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Mort Zuckerman Joins Volcker In Bashing The Chaos That Is US Homeownership: "The American Dream Has Become A Nightmare"
It is always fun to read Mort Zuckerman's post-"dark side" conversion rants. Especially since they tend to be very much spot on. His latest focuses on the nightmare of US homeownership, which incidentally is the last thing that prevents the all out collapse of the US economy. Should the dwindling mass of homeowners (sometimes referred to in endangered species textbooks as the "middilus classius") realize that just like stocks, owning a home is very much an overrated premise, that could well be reset push this country so desperately needs.
From US News.
The American Dream of Home Ownership Has Become a Nightmare
The disappearance of home equity value is a lead weight on the recovery
Why has housing been such a core element in the story of American civilization?
Culturally a decent house has been a symbol of middle-class family
life. Practically, it has been a secure shelter for the children, along
with access to a good free education. Financially it has been regarded
as a safe store of value, a shield against the vagaries of the economy,
and a long-term retirement asset. Indeed, for decades, a house has been
the largest asset on the balance sheet of the average American family.
In recent years, it provided boatloads of money to homeowners through
recourse to cash-out refinancing, in effect an equity withdrawal from
their once rapidly appreciating home values.
These days the American dream of home ownership has turned into a
nightmare for millions of families. They wake every day to the reality
of a horrible decline in the value of the home that has meant so much to
them. The pressure to meet mortgage payments on homes that have lost
value has been especially shocking—and unjust—for the millions of
unemployed through no fault of their own. For the baby boomer
generation, a home is now seen not as the cornerstone of advancement but
a ball and chain, restricting their ability and their mobility to move
and seek out a job at another location. They just cannot afford to
abandon the equity they have in their homes—and they can't sell in this
miserable market.
American homeowners have experienced an unprecedented decline in
their equity net of mortgage debt. The seemingly never-ending fall in
prices has brought an average decline of at least 30 percent.
Furthermore, the country is now going through an unprecedented
nationwide slide in sales, despite the fact that long-term mortgage
interest rates nationwide plummeted recently to a record low of 4.3
percent before rising slightly. The result is that home occupancy costs
for home purchases are now down to roughly 15 percent of family income,
dramatically lower than the conventional, affordable figure of 25
percent of family income devoted to home occupancy costs. Yet new home
sales, pending home sales, and mortgage applications are down to a
13-year low.
The economics of home ownership could hardly be more disastrously
opposite to the expectations of generation after generation. Millions of
homes have been foreclosed upon. About 11 million residential
properties, or about 23 percent of such properties with mortgages,
have mortgage balances that exceed the home's value. Given the total
inventory, and the shadow inventory of empty homes, many experts expect
prices to fall another 5 to 10 percent. That would bring the decline to
40 percent from peak-to-trough and expose an estimated 40 percent of
homeowners to mortgages in excess of the value of their homes.
The growing risk of disappearing equity invites more strategic
defaults on mortgages. Homeowners with negative equity are tempted
simply to mail in their keys to their friendly lender even if they can
afford the mortgage payment. Banks don't want to take the deflated
properties onto their books because they will then have to declare a
financial loss and still have to worry about maintaining the properties.
Little wonder foreclosure has not been enforced on a quarter of the
people who haven't made a single mortgage payment in the last two years.
A staggering 8 million home loans are in some state of delinquency,
default, or foreclosure. Another 8 million homeowners are estimated to
have mortgages representing 95 percent or more of the value of their
homes, leaving them with 5 percent or less equity in their homes and
thus vulnerable to further price declines. A huge percentage will never
be able to catch up on their payment deficits.
The pace of foreclosures was briefly slowed by loan modifications
brought on by government programs. Alas, the programs have not been
working as hoped. Half of the borrowers have been redefaulting within 12
months, even after monthly payments were cut by as much as 50 percent.
The foreclosure pipeline remains completely clogged. As it unclogs, a
new wave of homes will come on the market and precipitate additional
downward pressure on prices. The number of foreclosed homes put on the
market by banks will be a more powerful influence on the further decline
of home prices than either consumer demand or interest rates.
