A Vacation From Economic Reality
Readers discussed the holidays and the housing bubble. “Three months ago everyone in my extended family up north was talking about coming down to LA for some warmth and sunshine, disneyland, and broadway show. About two weeks ago their plans all fell apart and now we’ll only have local family at our dinner. Only one brother was willing to admit his cancellation was due to financial duress, but I know that my mother has lost big bucks in her stock accounts and my older brother has said his practice barely cashflows.”
“I predict light traffic at the airports and on the freeways over the holiday season and that warm tourist destinations worldwide will go unvisited by those north of the 40th parallel.”
Another said, “My wife and I were just discussing the downturn and how in the last 12 months months we’ve purchased: a new laptop, a used car, all kinds of baby stuff, furniture, took a cruise.”
“We’re very, very frugal, and this was an aberrant year, so we’re thinking that this is way worse than we imagined. We didn’t buy a house though!”
A reply. “Well, with no home purchase closing costs and that big commission due a mortgage broker you certainly had the dough in your pocket for all the other stuff. And just think about all your friends with mortgage notes who are gonna get their yearly notices for payment of higher property tax escrows for the coming year due to the collapse of commercial assessments.”
“Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry XMAS!”
One had this, “I had two get towed off Interstate 26 going into Columbia because of a car issue. (car is 8 years old). The tow truck driver strikes up a conversation that he was retired for two years but went back to work part time. He indicated he had lost $150,000 in the stock market and was very disappointed. I wanted to cheer him up so I said, ‘Well at least you did not get into real estate.’ He replied that he had bought a condo in Daytona a few years ago.”
“It will be a difficult holiday season for conversation.”
To which one posted, “I’ve been saying ‘Well, as long as you didn’t buy or HELOC real estate in the past five years, you’ll probably be fine.’”
“Trouble is, EVERY person I know (besides myself) has bought or HELOCed in the past five years. Seriously. Maybe I need to meet new people.”
The North County Times. “Barratt American, a large, private builder based in Carlsbad, might soon be forced to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection because of a loss in funding from its lender, said Michael Pattinson, president of the company. So far, 11 Barratt American projects around the region have fallen into foreclosure.”
“Pattinson said much of the fault lies with banks unwilling to lend money despite capital infusions from the federal government. ‘Until the banks do their jobs, the economy is going to deteriorate and everybody is going to have a miserable Christmas,’ he said.”
The Record Searchlight. “Calls to the National Foundation for Credit Counseling’s Locator Line have been setting records with each passing week. What’s more, consumers taking the NFCC’s Mortgage Realty CheckSM, are up 33 percent for the year. ‘Unfortunately, we have people who are beginning their 2008 shopping season who are still paying for 2007,’ said NFCC spokeswoman Gail Cunningham. ‘The minute you make that purchase, the interest starts accruing.’”
The News Herald. “Gov. Charlie Crist has kicked off the holiday season with a proposed gift to distressed homeowners: placing a moratorium on foreclosures through the first of the year. The governor called it an act of ‘compassion.’ But it could just as easily be seen as a vacation from economic reality.”
“If a lender believes an owner can make payments on the property after the first of the year then he is more likely to hold off on foreclosure anyway.”
“That mostly leaves the worst cases, the owners who simply can’t make payments in six weeks or six months. Freezing their foreclosures gives them a break they don’t deserve and prevents the lender from being able to recoup his investment. Also, it threatens to create a logjam of foreclosed homes that will be released all at once when the freeze is lifted, flooding the market at a time when it can’t handle more excess housing inventory.”
The Miami New Times. “Two months ago, Cassy (not her real name) was homeless, out in the rain with her four kids. Now she has a three-bedroom, two-bathroom, sky-blue house on a tree-lined street in Miami’s Buena Vista neighborhood. She takes warm showers, cooks vegan dinners, and watches the news on a small, fuzzy TV screen. The only catch: The house isn’t hers. Cassy is a squatter and, at any moment, could be arrested for trespassing, even burglary.”
“Not everybody in Miami-Dade County is crying over this year’s 40,342 foreclosed properties. Cassy is part of a small, well-executed movement by activists at Take Back the Land to relocate homeless families into empty houses and abandoned government-owned buildings.”
“‘We could virtually empty the streets and shelters simply by filling the vacant houses,’ director Max Rameau says. ‘Homes should go to people, not kept empty so banks can cash in.’”
The East Valley Tribune. “For Darrell Logan, 2008 has been the most difficult year of his life. An unyielding series of financial setbacks have culminated in the Queen Creek homeowner, along with his wife, Donnique, and their four children, falling behind on their mortgage and hoping that their lender, Washington Mutual, will give them a break and not rush them into foreclosure.”
“Things were going well for the Logans when they moved from Compton, Calif., in July 2007 and purchased their Queen Creek home in October 2007. They also owned a home in Compton and chose to rent it after they left. ‘(The tenants) were doing OK with the payments in the second half of 2007, but, starting in January, they just weren’t making payments consistently and then they stopped paying,’ Darrell Logan said. ‘So we basically had to use our savings to make up for the payment. Even when they were making payments, we still had to pay $500 extra to make up what they weren’t paying in rent, so that put us in a bind.’”
“Donnique Logan then lost her job with the school district while pregnant with their fourth child. ‘At the same time, we’re paying lawyers to evict these people out of our house … and they just got out of the house on Nov. 12, but the house then foreclosed on Nov. 12. So it just hasn’t been a good year at all,’ Darrell Logan said.”
“All across the East Valley, distressed homeowners are on the verge of losing their homes, and there are already roughly 40,000 foreclosed homes in Maricopa County.”
The Gazette. “Colorado Springs homeowner and artist T. Benton Brooks isn’t in foreclosure — yet. He’s missed two mortgage payments, but is determined to avoid losing the west-side rancher he’s owned for 18 years. At a time when record numbers of people have fallen into foreclosure in the Colorado Springs area, Brooks believes he’s exactly the type of troubled homeowner that lawmakers, housing advocacy groups and consumer counseling agencies want to help. But after nearly six weeks of phone calls and faxes, Brooks has more questions than answers.”
“Brooks, a California native who moved to the Springs in 1978, admits he’s made poor choices. As a car salesman years ago, he took out cash advances on credit cards during lean months — effectively borrowing money at hefty interest rates. Multiple refinancings to fund home improvements early on, and to pay off credit cards in later years, left him owing $260,000 on a home he estimates is worth $180,000. He filed for bankruptcy in 2007.”
“Afterward, he was allowed to stay in his house as long as he made his combined $2,115 a month in first and second mortgage payments. In past years as a cars salesman, he never sold fewer than 12 cars a month; now, he’s struggling to sell seven or eight. He missed $1,425 payments in August and September on his first mortgage, and a $690 payment on his second mortgage in November.”
“‘I know I’m a culprit,’ said Brooks, who added that his financial troubles are of his own making. ‘But I’m also a victim.’”
21st Century word:
Culprit-Victim
“‘I know I’m a culprit,’ said Brooks, who added that his financial troubles are of his own making. ‘But I’m also a victim.’”
He is a victim of what, exactly?
He is a victim of what, exactly?
Convoluted thinking, and a sense of “entitlement”.
Something like this:
“I can spend all I want, and never save, because i can always borrow more. My home is my life-line. Uh-OH, the payments are more than the income. How can this be?
I’m a victim.”
He’s a victim of his own stupidity.
Being a dumb*ss.
How can this individual be a victim? When the situation he is in at the present time is of his own making?
This is really stretching here!!!
