HousingPANIC Thought of the Day

It's time like these it kinda sucks we've lost our
manufacturing base, eh?

The manufacturing sector and its workers were hardest hit by the growth of Wal-Mart’s imports. Wal-Mart’s increased trade deficit with China eliminated 133,000 manufacturing jobs, 68% of those jobs lost from Wal-Mart’s imports. Jobs in the manufacturing sector pay higher wages and provide better benefits than most other industries, especially for workers with less than a college education.

HousingPANIC has a Special Message for our new landlord and owner, Communist China

China, sitting $414 billion in US treasuries (that won't get paid back) and over $100 billion in US mortgage backed securities (that won't get paid back), and over $1 trillion total in US dollars (that are becoming toilet paper), plus a recent big investor in Blackstone's hilariously failed IPO (man, that's gotta hurt), has gotta be getting PISSED OFF lately. Welcome to American capitalism comrades, where you can get suckered by con-men and lose it all!

Seriously, could the royal screwing of these corrupt communist jackasses, who helped ruin America with their evil cozy partner Wal-Mart, be any more perfect?

A Special HousingPANIC message to the corrupt leaders of Communist China:

Thank you for selling us all that cheap crap these past few years and enabling our housing bubble by artificially surpressing our interest rates.

Thank you for ruining our manufacturing base by manipulating your currency and dumping your goods on unpatriotic and clueless Americans. And thank you for destroying the character of our towns and cites by enabling your evil partner Wal-Mart to destroy its competition with an endless supply of cheap dangerous crap from your sweat shops.

And by the way, you really didn't think we'd ever pay you back, did you?

Sincerely, HousingPANIC (and the Deadbeats of America)

China shying from shaky US mortgage market

While China is eager to invest a portion of its US$1.33 trillion foreign-exchange reserve overseas, it is unlikely to take a chance on buying additional US mortgage-backed securities (MBS) as they are now considered too risky, Chinese economists said.

"The Chinese economy is benefiting from high-yielding, safe investments in US mortgage-backed securities. Here at home, American homeowners are benefiting from lower interest rates on mortgage loans resulting from greater Chinese demand for these securities," Jackson said.

Columnist: Record gasoline prices great news for U.S.

I commented the other day that the only thing that'd get America off the crack is $10 gas. Mass transit, conservation, urban planning, energy policy, hybrids, alt fuels, the end of suburbia, you know the drill. It hurt America to have cheap gas a bit ago. Made us stupid. Time to get smart.

Meanwhile, look what's going in in Russia, Venezuela, Iran, Iraq and hell even Kazakhstan. It's all about oil folks, we're addicts, and yet we do nothing on the demand side. All we do is try to control the supply side, and we have failed.

Hurrah! Great news! When I filled up my car's gas tank yesterday, I paid an all-time record $3.41 a gallon, and experts are predicting that gasoline prices may soon reach $4 a gallon.

I can't wait!

I'm not kidding. I am more convinced than ever that unless gasoline prices rise above $4 a gallon, there won't be a nationwide uproar strong enough to force Washington to get serious about reducing the U.S. suicidal dependence on foreign oil.

Barring $4-a-gallon gasoline prices, America will not get serious about reducing toxic emissions that worsen global warming, and will continue to fund corrupt Middle Eastern kingdoms that deny basic civil rights to women and fund Islamic fundamentalist schools, some of which preach violence against innocent ''infidels'' in the name of Allah.

And, closer to home, without $4 a gallon gasoline, Washington will most likely continue filling the pockets of oil-rich tropical autocrats.

Venezuela's narcissist-Leninist President Hugo Chávez is a perfect example of U.S. oil-funded radicalism. When he was first elected in 1998 and oil prices were at $9 a barrel, Chávez was ridiculing critics who speculated that he would become a radical leftist. ''Me, a Communist?'' he asked reporters.

Today, with oil prices at more than $62 a barrel, Chávez ends his speeches proclaiming ''Socialism or Death!'' He claims that the United States is ''the cruelest, most terrible, most cynical, most murderous empire that has existed.'' And he chaperones Iranian Holocaust-denying President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad throughout Latin America.

Granted, the Bush administration will tell you that it is doing a lot to reduce America's oil consumption. In his recent State of the Union address, Bush laid plans to reduce U.S. gasoline usage by 20 percent over the next 10 years, among other things by increasing the supply of alternative fuels such as ethanol.

But Bush, a Texas oilman at heart, and the U.S. Congress, not immune to the car lobby, are far too timid in attacking the U.S. foreign oil addiction.

Spin, Hamster, Spin!

It must kinda suck to commute to your thankless job fifty miles each way in traffic, working six days a week, twelve hours a day, so that you can make enough after taxes to pay for your wildly overpriced new McMansion that is now rapidly depreciating in value and allure.

Spin, Hamster, Spin!

Shopping at Wal-Mart is the most un-American, un-patriotic, selfish, hurtful and self-destructive thing you can do

I know intuitively Wal-Mart seems harmless. Low prices, efficiency, capitalism, low inflation. Those are all good things, right?

Nope. Not when taken to an extreme. Not when an unchecked monopoly overtakes a market.

Wal-Mart folks has destroyed America. You just don't realize it yet, because it sure is fun to get stuff for so much cheaper than it used to be. Especially when so many things are so much more than they used to be (healthcare, college, homes, day care, movies, etc). Wal-Mart seemed like the only way to stay ahead for most people.

What people don't realize though is that Wal-Mart has destroyed the middle class. Wal-Mart has destroyed the American manufacturing base, and tens of thousands of small to medium sized American businesses. Wal-Mart has killed the character of American towns. And Wal-Mart caused the housing bubble, by creating a massive trade imbalance which caused China to reinvest their reserves in US t-bills, thus deflating interest rates and inflating home prices.

Wal-Mart is evil. And people who shop at Wal-Mart need to see that they're hurting America every time they walk through those doors.

Here's an interesting take on the catch-22 caused by our addiction to low prices and Chinese crap.

“The China trade deficit really reflects the state of the global economy: China is the world’s factory and the U.S. is its supermarket,” Gereffi said. “It’s not caused by any nefarious Chinese strategy.” Gereffi said efforts to improve conditions in the U.S. by finding fault with China’s monetary or labor practices are misplaced. Answers to American challenges are best found at home, he said.

“Pressing China to let the yuan appreciate -- the current policy of the American government -- even if successful, would contribute only slightly to an already steady U.S. economy,” he said. “Far more fruitful would be addressing the anxieties of American workers about job security, retirement and health care with new ways of providing the social supports once found in pensions, lifelong employment, company health insurance, Social Security and Medicare.

“Cheap Chinese goods and labor have pitted the American consumer, in love with inexpensive goods, against the American worker, in fear of cheap labor,” Gereffi said. “Unfortunately, these are often two sides of the same coin: America’s workers are also its consumers. It’s time to stop fighting with ourselves on this front