A well-balanced housing market has a supply of about five to six
months. These days the supply is more than double that, as inventory
backlog has surged to about a 12½ months' supply this summer, up from
8.3 months in May. This explains why average sale prices have been
declining for so many, many months. The high end of the market, in
particular, is under great pressure.
The mortgage market doesn't help. It is virtually on life support
from the government, which now guarantees about 95 percent of the
mortgage market. The rare conventional lenders are now actually
insisting on a substantial down payment and making other more stringent
financial requirements. Household formation is also shrinking now, down
to an annual rate of about 600,000, compared to net household formation
during the bubble years, when it was in excess of a million annually.
The most critical factor subduing the demand for housing is that home
ownership is no longer seen as the great, long-term buildup in equity
value it once was. So it is not too difficult to understand why demand
for housing has declined and will not revive anytime soon.
This is a disturbing development for those who believe that housing
is going to lead America to an economic recovery, as it did during the
Great Depression and then through every recession since. Each time,
residential construction preceded the recovery in the larger economy.
This time, in the Great Recession, a lead weight on recovery has been
the disappearance of some $6 trillion of home equity value, a loss that
has had a devastating effect on consumer confidence, retirement savings,
and current spending. Every further 1 percent decline in home prices
today lowers household wealth by approximately $170 billion. For each
dollar lost in housing wealth, the estimate is that consumption is
lowered by 5 cents or 5 percent. Add to this the fact that we are
building a million-plus fewer homes on an annual basis from the peak
years of the housing boom. With five people or more working on each
home, we have permanently lost over 5 million jobs in residential construction.
That is why housing was such an important generator of normal
economic recoveries. To give this context, residential construction was
6.3 percent of GDP at its recent peak in 2005 and 2006. It has fallen to
the level of 2.4 percent this year. This is significant if you
recognize that a 3 percent top-to-bottom decline in real GDP constitutes
a serious recession.
Government programs to stimulate housing sales have not helped. There
have been eight of them. One, which expired most recently (in the
spring), was an $8,000 tax credit for housing contracts. All of these
have done little more than distort the pattern of housing demand and
actually pulled forward hundreds of thousands of units at the expense of
future growth.
There is no painless, quick fix for this catastrophe. The more the
government tries to paper over the housing crisis, and prevent housing
from seeking its own equilibrium value in real terms, the longer it will
take to find out what is true market pricing and then be able to grow
from there.
The sad fact is that housing problems never left the recession of the
last several years and it doesn't look as if they are going to leave
anytime soon. The ultimate solution remains the same as the solution to
the country's broader economic crisis. That is, getting millions of
people back to productive work.
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Residential housing bitchez!
LEAD WEIGHT ARROUND THE NECK BITCHEZ!!!
WHOEHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
Americans can always go back to the hovels, tents and caves from whence they came.
And if things continue as they are, it won't be long.
The image of millions of hungry, angry, armed Americans crouched in their little hovel or cave is very disturbing and frightening.
Flaunting wealth could become a very dangerous activity.
Squatting in empty homes would (personally) be preferable to living in tents or caves.
Getting millions of people back to productive work. An impossible palliative under the circumstances, eh?
Essentially, in the harsh wake-up from the American dream, one will find the same sex, lies and videotape, enormous corruption, willful destruction of entire classes of society (think black in inner cities)..... fractally reflected in every aspect of what American's considered an honest republic and themselves, for the most part, honest republicans.
Any wonder the thing that wakes you up is called an ALARM?
ORI
http://aadivaahan.wordpress.com
Junked for being incoherent and self-promotional. Neither of those things merit a junk by themselves, but together it's just too annoying
Incoherent self-promotion, my specialty.
Junk away!
ORI
http://aadivaahan.wordpress.com
Are you whining? Stop that.
LEVITT JUBILEE
http://williambanzai7.blogspot.com/2010/09/levitt-jubilee.html
where were these guys 3 yrs ago - at an obama rally
yeah that pretty much sums it up.
I must say Obama has been the most disappointing President in recent history because he had potential to bring good change to this world, but now he's made it even worse... like a lot worse.