Then I am a victim as well, because the bank is not willing to reduce the size of my mortgage and I cannot take the exotic vacations that I want to take out, as well as the very large LCD HD tv that I would like to have right now.
This is really pathetic and he is an artist?
I really have a nice looking mountain that I would like to sell you right now.
We wonder why we are in this mess…
As Steve Colbert would say, he’s a victim of the tyranny of cause and effect …
I have been in and around many foreclosed houses in past few weeks. There is one common factor: they all need something done to them. Almost all are vacant. They need to be secured and right now, winterized to prevent further damage. Lots have chemicals and other health hazards.
A couple of weeks ago, a house went back to the lender at the trustee sale. The ‘owner’ had stopped making payments in the spring of 2007! Was he in the house? No one can know, because until there is a foreclosure, legally no one has a basis for checking.
These moratoriums are meaningless because there are enough defaulted houses in the pipeline to last for years as it is. I would say most here locally are refinances. As the FBs already got their money, why shouldn’t the lender get to recoup some portion of what they have lost? Don’t they have shareholders who have bills to pay? And what about the neighbors? Isn’t it in everyones best interest for the empty, uncared for houses to be sold to someone who will do something with it?
There are armies of unemployed people who could go to work on this situation, yet the press and politicians insist on playing football with this issue.
‘they moved from Compton, Calif., in July 2007 and purchased their Queen Creek home in October 2007. They also owned a home in Compton and chose to rent it after they left. ’starting in January, they just weren’t making payments consistently and then they stopped paying,’ Darrell Logan said. ‘So we basically had to use our savings to make up for the payment. Even when they were making payments, we still had to pay $500 extra to make up what they weren’t paying in rent, so that put us in a bind.’
OK, this guy was cash flow negative and was clearly gambling. And why in the hell was he buying in Queen Creek in 2007? Was he listening to the realtors or the Arizona Republic? Shame on all involved, I say.
Here’s one for the media this morning; come out to northern Arizona and I’ll show you the ‘economic reality’ on the ground. Until the public can see things for what they are, we are simply headed in the wrong direction and making this bust worse by the day.
“Until the public can see things for what they are, we are simply headed in the wrong direction and making this bust worse by the day”.
And ‘they’ will keep us heading in the wrong direction until the whole kit&caboodle goes over the cliffs edge. The system has to come apart at the seems, and then perhaps we can start to mend.
Just as the MSM didn’t vet Obamma enough ’cause they were invested in his election, they also didn’t tell the truth about the real estate bubble because they wanted the advertising revenue. They only printed what the realtwhores and lenders wanted them to do (Lereah and L.A.L.) without checking facts.The ‘Public’ is both stupid and ignorant.
“There are armies of unemployed people who could go to work on this situation, yet the press and politicians insist on playing football with this issue.”
Why not put the home builders and the army of unemployed construction workers back to work rehabbing and/or maintaining foreclosure homes until potential buyers once again materialize? I hope someone on Obama’s economic team catches on to this idea. Otherwise, a large share of our country’s collective wealth can shortly go down another real estate rathole of vacant defaulted houses which will rapidly crumble into decrepitude if they are not properly maintained.
P.S. Your suggestion that the press and politicians “insist on playing football” may give them too much credit. I suspect they may be largely clueless about the scope of the vacancy problem.
Playing football does give them too much credit.
More like a bunch of monkeys humping a football is what I envision.
Your suggestion that the press and politicians “insist on playing football” may give them too much credit. I suspect they may be largely clueless about the scope of the vacancy problem. Yup. The Zombie has eaten their brains.
I am hopeful as well PB, but I suspect that rational solutions may be pushed aside for those offered by the lobbies with the deepest pockets. Throughout the campaign both parties seemed hellbent on “stabilizing” housing prices rather than allowing them to find the bottom and stability according to market fundamentals. I suspect that the kool aid drinkers, aka REIC, are pushing for some ersatz price stability to mitigate losses. I also suspect that it will just delay the inevitable and sucker more FB’s into knife catcher status.
By ignoring the moral hazard of socializing the risks willfully engaged by all parties in this debacle what is gained? Who wins? Who loses? What is the long play in this? At some point the prop ups and artifice has to fail, does it not? Then were is the right place to be? Precious metals are completely out of whack with delayed deliveries or lack of availability why are prices as low as they are?
It’s all nuts right now and one can only hope that Obama sees that and really wants to fix it. Only time will tell.
Obama filled his transition team with Chicago real-estate wheeler-dealers. I have no “hope” that he’ll solve this problem in a just and fair way.
Why not put the home builders and the army of unemployed construction workers back to work rehabbing and/or maintaining foreclosure homes until potential buyers once again materialize?
I run a restoration and a remediation franchising company. I have seen many foreclosed homes along the eastern seaboard. Majority have moisture issues, damage and mold. The problem is the banks want to pay very little to rehab these properties. American builders got used to making hefty profits and they don’t want to take jobs with low profit margins. As the economy worsens I believe this will change.
PB I know of contractors who will not take jobs if they make $125.00 per hour. Some of these fat cats got used to making $3000 to $5000 (profts) in a 1 or 2 days worth of easy work.
What does Obama’s economic team have to do with it?
The houses are foreclosed, the banks own them. The banks are too stupid, bureaucratic and shortsighted to maintain the asset they’ve just acquired through default, so the government is supposed to do it for free?
Is there some contractual issue with the foreclosed mortgage causing a market failure where no party wants to pony up some cash to prevent an expensive deterioration in the property?
Jeez, I’ve been in some foreclosures that were so run down it was hard to see how anyone one could have lived in them.
“And why in the hell was he buying in Queen Creek in 2007?”
He was trying to get the hell out of Compton, CA. Think of the movie “Colors” or “Grand Canyon”.
“The ‘owner’ had stopped making payments in the spring of 2007! Was he in the house?”
Ben, why the heck would the bank take _so_ long to foreclose on such a property??? It’s nuts.
Because they want to be nice to this “victim”. Sheesh, you cold-blooded bully, you!
An inflated asset on the books was better than a realized loss, at least in the short term.
Gov. Charlie Crist has kicked off the holiday season with a proposed gift to distressed homeowners: placing a moratorium on foreclosures through the first of the year. The governor called it an act of ‘compassion.’ But it could just as easily be seen as a vacation from economic reality.”
Crist is on another planet..homes in Florida take almost a year to foreclose on…I already know a guy who stopped paying his mortgage 5 months ago and has YET to get a NOD on the property..90 days is nothing..
Crist is a power-hungry jerk. How can he place a moratorium on foreclosures? Act of compassion my a$$ - it’s an act of megalomania. Whatever happened to the sanctity of contracts? Article 1, Section 10 of the Constitution states that no state shall pass any bill impairing the obligation of contracts. Crist proves that political popularity is all about smile and spin - I despise his type. The Republican Party has no future unless guys like this are shown the door.
With the feds owning fannie mae and freddie mac, and the feds funding the banks can’t a trade be done like this. A solid mortgage payer can move up to a larger, newer forclosed house and keep his same mortgage but on the traded up to property. His current house would be available for someone else to move up to. Why no benefit to being a solid responsibile citizen in this mess. The in over their heads types can rent somewhere down the line.
Ben, what do you mean by “lots have chemicals” ?
‘But I’m also a victim.’
I hear this a lot lately.
He’s a victim of his own greed and stupidity, I suppose.
‘I’m a victim of coicumstance.’
– Curly Stooge –
“Homes should go to people, not kept empty so banks can cash in.”
