no money leftover for anything. Meanwhile, I'm investing the absurd amount of savings I get by renting, in emerging markets, metals, foreign currency, properties overseas, etc. Keep putting your entire money in the American market, fool. The smart money is getting out of here. Bwahahahahaha...
Paulson is calling for dumb-slave of bankers to be paying an absurd amount of mortgage + interest for an "asset" that will never be yours and that will lose value for years to come.
Step forward DOPES.
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