I'm starting to think this is just a giant game: let the Democrats come in (bankers fund their campaigns) and take the flak for bailing out the banks by getting the Fed to take on all these homes at market prices, then let the Republicans come in (bankers fund their campaigns) and force the Fed to sell the houses back to the banks for pennies on the dollar.
Bankers: 2
People: $0
Socialize, Profit, Privatize, Profit, Repeat ...
I think it's probably a lot more reactionary than this... plus, I don't see any reason why the PTB would favor one party over another... completely irrelevant.
The pendulum swinging back and forth helps promote the myth of choice within our political system.
Dr. Carroll Quigley who taught at Princeton, Harvard and Georgetown (Bill Clinton was a student of his) said the following:
I agree with you, but I think you're putting words into the previous poster's mouth...
he had potential to bring good change to this world
Not sure where you got this idea. Central planning and government control, hallmarks of his worldview and plan, have been tried before, usually ending painfully for those who thought like you do.
It was/is all so obvious to those who wanted to look.
sschu
Like Workfare? And funding the commercial scaling of the Internet?
Clinton was a perfectly fine Moderate Republican president.
I'm just curious, what would you have done differently than Obama? What would be the results of those decisions?
Set the FBI on the banksters and prosecute? Unwind the TBTF, rather than piling their losses on the taxpayers? Audit the FED? Require the SEC to do its job?
Not too much to expect from a "populist/socialist" Hope and Change guy, is it?
Need I really say what the results would have been?
+100
Bingo! or at least a good start.
Starting the conversation on reigning in public unions as well as trimming/killing medicare part D and social security would be useful topics as well...
Another "pristine bullet" (and a side order of scrambled brains?)
Okay, I'll bite
1) Initiate a modular nuclear energy program to both reduce our dependency on oil and place power generation closer to consumers
2) Get the fu@# out of Afghanastan
3) Not settle for milqeutoast, bullshit bank reform
4) Initiate a program to convert all commercial vehicles to natural gas
5) Be a friggin' leader
but this sort of thing democratizes too much of life.
The oligarchs REALLY DO desire to own all the fucking land, be dukes, and rent to serfs. Seriously.
They don't give a fuck about democracy. It appalls them that you can buy a ticket on the same plane as they. It is not YOUR right to own anything, it is THEIR right to have you pay them for existing.
Why you think the Founders wrote the nobility titles provision into the Constitution?
There remain people who give a shit, and lamp posts free of encumbrance.
The one-tenth of one percent screwed up on the math. The relevant question is what percent of the people you need on your side to maintain your stance. I'd argue that 99.9% of the people, ready to die rather than live as slaves are a powwwerful force.
There remain people who act like sacks of shit, and lamp posts to be encumbered.
people need to read history too. There is reason that little history and no civics is taught in the US schools now, and why most books orginate from Texas.
for you examination......
Spain 1922 to 1945.... military, church, mega wealthy, big land owners by confiscation of property.
In six years there will be a knock upon the door by a brown shirt and it won't be UPS.
Exactly - most fools here think fascism = socialism. If fascism is socialism, it is socialism only for the wealthy.
I thinks some people will need a boot on their throat before they know who their boss is.
6) Prosecute the fraud
7) Prosecute some more fraud
8) Cut federal salaries in half
9) Cut federal benefits by 90%
10) Cut off all federal aid to any state, municipality not doing the same
11) Wipe out all extraconsitutional federal agencies - HUD, Dept of Education, Dep of Labor, Dep of Agriculture, Dep of Homeland Security, etc.
12) End all federal support of corporate medicine/pill pushing.
I would have passed out silver spoons and sugar. Because everyone knows that...
...a spoonfull of sugar helps the medicine go dowwwn, the medicine go dowwwn, medicine go dowwwn.
Seize the banks, split them into smaller entities and force the investors to take losses. As it is now, the debt buildup is sitting on their books impairing them from any credit expansion. The second effect is prices are artificially propped too high. It is sucking the life out of the economy through preservation of high asset prices.
I'm just curious, what would you have done differently than Obama?