Are these clowns insane? Lets put some homeless people in THEIR houses and see how long they sing this tune. Italy has been turning empty houses over to squatters for decades now, but this isn’t Italy.
The audacity of pseudo do-gooders who think helping squatters, and squatting itself, are human rights because their intentions are supposedly good is mind-boggling. Good intentions have been known to pave roads better left untraveled.
“Good intentions have been known to…”
lead the path to hell.
What is it with your contempt for the least among us? And would you care to explain your allegiance to the very banks that enslave citizens and who afterall, created this mess? Yeah…. Banks. They are your money changing masters. The outfits who have already absconded with tens of billions. Banks…. those organizations that you hold in such high regard. Those poor fukking banks.
This isn’t about lenders being good or bad guys. It’s about confronting the situation at hand. How in the heck is a condo going to stay right side up with squatters? What about the fees for the ‘commons’? How would you like to be one of those owners footing the bill and your mortage while others live for free?
“This isn’t about lenders being good or bad guys”
Precisely my point. I shed no tears for these legalized money changing crime syndicates. Who cares whether a structures depreciation rate accelearates regardless of cause (weather, use, as if use by a squatter or renter is somehow different, or lack of use). The defacto common law ownership staked by squatters isn’t a deed. If the money changers want them out, call the cops. Thinly veiled selective contempt in the name of “personal responsibility” is a trade market of economic terrorists and their apologists. Some day, they’re going to be on the receiving end of that contempt.
Thinly veiled selective contempt in the name of “personal responsibility” is a trade market of economic terrorists and their apologists. Nevertheless, “personal responsibility” is a valuable principle.
“Nevertheless, “personal responsibility” is a valuable principle.”
It’s worthless when some are held to it and others aren’t.
It’s worthless when some are held to it and others aren’t.
*sigh* No, it’s not. Life, society, and justice are all imperfect. None of us “wins” if everybody decides to wait to be responsible until life comes up to some sort of odd, perfect standard.
So the exclusionary application of rules where some are held to a set of rules and others aren’t is somehow a good thing? It is precisely this injustice that causes a breakdown in society. Think the Romanovs. And lose that sanctimonious sigh stuff.
Despite all your fine, slippery rhetoric, personal responsibility continues to be valuable. Maybe you should consider running for office.
So the exclusionary application of rules where some are held to a set of rules and others aren’t is somehow a good thing?
Nope. And I agree will never move forward until we increase personal responsibility. However, it’s impossible to demand that *everyone else* be personally responsible while in the interim you wait on the sidelines for perfect justice to appear, which has never existed and never will. If you don’t live and demonstrate it, then there’s no reason for anyone else to do so.
We have had a pretty nice society to date because the masses are surprisingly responsible. Ironically, what the elite “get away with” is far less important than the “average” behavior of the person on the street.
So the exclusionary application of rules where some are held to a set of rules and others aren’t is somehow a good thing?
You mean, like Kyoto?
Its actually better since the other alternative is section 8. Squatting actually saves us all money.
Does the notion that squatters are going to somehow be willing and able to fund and make the effort to properly maintain a middle class house strike you as a bit daft?
The condo HOA couldn’t legally accept money from squatters if they wanted to. The gov would be better to start looking for people to begin transitioning these condos into apartments.
Exeter is just another do-gooder who probably was sheltered from the slums. Born with a silver spoon.
I lived in slummy areas that used to be middle class until section 8 was put in. I saw firsthand how good intentions go wrong and only destroy the values of the best people.
This is why I never became a Democrat.
I am with you on this!!!! I also saw the same scenario in the SF Bay Area, where the area was really middle class; once the section 8ers came in, the neighborhood went downhills from there.
Luckily for us, we got out just in time before it got really bad.
This is one of the reasons as well I never became a democrat either and I have stayed as an independent.
Landlords love section 8, the govt portion of the rent is always paid on time. The renters portion is the gravy that must be wrenched out
Tell me about it. As someone who witnessed the birth and decline of the Robert Taylor Homes on the South Side of Chicago, I concur wholeheartedly.
Yeah, let’s blame the Dem’s for bad landlords, normally called slumlords. Section 8 is completely voluntary.
Grow up and stop blaming others for you problems.
My parents and their neighbors did not volunteer to have section 8 move into their neighborhood and destroy their property values.
I hope you get your wish and have squatters or welfare types move in next door to you uptown. See how you like gang fights and shootings outside your window. Sheesh!
RE: Yeah, let’s blame the Dem’s for bad landlords, normally called slumlords. Section 8 is completely voluntary.
You need a couple of Section 8 recipients with their undiapered kids runnin’ around your house for a couple months, floor pissin’ and crappin’ on your floors; while their welfare collectin’ mother’s sit on their lazy azzes, sucking on $6 per pack cigarettes while watchin’ Oprah Winfrey re-runs.
And then when you get pissed and file for their eviction; they take you to Tenant Court with their Legal Aid lawyers and sue for harassment and various forms of victim abuse.
Hello komrades,
I’m thinking that the state should just seize all those foreclosed homes and get people into them. Of course I’ll let my home go into foreclosure and then apply to the state to live there (I’d be a fool not to). It’ll be great seeing the evil banks get destroyed. The govt can take over all banking functions after all. They’ve proven they can take over half of it in a mere six months. I suppose most businesses will fail under these conditions, but that shouldn’t be a problem if the govt takes over the means of production of the country. A central planning committee can decide how to employ the kapital of the nation.
Happy thanksgiving komrades
I would have no objection to people forming charitable groups to BUY distressed houses and give/rent them to people without homes. But to appropriate them without paying for them? That’s just not right.
That’s right. There’s a big difference between working, responsible poor families, and irresponsible bloodsuckers that feed off society and don’t contribute a damn thing.
Exeter, like incredulous said, if you’re enamored with the idea of squatters sitting in vacant houses, why not lend yours to the cause? There are other ways you can help “the least among us”, by donating your time and money, without enabling bums and without inhibiting banks from getting paid back. You think if they start handing out houses for free to everyone that banks will be in business much longer to lend to legitimate people and businesses?
Then again, any bank stupid enough to offer no-money-down loans in non-recourse states is too stupid to be allowed to survive.
Stupid should be lethal.
This is the Democrat dream of integrating irresponsible people and other such cretins into neighborhoods of responsible savers.
Just like section 8 apartments built in 1978 destroyed my parents’ neighborhood and house value.
The end result is the destruction of the property values of the responsible savers.
This is also part of the Community Reinvestment Act, no doc loans, interest only loans, ARMs, the push by Frank, Dodd to put low income people into homes.
Precisely why I choose to rent in large luxury apartment complexes whereever I work. I discriminate against irresponsible people.
However I am confident the pendulum will swing after 2012 back to the days where there is no phoniness about who can really afford to live in a neighborhood. This will be the reverse integration after the option ARM resets peak.
B.i.L.A.
I know you voted for ’ssshrubery once and regretted it, so why are you chomping at the bit to go back to the chimera ruse that is the Republican party?
“chimera ruse that is the Republican party?”
Take that, Abraham Lincoln.
RE: so why are you chomping at the bit to go back to the chimera ruse that is the Republican party?
Better than re-runs of the Clinton Mafia.
“However I am confident the pendulum will swing after 2012 back to the days where there is no phoniness about who can really afford to live in a neighborhood.”
Hah! Under the Bush administration, we saw an impossible number of FB’s moving into neighborhoods they could never dream of affording. A total sham. Yet, you dream that somehow, some way, someone cut from the same cloth will remedy that? You’re delusional!