Everything. Just a clue - the results are gonna be market clearing prices - its just a question of from what level and WHEN. Obamatard & CONgress has not addressed any of the underlying problems such as insolvent banks... Giving out welfare forever is not a plan.. Wiping out the common and haircuts or conversion of the bondholders to new equity would have cost how much? Zactly... Not foreclosing on defaulted mortgages does not change the reality that the homemoaners have no equity and the banks have losses. FDIC pulls forward 3 yars premiums and is almost immediately broke again. The RTC was not perfect, but it cleared the slate relatively quickly. What we have now is some sort of weird Kabuki...the banks sell their worst loans to the taxpayers at face value.
Audit fort knox, audit the fed, only allow publically directly elected members to serve on the Fed committee, reestablish a gold-backed dollar, raised nominal rates to at least 10% (i.e. 2-3% real rate), let bankrupt companies fail, remove federal income tax, close 80% of all bases, eliminate department of education, energy, homeland security, cut state employee pensions and salaries until they fall below the private sector, stop HFT, repair the infrastructure, shut down Fannie and Freddie, reinstate correct GDP, inflation and unemployment statistics, introduce honest forecasting, stop keynesian brainwashing and stop pre-emptive wars.
Consequences? That's hypothetical. Would never happen.
These are all great suggestions, however, the result as Trav alludes would be president Biden.
Your anger toward the government is misplaced...
The only thing the oligarchs fear is class warfare, but the MSM (oligarch mouth piece) has twisted successfully twisted the minds of many intelligent and respectable people who suffer the delusion that the government is anything (currently) other than a tool being used by the oligarchs to loot the country.
By the time the collective we wakes up, the money will be gone.
I find it ironic that we of all people find it so easy to blithely assume that if Barry did the right thing(s), he'd meet a bullet and, consequently, he and anybody else in that position deserves a free pass on responsibility.
I call bullshit on us all for that.
He might meet a bullet courtesy of TPTB, but who the fuck doesn't have the possibility of a violent end today? Would that be a good enough excuse for mass desertion of soldiers who enlisted in the military--given the very real possibility of getting killed? Should we be agitating for soldiers to be let out of their contracts or given amnesty for desertion as a means of ending the wars? Maybe so, but that doesn't change the fact that they signed on for a dangerous job.
This bullshit where we let off the fucking POTUS, of all people, absolutely baffles me. If the mother fucker was that stupid that he didn't seriously consider the risks before running--well, c'mon, nobody's that stupid.
This Free Pass on the possibility of getting killed is nothing but bullshit. I think we should start calling ourselves on it.
It wouldn't need a bullet. As soon as he started using the powers necessary to 'get things done' the MSM would start sounding like Rush Limbaugh, the sheeple would agree because they like having someone to get angry at. I am all for bravery, but just ask GHW Bush (a former CIA director who should know better) how it went for him when the opposed the Israeli agenda - and that is (allegedly) a different country.
I wasn't alluding to anything; some people put 2 and 2 together and arrive at -7. What I was saying is in the end, if everything goes Apocolyptic, it's 'We The People', and not 'We The Powers That Be'
-7
Sometimes I don't read close enough.
Anger toward the government? When the government and the parasite classes quit using guns to steal from us, then and only then can we be friends.
No one is forcing me to buy a Chrysler or do business with Goldman Sucks. Obummercare is all about the abuse of power.
Who wrote 'obummercare'? I've got news for you, it wasn't obummer.
IN TEN WORDS OR LESS... <snicker>
On a five year timeline $451.77 to $1299.77 not to bad.
or $350,000 to $285,000, how do you like that big fucking house now?
Ha, that's close to what mine was priced at at the very top of the market! I bought it at 315K and yes, it has fallen to somewhere around 280, probably. Equity has been lost, not much else. I never viewed it as an investment, maybe only in the sense of the school district it is in. It's a money pit, like every house is. Our first house was brand new and was an even worse money pit, so I'm happy overall.
One layoff and it is probably all gone, though.
slasher flick. i love it. working over the consumer with the faux "bailouts"--gold smells the s-kickers and soars, treasuries soar because "that's what the government wants" and......
In French, "Mort" means "Death".
Funny name.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvDKyGfVl90
Le Jeune Homme et La Mort
Like mortgage.
Mort Gage = "Dead" "Glove"
Pretty sure there's an implicit hand in the glove.
Mort sucks cokcs in hell with his crappy rag the daily dem news.
bitchez Mort.
"a home is now seen not as the cornerstone of advancement but a ball and chain, restricting their ability and their mobility to move and seek out a job at another location"
This is not the first time I have heard this, but it is a disturbing notion to me. Will changing the middle class into migratory workers really improve their situation? The rich can't squeeze any more out of these people so now they are going to force them into being nomadic again? How far back do they really want to turn the clock?
+100
Rock, meet harder place. Time to roll back.
the inevitable outcome is the undemocratization of ownership as governments tax wealth into the stronger political class hands, just like in the latter days of the Roman Empire.
Anyone who is not generating enough income via production to pay the tax will end up selling into serfdom to one who still can, or who has political class cover. By this method, families will begin to amass vast duchies.
I mean, look at sports team ownership...those with access to cheap credit purchase gigantic assets, then bribe their way to government concessions to pay it back. Only the connected have access to those types of deals.
I mean *I* could run the Redskins as well as Dan Snyder - the difference is that between us, only HE could get a loan for basically the ENTIRE cost of the team! It is amazing that banks do utterly STUPID deals to the likes of that and Don Trump when they will try to jew a little guy out of a goddamned dime. They passed out money to every connected idiot in Las Vegas to build the seven dozenth megacasino in an obviously saturated market, but they crawl up middle class asses over fucking FICOs?
CRE makes residential look like a loan to a priest.
I hear you. I'm sure there are lots of men (yes, MEN) who would do a better job of being president than Obama. The problem is the system--they can't get through. Hey, it's the same where I work with the management--only the specially anointed make the cut, everyone else is a serf. I am always looking in from the outside, by design, and never knew what it was I did that caused it. No clue at all.
*nods*
I'm sure there are plenty of "yes MEN" that could be president too, and the media that Mort owns might indeed spin them as "better". . .
but seriously, "president" is just a madey-up title meant to impress the lowlies, there's no power until you leave and get yer REAL job from those that rule the world.
just ask the men Clinton & Blair, eh.
try to jew a little guy
Not ok to say that, asshole.
Grapes of Wrath, bitchez!
Are we there yet?
http://news.yahoo.com/video/us-15749625/food-giveaway-draws-huge-crowd-22061606
I think the scifi novel "Shockwave Rider" covers the concept of a purely mobile middle class. It was dystopian.
I recall the term "military brat" as a slur for kids who move around from base to base and never have any sense of belonging to one hometown or one place, but is just attached to the destructive communist parasite that lives within our quasi-capitalist society.
Hell, I've already lived in three different states. I'm making my stand in the midwest now, though. No more shifting around.
Many, many older homeowners should be selling their homes and buying small plex properties. They downsize their living arrangements and create CF and tax write-offs. Someone nearing retirement in Sactown should be looking to sell and buying small units in Reno - live in one, rent the others. I have never owned a SFR except as an investment... You live in one and rent the others, and you can rent your unit and relocate at anytime.
There is going to be a tsunami of retirees selling their homes - its their nest egg.. Sell when you can, not when you have to...
The ultimate solution remains the same. Yes, but it isn't only jobs, it's the free market. Let the dead cat bounce.
When housing is almost free those who went bust will have to admit it, but many more will be prosperous and secure. When commercial real estate is almost free, small business will bloom. We don't need pundits. We need to get government out of the way.
YES!!!
Nice post, except where is says that they can's sell their homes in this miserable market.
If they marked them to market, and not to fantasy, they could sell them. But they do not. They put them on the market at laughable asking prices and then marvel that they cannot sell. Besides, who is buying houses these days anyway? America must have more masochists than I would guess.
Agreed, George. But don't you think all the "experts" saying "the bottoms almost here..." is giving sellers false hope?
I think the (false) expectation of recovery is making it worse.
Most buyers these days are getting:
(1) a house sold via short sale
(2) seller closing concessions
(3) 90%+ LTV FHA loans
AND still could be another 20%+ underwater in the next 12 months!
told to GO @#$% themselves...
(4) A folded, spindled and mutilated title!