Nothing in my post said I want to go back to Bush’s policies. Don’t be shallow lad. Last time I checked, the late Barry Goldwater was a Republican. Ron Paul is a Republican. Jeff Flake is a Republican.
Back to the topic, I remember in the late 70s there was a gang fight outside my bedroom window shortly after the section 8 housing was built across the street. Also when I started my career after college, I remember a duplex rental (also section
where someone had their face shot off.
Section 8 - every day was a thanksgiving day to those who never earned their way to the once middle class neighborhood and their criminal acts and violence was the way of thanking the responsible neighbors. Around that same time I started reading Ayn Rand. Most people I went to high school with were sheltered and socialist in the pre-Reagan days. They never saw the savagery of the ‘will nots.” They considered the low class the “have nots” instead.
I since considered the “D” party as populated either by those who want something for nothing or those who were born with a silver spoon. Only those two groups.
So you grew up in a hanky neighborhood that got hankier, and it’s all the Democratic party’s fault?
Agreed. Making sweeping statements that complex social and economic changes arose from a single cause is silly.
Now, everyone: lighten up on the rhetoric. Did the Symbionese Liberation Army win anyone to their side by castigating the “fascist insect that preys upon the will of the people?” (OK, Sara Jane: not you)
(”Wow! You persuaded me there!You’re not really a vocabulary-impoverished reflexive thinker after all.”)
Does anyone think that referring to GWB, Cheney, Paulson, Geithner or ANYone else as scum-sucking bootblacks who serve the insidious aims of their corporate masters converts anyone? Does anyone think that referring to GWB as a “moron” or “stupid” does anything other than detract from the speaker’s own gravitas and persuasiveness?
Consider the source. He’s the same one who spends his evenings with an ameritrade account…… night after lonely night.
I disagree.
I see senior citizens who have to resort to Sec 8. & I seen no crime in their ‘hoods, nor their sec8 props decline.
I see riff raff amongst ‘white trash’ and decent neighborhoods in the mexican nabes. I see both, but mostly within the ‘white trash’ ranks.
I see folks who are living on very tight, strict incomes need decent clean safe housing. Not the rabble you speak so eloquently of.
No one seems to hold the bankers/WS feet to the fire, but surely eloquently berate those well off than themselves.
I lived in the neighborhood where section 8 came in. Comprehend? I did not dream up the gang fight out my window, nor did I dream up the guy with his face shot off, the big black man walking around naked high on some type of drug across the street. Do yourself a favor: Rent for a while near section 8. You lovers of entitlement spending and welfare prefer to just dream that socialism is perfect, don’t you?
Rent for a while near section 8.
Did this and moved for behaviors that aren’t nearly as bad as you described.
I’m not against social safety nets (especially for those actually physically unable to work) but reality is that some people create their own slums. We don’t need to hand out good money after bad in those scenarios and not wanting to is not some sort of weird, evil prejudice.
I since considered the “D” party as populated either by those who want something for nothing or those who were born with a silver spoon.
Right, because that description doesn’t describe anyone at the highest levels of the corporate-cronyist Republican Party.
Friend of my brother rented house or room in a ‘hood into which some Section 8 tennants were moved. Within two months, he could no longer hang out his laundry, nice clothes disappeared. Also had a steak swiped right off his grill as it was cooking. That was the last straw; he was out of there not long afterwards.
This is all kind of . . . sad. Many in the string of missives above seem to blame everything on poor criminals, but people commit crimes of opportunity. Those section 8 criminals could not loot your pension funds, so they looted the clothes hanging outside. The people who drive by your middle class neighborhoods into toney areas with gates (or simply flyover on their way to Phuket) loot your pension funds, dice and slice your mortgages and sell them to others at tremendous gain, and so on. Yet, to hear many of those writing above, the world would be peachy if those pesky section 8ers would stay in their own neighborhoods.
I think that any serious analysis will reveal that the middle class of the US was destroyed by the wealthy criminals with high-priced lawyers, and their friends in government, not by a criminal who you might meet face-to-face in an ill-timed moment. Both criminals are destructive, but the hidden one is far more so.
IAT
word.
Ridiculous. Sins by the big negate sins by the small?
Ridiculous. Wrong is wrong, big or small.
We have some trolls (I hope), or else we have samples of “the last generation” - the last generation who will be able to live and grow into purporting a “personal responsibilty as nihilism because bigger others do it” philosophy. They’re the last, and they don’t know it. Some of them will never let go of it. Aging, bitterly, never realizing that personal responsibility is the cornerstone of advancement (big or small).
Like children finding reasons not to behave, they project, conjuring reasons why the masses ought not be responsible.
Ridiculous. Sins by the big negate sins by the small?
I agree. I’m thinking that the poster has never really lived next to people who are bent on destroying their own lives and/or the physical world around them. (Section 8 is just a catch-all label of a certain type of mentality in my mind - my mother is on Section 8 and does not do what’s described.)
What’s worse, those “small” sins are far more personally disruptive than the “large” ones. Living next to a group of people whose only goal in life is survival by the “easiest” methods possible (and screw everyone else) can quickly suck the joy out of life. The other “sin” is just money.
Nothing in my note suggested the sins of the weak are not sins. I did, however, call for people to think things through in some kind of rational proportion. In short, the robber stealing the shirt off the clothesline should be compared to the robber stealing the shirts in your closet and off your back by stealing your pension funds (if any), your kids future, and more. Really, do you maintain these crimes are equal in their effects?
I guess short-sighted people think only about the things they can see right in front of them and, surely, the clothes missing from the clothesline are, in a sense, right in front of you. But wisdom means being able to consider beyond what the eye can see, and I guess I just have grown accustomed to such wisdom on Ben’s blog. I guess I shouldn’t expect such wisdom from everyone here. My bad.
IAT
Thx for your post, VTGal.
IAT, my post wasn’t directed toward you, I just jumped on the thread at this point. THX! : )
IAT,
I agree that those who commit the “big” crimes are just as guilty, if not more, than those who commit the more personal (small) crimes. For instance,I advocate for truly punative punishment for the financial thugs who caused our economy to fail. Jail time, and **more importantly,** confiscation of ALL assets that are controlled by those who ripped us off. (hello…Alan Greenspan & company).
But, there is a HUGE difference between white collar criminals and street criminals. Very few people feel **physically threatened or violated** by the white collar guys on Wall Street. The losses are in the victim’s bank account, but other than that, they have not been violated.
The street thugs invade your **personal** space and take your most personal belongings. You feel physically threatened (what if they come back?) and become afraid to go outside and live a normal life.
Contrary to what most might think, humans are less concerned with money than they are with personal/physical safety. It’s not about the material stuff that’s been stolen. It’s about the very real physical threat (or potential for it) posed by the criminal. Those who steal clothes from a someone’s backyard or who break into a house to get a TV, are much more likely to inflict physical harm than a nerd on WS who’s looking for a bigger bonus.
I hear you Arizzzona. And, CA renter, I agree about the physical threat. I would say, though, that my original point still applies–wisdom would dictate that one take a bit less emotional posture toward the matter. I understand in the heat of the moment being overwhelmed by anger and frustration. But, continuing to stew in anger some time after having moved away, and fixating on the former neighbor while ignoring the large losses one is incurring right this minute owing to the actions of theives with banks–well, it is just not wise. It is not as if the losses inflicted by Wall Street banks are not life threatening–how many suicides, impoverished lives, ulcers, heart conditions, divorces, broken families, can be traced to bankers’ thefts and other white collar criminals? How much domestic violence, gunplay, and self-destructive behavior (alcoholism, drug addiction) can be traced, ultimately, to the state of affairs fostered by the criminal elite?