Although I think the point is that they can't sell them because they are too underwater and don't have the cash to pay the difference if they marked the house to reality.
So instead they either keep paying inflated monthly payments (dumb idea), or stop paying and live rent free until foreclosure (smart idea).
May be. But I have seen houses touted as "first time on the market in 20 years" and they were -and still are- market to fantasy.
Just one problem, with an otherwise excellent article:
This is assuming that the Treserve can keep mortgage rates at 4% indefinitely with fraudelent auctions and everybody's cool with the government backstopping 95% of the mortgage market.
FYI - The cost of all this backstopping is currently $500 per person per month in the growth of the national debt. Raise your hand if you're cool with that....
Well, wtf did Mort expect? The only place you can get a rising income is in fucking government jobs. And they cannot fund except through printing.
The nations which fought for protectionism are up against the same global energy supply wall that we are. Japan is not a great housing market despite very jealously guarding its export and jobs economy. They still have factories and whatnot and still produce things but how are they any better off?
Growth is the problem and more growth is NOT the answer.
Mort + Madoff + SEC sittin' in a tree k-i-s-s-i-n-g.
Another problem with the article:
"The pressure to meet mortgage payments on homes that have lost value has been especially shocking—and unjust..."
If you call it unjust that people have to make good on their promises (signed in writing!) then I really don't wanna know what you think of as justice!
+1000
My car lost value, but I still am paying on it. If I sell a used stove, I don't make a profit. If I buy my wife a diamond ring it will be worth the same now as in 2050. A house was never meant to be a damn investiment except an investiment in your family.
How many big shots do YOU know that bragged at parties about their 'flipping' houses, how they just bought another for a nickel down payment. I know plenty of them and the music stopped and they had no chair to sit in. Did I feel bad for some of them, sure, but did I feel it was UNJUST! Hell no.
They are right back NOW trying to borrow to flip "when the market' returns any day now".
You bet there were many a soul who did know what they were getting into, the banksters are slick, but a IQ above 75 should have told them that a 500K house can't be financed on a 25K salary. So, yes it is a mess and it is unjust to the people who are stuck with cleanning up the mess. All this goes back to Phil Gramm and 1989 when the deal making began to let the banks do their thing.
The one person that I thought sure would default on his mortgage, is a waiter, and he has not! He struggles, he had rented out rooms, works two more jobs gardening to make his payments. Not everyone could or can do this...but when I hear and read encouragement to "just walk away from the house" it makes me want to spit. It adds to the essence, the sprit of why and how we can not crawl from this mess...we want the easy way out with no responsibility for our actions....THAT IS WHAT IS SHOCKING AND UNJUST! It doesn't work that way folks, you play a bad hand at the table, the house does not let you walk....sooner or later you will pay, and THAT IS justice.
I'm sure the other party to the contract views this in purely emotional terms as well. </sarcasm>
I stopped reading at "free education." What kind of fucking asshole overlooks the property taxes that pay for the schools? Nothing free about it.
Bingo.
+1000
Oh you added a fence and remodeled the kitchen? Your tuition just went up two grand a year. Thanks for playing!
the kind that went to Haaahvahd & taught at Yale, the kind that "donates" to politicians, the kind that own the newspapers they publish their rants to the masses in, the kind that aren't that up on the minutiae of the serf's lives, but instead speak in broad cliches that let the little people fill in the details while nodding vigorously. . .
Mort's a Bilderberger Zionist, he really doesn't give a shit about your life, never will. . . he spreads "messages" from the elite to the masses.
interesting that he gets so much free space above the line here. . .
The ultimate solution remains the same as the solution to the country's broader economic crisis. That is, getting millions of people back to productive work.
And just where might that be Mort?
we are being led by LOOTERS
Did Mort Zuckerman add any advice on how to avoid ponzi schemes where he gives millions to some guy who never purchased a single share of stock??? I know that Mort is the guy who looks beyond surface features when he makes investments and would never fall for something so God awfully dumb and idiotic, so I was wondering what he had to say on the issue while he was "ranting". Most people if they had ever done something that retarded would have been too ashamed to give their advice on such related issues ever again. I mean.... if Mort had ever done that....
This is mostly BS.
When I start seeing the owners of beachfront mansions start selling at basement-level prices, I'll believe it.
We have a long way to fall yet... but I am confident we are going to get there.
Don't see how sentiment can get much worse on residential real estate.
In addition to what Bearster and Aerojet already pointed out, another problem is that he equates equity in your house with savings/wealth. This is one of my biggest pet peeves! He talks about equity withdrawal as though people were just taking money that they earned and saved out of a savings account. They weren't. They were BORROWING against their homes. He also talks about abandoning their equity. They aren't abandoning anything! The money is not yours until and unless you sell. Otherwise, it is only a paper gain or loss.
In this case, the gain on your property was only phantom equity built on fraud as house prices went higher and higher because borrowers lied about their incomes to take out loans that they should have known they could never afford and banks ignored the risk and gave them the money knowing that Uncle Sam would steal from the taxpayers to cover their losses. Even though you felt wealthier and you paid higher property taxes on the paper gains, you received no real benefit because the money was never yours unless and until you sold.
"These days the American dream of home ownership has turned into a nightmare for millions of families. They wake every day to the reality of a horrible decline in the value of the home that has meant so much to them."
wa, wa, wa -- I'm sick of the whining! I'm sick of the bailouts! You made a bad decision if you overpaid for a house. You are not a victim! You should have done your homework! Your choice is to keep paying your mortgage or give the house back to the bank. It is not my job to pay your mortgage or cover the bank's losses, as I was not a party to the contract. It's called personal responsibility. Have some dignity. Stop begging the government to steal from your neighbors to pay your bills. The government is not interested in keeping you in "your" home. They are only using "keeping you in "your" home" as a justification to steal from your neighbors to pay back the banks and to string you a long as a debt slave who will keep paying as long as possible.
If you bought long enough ago that your house is still worth more than you paid, sell it while you can for whatever profit you can get or shut up! It is not my job to pay for your retirement. The house that you bought 20 years ago and lived in all of that time was a depreciating asset. I'm not going to pay you 3x what you paid to live under your worn out roof, use your worn out appliances, and have to replace your worn out heating/a/c/water heater, etc. Your house was never really worth what you think it is -- it was phantom equity based on fraud!
Instead of having pity on all of the people who made bad decisions, we need to let the market correct so that those who acted responsibly can pick up the pieces and start a real recovery.
You sound like a real objectivist and a pusher for all the lies. There is no money, and there is no debt. We will be good citizens and discharge the fake debt under the UCC, restore our allodial rights given into perpetuity to the people of the US in the 1800s, and stay in our houses.
The people suffer from lack of knowledge, nothing more.
Oh, it is much worse than a simple lack of knowledge.
It is probably the largest conspiracy to mislead, defraud and enslave in the history of mankind. What is being purposely covered-up is utterly material to the transactions in question. And when I say "utterly material", I consider that the understatement of the century.
"The most critical factor subduing the demand for housing is that homeownership is no longer seen as the great, long-term buildup in equity value it once was."
No -- the most critical factor subduing demand for housing is that prices are still too high relative to rents and incomes.
Millions of bankers, lawyers, judges, attorney general offices, congressmen and endless other predators in the financial services sector have known this for decades, and have consciously chosen to massively lie, cheat, steal and mislead entire populations for decades.
This is clearly treason and massive crimes against humanity. The appropriate solution is millions of skeletons and rotting bodies hanging in the government and financial districts in every town and city from sea to shining sea. Anything less is a travesty.
Rotten bodies can never be a solution. A French-style revolution is not a solution; it's the destruction that the satanist bankers so crave.
They tried to revise Article 9 of the UCC in the 90s in anticipation of the MERS set up. This article deals with the legal requirements to establish ownership of property. But it has failed, and it didn't cover their asses. The judges are handing down decisions in favor of the homeowners who were foreclosured by fraudulent means. This gives me some hope that the tide will turn in favor of the people.
There are many solutions: 1) Discharge debt and refile your deed 2) Letter of Recission (of your signature on the application for the loan), 3) Show mortgage fraud (the banks are withholding credit and not paying the taxes on the new money they create; this is a caught with pants down offense, 4) Show foreclosure fraud, 5) Adverse possession (when you occupy property and show financial responsibility).