More concretely, won’t your bodily integrity be violated if, for example, your health insurance company refuses to pay for treatments you need? The pencil pusher who denies you the coverage for which you have already paid, in violation of the contract, is just as much a threat to your life, if not more so, than the guy who ripped a few clothes off a clothesline. Won’t your health be under attack if everything you’ve worked for is snatched away by thieves with briefcases?
All I’m asking for is balance. The face-to-face criminals should be caught, tried, and if convicted, imprisoned. But, so should the white collar ones. And, both might happen more often if we directed our actions, after the initial anger, in a wiser manner.
If we are in agreement there, then, cool. If not, also cool.
IAT
More concretely, won’t your bodily integrity be violated if, for example, your health insurance company refuses to pay for treatments you need?
IAT-yes, truly and many people get just as upset about that as the physical violence. I also agree that it’s unwise to hang to grudges and anger about what’s happened in the past.
I’m thinking we mostly agree, but I definitely do understand the lopsided emotions on the matter. Some of what Bill in LA has talked about are very visual, emotion-ladened crimes. I’ve only had a taste of what he’s talking about and it’s hard to “forget”, especially, if you find yourself home alone with children and wondering what happens next.
So I will admit to being very human on the point of physical vs. white collar crime.
I also apologize if I offended in anyway.
“artist T. Benton Brooks”
Great, I suppose we’re going to discover a bunch of artists now.
looks like he’s not much of an “Artist”, not much of a “Salesman”, but a helluva borrower.
From car salesman to “artist” (using his first initial and full middle name, no less). An unusual career path.
I wonder how many galleries T. Benton Brooks exhibits at.
W. Country Dude (tax lawyer and bodily-fluids performance artist)
“Pattinson said much of the fault lies with banks unwilling to lend money despite capital infusions from the federal government. ‘Until the banks do their jobs, the economy is going to deteriorate and everybody is going to have a miserable Christmas,’ he said.”
I suspect if you have a decent credit score and 20% down, most banks will lend you 3 to 3.5 times your income on a home purchase. (Just like the olden days.)
What they wont do is lend money they know they will never get back.
I wasd wondering how long will it take for houses to get back to July 2007 pricing? The Realtors® say next month, I say 2018.
And I think that it’s the 20% that people can’t handle. But I suspect that 80/20 mortgages have gone the way of the dodo bird, ’cause in a foreclosure, the holder of the 20% is looking at a total loss. But I saved for years to put down 20% so I don’t think that it’s an unreasonable burden. Really, If you can’t save 10% of your income for six years*, I’m not sure you have much business buying a house.
10% x 6 years = 20% x 3 x income.
“Pattinson said much of the fault lies with banks unwilling to lend money despite capital infusions from the federal government. ‘Until the banks do their jobs, the economy is going to deteriorate and everybody is going to have a miserable Christmas,’ he said.”
The financially prudent thing for mortgage lenders at the moment would appear to be waiting until housing bottoms out, then make loans to well-qualified buyers to purchase homes they can afford. We will know housing has bottomed out when banks willingly ‘do their jobs’ once again.
Non-bank here still lending — indeed, lending much more willingly now than in 2006. (a) Other “investments” proved themselves untrustworthy. (b) Borrowers have continued to pay without interruption. Even the failed Fla flippers. (c) I don’t need depositors to provide funds for lending. In a certain sense, all funds I lend come from previous borrowers. (d) MH’s and MH lots have perhaps not “bottomed,” but I don’t lend any more than what they would’ve fetched in (let’s say) 2002.
You are absolutely right: if I had to lend borrowed money to help people buy real houses, it’s highly unlikely I’d be lending 80% of today’s asking prices. I did lend 80% on a real house last December but that’s because it’s only a few blocks from an apt I occupy year-round, so if I had to repossess it, I’d just stop paying rent on the apt, and move my furniture to the re-po house.
Paging Mr. Potter, May Day!
“‘Until the banks do their jobs, the economy is going to deteriorate and everybody is going to have a miserable Christmas,’ he said.”
Like a spoiled brat they stomp their feet and bring the holiday into this.
Besides, even in the best of times no one should pin so much onto any single day of the year. It has become like living in a giant high school musical where everyone starts worrying about the big dance months before it happens.
Since my extended family gave up on holiday gift giving years ago we expect to NOT have a miserable Christmas. Instead we’ll all bring goodies to a potluck dinner and enjoy ourselves instead of engaging in rampant consumerism.
Family get-togethers are fun, if people get along well. I like the idea of your a holiday potluck dinner. It lowers individual costs, and adds a splash of personality to the meal. Have a wonderful time. Next year, I might do the same.
spaghetti/meatballs sauce,
coupla pans,
a few dishes.
done.
We don’t have Turkey coma nor high fallutin expectations of the Norman Rockwell family get together.
Sounds wonderfully sane.
Heads up. One of those deflation deals. Last nite Circuit City flashed an ad for a Sony Bravia 46″, 120hz refresh rate for $1299. This rig was $2200 at Costco last week and nobody else comes within $500 of this price. Model #46W4100 which is the top shelf model, exluding the XBR series. I’m not big on consumer electronics but I bought this rig this morning to replace my 13 year old trinitron that quit early last spring.
Now if you can only get some decent TV programming to go with it.
If you’re a movie buff, then netflix + big tee-vee should make you happy.
You’re right. I just became hooked on “The Wire” via Netflix. Finished the last disc of season one last night.
Best. Show. Ever.
The Wire is a good one.
Deadwood was pretty good as well.
If you liked The Wire, you might go back and watch Homicide: Life on the Streets. Not as good, IMHO, but about as close as a broadcast network would come. Much more episodic, with less emphasis on long story arcs, and less emphasis on non police players.
But Andre Braugher is really good as Pembleton.
‘If you’re a movie buff, then netflix + big tee-vee should make you happy.’
It does. I don’t bother with regular shows, they’s stoopid. Oh, wait, I do like watching the news. For about 10 seconds. Also I like UFC, and I like cheesy B movies on SciFi, as long as there’s giant mutant insects involved.
I’m not usually very susceptible to advertisements, but the nifty techy gadgets people are going all out in desparation this year and I can feel myself slipping. If I wasn’t supporting the economy by building a cement pond, I might need an intervention
And where will you take it if it needs waranteed repairs?
ummmm… Circuit City?
Word on the street is Circuit City is headed for bankruptcy right after the holidays.
IAT
“deflation deals”
Regular gas $1.61/gal on US1 between Princeton and New Brunswick today.
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! I’m doing business here in Palmdale for a month or so and I never knew the high desert had so many homeless people. And gangsters. Holy crap there’s more grafitti here than where I grew up in NYC. Seems like many of the L.A. undesireables moved up here.
Does not surprise me. This is what happens to “Palmcaster,” “Vicsperia”, and “Ridgeyokern” when real estate prices plummet.
In the mid 1990s LA and Bakersfield sent welfare types to Ridgecrest. Grafitti and violence increased. I was a homeowner back then. I was livid. Grafitti on the fence down the street from me in a 6 year old neighborhood.