Do a Quiet title for cause filing.
The Quiet title can be used to secure a security interest of property when you are an established CREDITOR.
I take the high road until the SHTF. Then, all bets are off. If they make themselves targets, that's their problem.
Have you looked into the "opposite" approach? You (and my Canadian friend Rob-Arthur: Menard) are all about playing their game with their rules to get some small-to-moderate degree of satisfaction.
I cannot do that and remain honest and ethical. I am too aware that ALL that exists is the universe, including some animals we call humans. That all else is 100% fiction. To be clear, let me describe what is "fiction". A fiction is an idea/concept with a name (like "SantaClaus", "EasterBunny" or "government") that has no referent. In other words, we DO have ideas/concepts that we name "SantaClaus", "EasterBunny", and "government", but those ideas/concepts do not refer to any existent. This is extremely easy to prove, if you need me to do so (just ask).
The most fundamental form of insanity is an inability to distinguish reality from fantasy --- or put another way, an inability to distinguish reality from fiction --- or put another way, an inability to distinguish ideas/concepts that HAVE referents from idea/concepts that do NOT have referents.
For me to play their game would require me to pretend I am insane. No doubt about it. But if I did that, I would have just given evidence that I am in fact insane. The only alternative would be that I am happy to live a life composed largely of lies and fraud. Furthermore, I would be (at least implicitly) sanctioning lies, fraud and the entire artifice of the game they play to succeed as predators. Having sanctioned and taken advantage of their fictions, how could I then hope to escape its tenticles when others utilize them to ensnare me? Answer: I couldn't. And that's why I keep looking for the best way to approach the problem you and Rob and I clearly see --- the wholesale destruction of individualism, liberty, justice and ethics.
So, having explained my point of view (hopefully), I ask again. Has your thinking and reading and studying given you any thoughts about the "opt-out" approach that I prefer? How can we AVOID the tentacles of their fraud rather than attempt to play with them?
I refuse to pretend to be insane.
I do not consent to be governed.
I refuse to contract with fictions.
I refuse to create joinder with "my" person.
How do I implement these decisions in a way that works? Any ideas?
PS: It is pretty much obvious that all that's real is the universe, of which we animals are parts. Since all humans are equivalent in essense (in ethics), clearly no human is born with any authority over me, just as I have no authority over others. Obviously there is no legitimate way to gain authority over me, though obviously anyone can simply and utilaterally claim or deem anything with language. But that is obviously pure lies and fraud, otherwise each of us would simply deem ourselves "permanent master of the universe" and gain authority over everyone past, present and future. This is absurd, and I call it absurd, baseless and wrong.
Ultimately, I think even their system acknowledges this somewhere deep down in the billion pages of BS that layers over the fundamentals. They've created some tricky system that simply deems something like "if you breathe, you have entered into a fully voluntary contract to be governed by whatever pile of BS the predators-that-be might happen to write into legal documents". In other words, we don't need a drivers license or registration or insurance because we have a fundamental natural right to travel (as we see fit). But if we drive without a license or registration, the cops will stop us several times per month, physically assault us, kidnap us, lock us in cages, drag us before some self-appointed "authority" (magistrate/judge/etc), and find against us. Even if I somehow manage to play the tricks of their games right and avoid "joinder" with the fictitious entity that they describe with my name in all capital letters, I have been massively abused in the process... and WILL BE massively abused many times per month in perpetuity. They will still charge me to get my car back, which they stole (towed away) after they assaulted and kidnapped me, and so forth.
I want a way OUT of this fraud. Playing their game is not an option for me, because I refuse to pretend I am insane or sanction their delusions or system to satisfy their demented desires.
So I ask again. Have you learned anything that might help those of us who prefer to take this approach?
The American Dream is but.
Thank you for the sensible commentary. The poster always seems to try to make everything fit his mindlessly anti-Obama world view - especially the Zuckerman posts. When they are typically general criticism that applies to all the Washington morons.
Trying to make one or the other party the scapegoat will distract people from trying to find an actual solution.
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