Yep, we have that problem here in Hillsborough County, Florida. When I moved to this area in 2000, it was a fairly safe, semi-rural area with easy access to Tampa. Once in a while a dead body would be found in one of the orange groves as a result of a drug transaction gone wrong. Now, Ruskin looks like downtown Tiajuana, two gals in Apollo Beach were recently abducted and raped by three illegal immigrant gang bangers and two days ago the local branch of BofA was held up by one of the “disadvantaged”. Oh, and the head of the rapist gang left behind a newborn out of wedlock son the taxpayers have to take care of. Ain’t it great? And this is largely courtesy of the housing bubble, which unleashed on the community all sorts of “re-located” citizens and non-citizens. One failed development went Section 8. Two more subsidized housing complexes were built, on top of the three that already existed.
And to top it off, Hillsborough County leads that nation in gang growth. Yes, that’s right, while we many not have as many gang members as LA (yet) the rate of growth exceeds LA’s.
So yes, the housing bubble has encouraged the growth of maggots.
I didn’t know it was that bad.
“I didn’t know it was that bad.”
Yup, it’s that bad. I know first-hand.
What possesses youse guys to live in such crummy areas?
What’s stopping you from moving to safer climes?
Muir, google “Rigoberto Moron Martinez” (yes, his middle name really is Moron) and you’ll get the story of the gang-banger rampage in both Pinellas and Hillsborough counties. It’s a really sad story. Of course, I don’t think the Apollo Beach women should have been left alone to close the bar. Happened right up the street from me.
Well, you know, laddie, you bring up a good point. I really liked it around here, up until the past couple of years. There’s lots of space, still, and easy access to both Tampa and Sarasota, where I do business. Not to mention good access to the bay for a little fishing or boating. I am in the process of trying to figure out where in the Tampa Bay area would be better. Thought I had an area pinpointed, then read in the local paper about how the body of a Mexican national was found in the street outside a local bar. The gangbangers have spread like a cancer throughout the US.
Lad, you did not get the point. These were safer climes before the politicians moved their welfare types into those areas.
You should know enough of those parts of California and the agricultural areas since you write about them a lot.
The big cities of California have the political weight to dump their pollution and their miscreants on the smaller towns, even in the same county!
Palmy bitches the most, and he’s just renting…
Why is he still there?
I’ve written you a reply, but the system seems to have eaten it for Thanksgiving dinner.
But to be brief, I am looking. I do have a business in the area that requires some doing to re-locate.
Believe me, I do want to get the snot out of this condo before the summer, or before one of the foreign nationals that lives here blows a gasket. He appears to be having a tough time adjusting to the US and gets a tad surly with his neighbors from time to time.
“What possesses youse guys to live in such crummy areas?”
It was never a permanent move, but I seriously underestimated the crime down here (I came for grad school). I’m not sure when I’ll be done, but it will be somewhere in the 4-10 month range, at which point I will return to my native upstate NY.
It’s really sad to see what has happened to Florida. I feel awful for the natives that have seen their state ruined. There are some really nice parts that provide glimpses to the past. It must have been great before the 80’s, and of course the 00’s, when it really went crazy.
Which reminds me, if it weren’t for the bubble, and dumb luck, my family might have planned to stay a while longer and we might have purchased a house.
“It’s really sad to see what has happened to Florida. I feel awful for the natives that have seen their state ruined.”
You haven’t looked around in NY closely enough. You wait.
“In the mid 1990s LA and Bakersfield sent welfare types to Ridgecrest.”
yep and LA county sent them to Palmdale . Palmdale is in LA county and I guess cheaper for the LA welfare folks to live there. Many foreclosures and I guess the county took them over and turned them into HUD and section 8 ?
The best possible thing that could happen to Palmcaster would be its succesion from Los Angeles county. Once the section 8 rent were not paid based on countywide COLA but instead local prices, landlords would not continue to follow this route.
Palmcaster county, California. It has a nce ring to it.
secession
Thanks, that’s what comes from over dependence on spell check.
It wasn’t much to write home about even in the early 90’s. Yucckkkk.
My wife and I went over to Hawaii in Sept. The plane was MAYBE
1/3 full. This is going to get VERY,VERY bad.
Actually it seems very very good to me. I’m planning to go to Hawaii in February for a week. The astute workers in the tourist industry there will be much more competitive for getting some of my money - the ones who treat this customer well will get my $.
Every downturn in an industry is an opportunity to profit. I enjoy being able to get a seat at a bar that (before the recession) has always been crowded.
Wow. I actually somewhat agree with Bill on something. There are bright spots to be found in a sea of darkness.
It also rocks for those of us who live here and don’t depend on tourism for our income. Tons of empty beaches, and a “monster” swell on the way this weekend per NOAA.
I wouldn’t recommend Oahu though, too much traffic and hotel prices haven’t come down much and they gouge you on parking. Traffic around Waikiki and Honolulu is still bad, I was there a few months ago.
Yes, please do come to Hawaii, especially the Big Island east side. Spectacular scenery, lava flowing into the ocean 5 miles from black sand clothes-optional Kehena Beach. Vog is rare over here. Lots of great vacation rentals available. Find them on Craigslist and vrbo.com. Real estate bust here began August 2005. Three houses under construction in my neighborhood, 2 custom and 1 spec (what are they thinking?) Lost two airlines last spring. Most people are hoping to survive on cottage industries. Sad to say best way to make money is still growing weed. Maybe we can have an HBB get-together.
I love the big island. Maybe if it crashes hard enough I’ll move there permanently. I’m haole but wifey passes easily for local.
It’s crashed pretty hard so far, over three years down. I bought a 1/2 acre with ocean view for 25k in 2002. It peaked at 190k in 2005, now worth around 100k, down 48%. How low should it go?
The cool thing about the big island is that there are a lot of places with ocean view. You can see the ocean at the 4,000 foot level, 200 foot level, or 6,000 foot level. Lots of land available, so it’s really not that expensive.
The “gotcha” is that the jobs are mainly in the tourist industry.
In Kauai, however, you could be a DOD employee at the testing range. Surf during lunch!
Bill, I know you’re software but do you have any math/radar/sys adm. background? I believe the range has some openings.
Oh, and we surf it before and after work sometimes too. Right now, there’s too much sand but maybe this monster swell will fix that.
East, I was there last thanksgiving and really liked the area around pohoiki - nice left as Isaac Hale, and the right is fun too. Turtles everywhere in the water. Does that area get much vog? What kind of winds send the vog that way - north?
Considering the islands lost something like 30% of their airline traffic from the mainland with the recent collapse of Aloha and ATA, that is especially bad.
Crist almighty, Santa Claus showed up early…
“Gov. Charlie Crist has kicked off the holiday season with a proposed gift to distressed homeowners: placing a moratorium on foreclosures through the first of the year. The governor called it an act of ‘compassion.’ But it could just as easily be seen as a vacation from economic reality.”
Crist is now backtracking on his offer
A day after expressing his willingness to impose a short-term foreclosure moratorium and consider a 50-cent increase in the cigarette tax to boost Florida’s faltering economy, Gov. Charlie Crist showed restraint on both ideas Tuesday as each drew resistance from industries.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/state/article917332.ece
‘ 50-cent increase in the cigarette tax’
A fag tax in the bible belt?
LOL, only part of Florida is Bible Belt. The Northern part. The Southern part is sort of like New York in the tropics.
When your governor asks everybody to pray for rain, you might be living in a bible belt state of mind.
DOE still *debates* creationism v. evolution.
Crist said he might limit the freeze to people in homesteaded properties, not owners of second or vacation homes, whom he described as “people who are speculating and have several Lexuses in the driveway.
Lol so some sense that flippers don’t deserve rescue.
I also laugh. What did the bankers say? “No mortgage for you?”
Got Popcorn?
Neil
California home sellers need to face reality, their houses are no longer worth what they want. Their true value is pre-bubble. My personal experience …. I listed my house for $800,000 and one year later , best offer I got was $620,000 and I sold knowing it will not get any better and will possibly go lower. Taking my money and get out of California fast! Too expensive to live here and I’m not willing to pay more state taxes.
John-
California is toast, you’re right. It’s finances, and the 3rd world trash living here.Where are you thinking of going?
You mean you don’t want to pay for more illegal alien’s kidney transplants?
I put up a rental home I owned for 12 years in Long Beach CA for sale at $899,000 last December . It was worth about $1,000,000 before the bust. I sold it for $800,000 in April to the disgust of neighbors who were still trying to get $1,000,000. They are now trying to get $800,000 and probably won’t sell in this market.
Nice Haircut!
You were smart/lucky.
Good luck finding a buyer qualifying at $800k today.
Come January 1st… good luck finding a buyer qualified at $750k!
Got Popcorn?
Neil
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/081127/meltdown_coming_soon.html
Meltdown far from over, new mortgage crisis looms
Thursday November 27, 1:17 pm ET
By Matt Apuzzo, Associated Press Writer
Malls, hotels next victims in mortgage crisis as signs show meltdown far from over
WASHINGTON (AP) — The full scope of the housing meltdown isn’t clear and already there are ominous signs of a new crisis — one that could turn out the lights on malls, hotels and storefronts nationwide.
Even as the holiday shopping season begins in full swing, the same events poisoning the housing market are now at work on commercial properties, and the bad news is trickling in. Malls from Michigan to Georgia are entering foreclosure.
Hotels in Tucson, Ariz., and Hilton Head, S.C., also are about to default on their mortgages.
That pace is expected to quicken. The number of late payments and defaults will double, if not triple, by the end of next year, according to analysts from Fitch Ratings Ltd., which evaluates companies’ credit.
“We’re probably in the first inning of the commercial mortgage problem,” said Scott Tross, a real estate lawyer with Herrick Feinstein in New Jersey.
nycdj, LaPaloma is “the” big wig in Tucson. wow
http://www.azstarnet.com/business/267895.php
News came out that Paul Volcker will be one of Obama’s “Special Advisors”.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081127/pl_nm/us_usa_obama_economy_8
You may remember him from the Jimmy Carter administration epoch. The former Fed Reserve Chairman was made famous by his “Controlled Disintigration of the Economy” and 21% prime interest rates.
If folks like Volcker are to advise Obama, we’re headed for the next Great Depression.
You’ll find a lot of Volcker fans here.
The answer to our problem is higher interest rates, not ZIRP. We need to wipe out the businesses and people who are chronically in debt. Total misallocation of resources, if one can never be profitable (not reliant on debt, with lots of savings).
I would LOVE to see double-digit interest rates. Savers have been screwed long enough!
I would LOVE to see double-digit interest rates. Savers have been screwed long enough!
Me too.
Volcker might be drowned out, but it’s better than listening only to investment bankers for advise.
I’m a Volcker fan too. He might actually solve something. We need medicine, not codling.
Got Popcorn?
Neil
Volker had to combat 20% inflation.
Will Bernake have the guts to do it in 2 years?
a Red Dawn is upon America…
Every day Ben brings us tales of the downtrodden, that have not only missed numerous mortgage payments, but can’t pay future ones either.
One can only imagine all the stories of all the people that didn’t make the newspaper?
“Red Dawn”
What a great movie… the ultimate teen fantasy. I built a model of that big ass Russian chopper in middle school.
I recall feeling thrilled a few weeks ago buying regular gasoline at CostCo for $2.55/gal. Today I saw regular advertised at $1.879. What a difference a month makes!!!
paid 1.59 today
Financial Times
Boom times for stock liquidation site
By Jonathan Birchall in New York
Published: November 27 2008 17:54 | Last updated: November 27 2008 17:54
While US shoppers search the stores for post-Thanksgiving bargains, small businesses that buy and sell excess stock are being offered even more extreme deals this winter, as leading retailers struggle to shrink their inventories.
Liquidation.com, a web-site that stages auctions of excess products, or those that have been returned, says it has had an increase of “about 800 per cent” in the number of auctions currently on its site compared to last year.
A time for humility
Financial Times
November 27, 2008
This is the text of a speech given by Martin Wolf, chief economics commentator, at the FT’s annual economists’ drinks party in London last night.
Last year I enjoyed telling a number of entirely unfair jokes about economists. This year, I looked at the same source and found only one joke about the profession’s involvement in depressions. Here it is:
“Such a severe depression and banking crisis could not have been achieved by normal civil servants and politicians, it required economists’ involvement.”
This, in short, is a time for humility. Why did we mostly get “it” so sensationally wrong? How did something that looks increasingly like the precursor of a slump creep up on almost all of us this year? It is a pretty good question. It is a pretty embarrassing one, too. It is one everybody I meet now asks. Even Her Majesty has asked why we didn’t do a better job of forecasting this mess.
Gotta love Martin Wolf’s take on the unfolding situation…
These, then, are disturbing times for economists. But they are not all bad. They are also times of the highest intellectual excitement. Economists have been given the material for research programmes stretching decades into the future! Tens of thousands of PhDs, not to mention a few Nobel prizes, are surely waiting to be hatched! And if this crisis kills Real Business Cycle theory, as it surely should, it cannot be all bad.
RBC theory belongs in the Museum of Dumb Ideas right along side of the Efficient Markets hypothesis and the Equity Premium Puzzle. None of them hold much empirical relevance, especially after the past 14 or so months…
I see nothing here that a few hundred billion dollars more in bailout commitments cannot solve.
Meltdown far from over, new mortgage crisis looms
By MATT APUZZO – 5 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — The full scope of the housing meltdown isn’t clear and already there are ominous signs of a new crisis — one that could turn out the lights on malls, hotels and storefronts nationwide.
Even as the holiday shopping season begins in full swing, the same events poisoning the housing market are now at work on commercial properties, and the bad news is trickling in. Malls from Michigan to Georgia are entering foreclosure.
…
The worst-case scenario goes something like this: With banks unwilling to refinance, a shopping center goes into foreclosure. Nobody can buy the mall because banks won’t write mortgages as long as investors won’t purchase them.
“Credit markets have seized up,” corporate securities lawyer Michael Gambro said. “People are not willing to take risks. They’re not buying anything.”
That drives down investments already on the books. Insurance companies are seeing their stock prices fall on fears they are too invested in commercial mortgages.
“The system has never been tested for a deep recession,” said Ken Rosen, a real estate hedge fund manager and University of California at Berkeley professor of real estate economics.
One hope was that the U.S. would use some of the $700 billion financial bailout to buy shaky investments from banks and insurance companies. That was the original plan. But Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has issued a stunning turnabout, saying the U.S. no longer planned to buy troubled securities. For those watching the wave of commercial defaults about to crest, the announcement was poorly received.
“He’s created havoc in the marketplace by changing the rules,” Rosen said. “It was the stupidest statement on Earth.”
“my older brother has said his practice barely cashflows.”
What practice? I know some newly (or soon-to-be) graduated vets, dentists, lawyers etc. that are pitting their shants. They have massive student loans and poor prospects.
One of my best college friends just got hired as a vet, making about $100k, and she’s certain she’ll be laid off.
Hmmm, how long would it take for her to switch to people?
One of my neighbors is a vet. He’s great. I asked him the same thing, ‘How do you feel about treating blonde primates? Say, if I ever chop something off by accident and can’t drive to the hospital, or just don’t feel like going”?
He says his rates are competitive.
Seriously, though, what’s the difference when sewing up somebody’s punctured hide, whether they curse in English or curse in cat?
I guess it’s much tougher to get into Vet school than Med school. (Apparently Vet school rejectees often go onto Med school as the requirements are the same. Me thinks this explains alot about the “average” doctor and the “average” vet. ;))
At any rate, as long as you are working on mammals, I don’t see what the difference is either between a doctor and a vet. We’re just big, bald chimpanzees with a meat fetish. Work on monkeys, work on humans - all the same.
So, on another topic, …is this vet cute?
“So, on another topic, …is this vet cute?”
She’s the most gorgeous blonde farm girl you can imagine from rural Tennessee. We we’re drinkin’ buddies in college. I am not making this up. Luckily, my wife is confident and doesn’t mind when she’s around.
‘So, on another topic, …is this vet cute?’
Why, yes. *shy and stupid Olygiggle*
One thing I like about you, Vermontergal, is how you always know what’s REALLY important in any situation, topic, or event.
Ignore my reply, I read these posts out of order.
Why, yes. *shy and stupid Olygiggle*
Ohh, very nice. Steady income, (presumably) kind to animals, sense of humor, lives nearby, *and* cute. What more can you ask for?? *wink*
Sounds like me. But I live in Boise.
Ask me about my kitty friends sometime.
Tell me about your kittie friends! Right now! hahahaha!
RE: know some newly (or soon-to-be) graduated vets, dentists, lawyers etc. that are pitting their shants. They have massive student loans and poor prospects.
I just read a blurb about a 57YO divorced former homemaker who went back to law school to fulfill “a dream…”
2 years later with $125k in total loan debt for her piece of JD paper; she finds out there ’tain’t much demand for 59 year old lawyers.
Since students loans are not discharged in bankruptcy court, she’s “unsure” of her financial future.
Thought you had to have a modicum of smarts for lawyering?
“Thought you had to have a modicum of smarts for lawyering?”
Had a co-worker who bitched about law schools that wash out 1/3 of 1Ls so they can take the full tuition and put down the non-performers. She said they should tell you up front that this is what they do. I said a quick internet search will give you that information; consider it your first test of due diligence.
I just read a blurb about a 57YO divorced former homemaker who went back to law school to fulfill “a dream…”
Seriously, who has a middle-aged dream of becoming a lawyer?
Retiring to a desert island, motorcycling across Asia, helping refugees in Africa I can see, but…becoming a lawyer at 59?
Seriously, who has a middle-aged dream of becoming a lawyer?
Honestly, I don’t know either. My dream is to be born to a rich, sane, kind hearted family who has given me control of the family trust fund. But I digress…
If she’s anything like my Mom, she was probably told as a child that girls don’t do “x”, including lawyering and/or was not given the funds for additional education based on her gender. My Mom, her in bad funks, continues to hold the torch for the vet that she never was.
So it’s possible that it’s a “Gloria Steinhem” (sp?) meets “Middle/Older age” meets “never let go of any past wrong” dream, which ends up overruling any sort of common sense (or ability to research, apparently.)
I went back to law school at age 40 to become a patent attorney after a career as a EE. For something narrowly targetted goals like that you can make good money. I made up to $150K a year during the decade after law school. But it was a major hassle and for most “older students” law school doesn’t make much sense.
I know a bunch of middle-aged women who went to law school. However, it was 20 or 30 years ago, which was maybe before the over-supply of lawyers became acute. (?) They all did pretty well. Yeah, 59 seems a bit late. I had another friend who started a PhD in sociology at that age. Although she eventually finished it, it was financially worthless. For myself, the college teaching career preceded the PhD in hard science. By the time I was getting “post-doc” offers, I had my mortgage biz and could not be bothered relocating to unpleasant locales. So the PhD was not financially worthwhile, but at least I didn’t pay for it. In hard sciences federal research almost always pays the whole freight.
His practice is mostly medicare patients. Patients with private insurance are few and getting fewer. The cash flow issue is mostly due to the billing cycle with medicare.
He would be in OK shape but his spending is profligate. He has three daughters and can’t say no to them. His only saving grace is that he is in a low cost of living area. If he can keep his health through his 50s and 60s and halts the ridiculous outlay of money and the acquisition of debt, he might just retire someday.
had friends over for Thanksgiving and we both are hoping we don’t get let go BEFORE Christmas…. we both work in the semi conductor industries. I don’t see how this economy will ever be the same again its been outsourced with no replacement industry.
I love this one. “Live in this van and save money”.
http://tampa.craigslist.org/hil/apa/936385231.html
It’s got kind of a cool EM-50 feel to it.
Has consumerism gone too far? You tell me.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aySPPfb8T8GU&refer=home#
“A worker at a Wal-Mart in New York City’s Long Island suburbs was killed when a throng of shoppers broke down the doors to the store early this morning and knocked him to the ground… At least four shoppers were hurt in the melee at the store in the Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream, about 13 miles (20 kilometers) east of New York City, Nassau County Police said in a statement. A 28-year-old pregnant woman was taken to a hospital for observation, and three people suffered minor injuries, police said.”
And people in the suburbs are afraid of Brooklyn.
That is absolutely insane!
A good reason why we should never follow the herd… Stupid, stupid sheeple.
‘Frugal families learn how to cope with soaring food costs’
http://tinyurl.com/6e89zg
‘At a time when wages are declining, the nation is experiencing the biggest rise in food prices in 18 years, according to the U.S. Labor Department. Unfortunately, high-calorie foods such as chips and cookies are cheaper than low-calorie foods, such as fresh fruit and vegetables.’
I remember once, years ago, shopping at Macey’s grocery store in Spanish Fork, Utarr. A cute little girl said excitedly to her mother, ‘Mom! Can we get some of these?’ pointing to the mound of beautiful, just glowing rich red plums. Mom: ‘No, they cost too much. Get a few of those.’ Pointing to the rack of, I forget the brand, I wanna say ‘Moon Pies’, those pastries that are mostly lard and hard frosting, with a little dab of sugared jam in the center. I bet they’re a zillion calories, and every one of them empty. So that’s what the little girl got.
I thought ‘What?! This is SO tremendously wrong, wrong, wrong, on a very fundamental level…’
It made a big impression on me. I still wish I’d bought the little girl a giant bag of those plums so she could eat all she wanted of them. I’d do it now, but I wasn’t as bold in those days.
I say “that’s too much money” to my kids all the time. I’m trying to teach them that they can’t have everything they want.
Maybe Mom knows the kids won’t eat plums. Maybe they cost a lot less at the grocery store. You never know.
Poverty coming to the suburbs
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081128/us_nm/us_usa_economy_poverty
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Poverty in the United States is spreading from rural and inner-city areas to the suburbs, according to a study, a situation that can worsen as the economy confronts what may be a protracted recession.
The study by the Federal Reserve’s Community Affairs department and the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program found that poverty levels in the world’s richest nation were on the rise.
“It shows that concentrated poverty is still very much with us, and that it can be found among a much more diverse set of communities and families than previous research has emphasized,” said Bruce Katz, a director Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program.
“Poverty is spreading and may be re-clustering in suburbs, where a majority of America’s metropolitan poor now live.”
If you’re lucky enough to sell your house, it’s time to get the hell out of California. Too too expensive to live and the quality of life stinks.