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Prepare to Be Forgiven, Ye Mortgage Sinners
Although we waxed skeptical here the other day about Warren Buffett’s just-announced $5 billion stake in Bank of America, we allowed for the possibility that the deal will provide a handsome payoff to him no matter what happens to the bank. B of A could implode, after all, a victim of sinking collateral values for its mortgage loans, and of litigation over its securitized-lending business. There is also the wild card of homeowners challenging lenders in court to show clear title to properties that are in line for foreclosure. In fact, this issue alone has the ability to capsize the global financial system, since “clear title” is exactly what ceased to exist when the feather merchants of the banking world leveraged out real estate to-the-max earlier in the decade to create an $800 trillion derivatives edifice – the Mother Lode of Digital Money, as it were. All of that sum must be viewed at the moment as deflationary overhang, by the way – not to mention, a key stumbling point for those who argue that The Great Economic Crisis must eventually precipitate out as hyperinflation.
So, how do you produce even mild inflation, let alone hyperinflation, with the housing market in a full-blown Depression? Most surely not by expanding the capacity of banks to make mortgage loans. That’s been tried to death – first moderately, then aggressively, and finally desperately — with zero success. Despite trillions of dollars worth of mortgage stimulus and supports both implied and real, the residential market looks even grimmer than it did a few years ago. Existing-home sales fell 3.5 percent in July despite the fact that prices were 4.4 percent lower than in July 2010. Now that’s deflation. There’s also the $6.6 trillion loss of home equity that has occurred since the onset of the housing bust five years ago. Will it ever return? We can’t imagine how, although it’s possible that Buffett and our President think they see a way. The two have been pretty tight lately, raising suspicions that they had hatched a rescue plan for housing before the Sage of Omaha sank a pile of dough into B of A preferred stock, a fat six-percent dividend, and warrants exercisable for $7.14 a share. (The stock ended the week at 7.75 after trading as high as $8.80).
Buffett must have gotten something from Obama. Why else would he have announced a $40,000-a-plate fund-raiser for the President before the ink had dried on the B of A deal? Pretty unseemly, really. As ‘C.C.’ noted in the Rick’s Picks forum, the “Robin Hood of the downtrodden” has cozied up to the second wealthiest man in America. So what might they have talked about? The “housing problem” for sure. It supposedly will be one of the President’s key talking points in the jobs speech he’s slated to give when his endless summer actually ends after Labor Day. We expect the speech to mark Obama’s outward transformation from elitist to populist. As such, we can expect to hear about a plan that will purport to save homeowners rather than mortgage lenders, allowing the former to refinance loans at low rates regardless of whether their homes are underwater. The President may even demagogue the bankers by admonishing them to get with the program in a big way. We are about to enter the Era of Mortgage Forgiveness, you see, and it can work only if lenders find it in their obsidian hearts to favor wastrels just this once over well-to-do shareholders and bondholders Banks and rentiers are about to take a hit, since they will be cajoled into trading old mortgage bonds for new ones that carry a lower coupon rate. Politicians will be in the line of fire too, since they might have to make some tough calls that would effectively favor deadbeats and spendthrifts over borrowers who acted responsibly.
Lying to Ourselves?
And make no mistake, that is going to be the most delicate part of any political maneuvering that purports to deal with the mortgage crisis. The New York Times would have you believe otherwise. “Many of today’s troubled borrowers were not reckless,” the Grey Lady editorialized recently. “Rather, they are a collateral damage in a bust that has wiped out equity and hammered jobs, turning what were reasonable debts into unbearable burdens.” We are lying to ourselves if we accept the narrative that the housing boom/bust was caused by factors other than a reckless and massive collusion between borrowers and lenders. We are all to blame, really, although it would appear that, politically speaking, the time has come for the bankers to shoulder their fair share of the housing bust.
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Got to love version 2.0 of Wealth Distribution New Economy!
I'm not so sure. They own our government, and they would get compensated in other ways for the loss.
Actually I think they will offer a re mortgage plan to the current market value at the going interest rate of about 4ish, but it will still be a bust just as all the plans put forth so far have been because most of the people who quit paying are now gone from their former homes through eviction or abandonment, have lost part or all of their incomes via un or under employment, and contrary to popular belief they are not criminals who set out to scam the system, but the vast majority had good intentions, as I did when I bought in 2008 only to see the value sink within another year or so by more than half. I just want the foreclosure done with and the house sold.
It has been an unmitigated nightmare so much so I doubt I would go back to my former house even if they simply offered me free and clear title, for one thing that new neighborhood has become a slum, a slum with that new slum smell, but a poverty ghetto all the same. Though to be honest in that case I probably would take the place back and then rent it out, but I would not live there again and I would bet my old doorknobs that one of the conditions will be that you maintain it as your primary residence for 1-3 years. And, I will not owe the government a single cent because, if there are any further surprises in this ongoing fiasco with a commercial bank you can start over in bankruptcy court, not so with the government. So any program would have to be one that leaves the public not in debt to government. I found out the hard way with student loans in the eighties and more recently with the first time homeowner tax credit under BushCo that to owe the government anything is to have your life owned by Satan and his telephone agents that hound you day and night while thinking up new ways to fuck up your FICO score. I will never again voluntarily consent to owe a dime to the USA.
But, we already have high unemployment and asset deflation with CPI inflation for expenses of everyday living even if they have hidden about 6-8% of that inflation via trickery at the BLS, this is pure and simple stagflation ala 1970's. The Volker magic of high interest rates will not work this time as a cure for a number of reasons, actually it probably would work just like last time, but nearly the whole banking and finance system would go under, and while you and I would not shed a tear over their demise we all know the Fed and the government simply are not going to allow that to happen. Neither is sovereign default going to be allowed, don't even bother to fantasize about it, and that only leaves inflation. They would quietly like it to be a target of about 10% per year for 12-18 years, with compounding that should shrink all those nasty balance sheet problems and disarm the timer on the weapons of mass financial destruction, but only if COLA's for entitlements reflect a CPI increase of 2% or less per year, preferably 0%. And that would effectively end safety nets and entitlements. They will not want higher or faster inflation because that would be beyond the upper limit of what people can tolerate at one time, it would rightly be branded hyperinflation and would do more damage than the current cluster fuck.
But, these are just guesses, I have no crystal ball and neither does anyone else. It could be that a big rock in space is headed straight at us and they know humanity is about to start over with a clean slate if any survive the impact, that would actually most economically fit all the theories and explain every act and every inaction to date, so according to Occam's Razor it ergo is correct.
No matter what else though, please stop trying to paint average people as the bad guy in all this, they did not have the big picture view that banks and government had when all this was building to a boil, yes they did pay more than their incomes could support in some cases late in the housing price bubble, but that was done more out of fear of being locked out of homeownership permanently rather than being motivated by something for nothing scamming. Their incomes were not able to cover the house prices toward the end but they were told to expect that real estate appreciation would cover what income did not and more, not just by slime ball RE agents either but by none other than Loanspan himself when he said housing was not in a bubble. And when BushCo went on tour to tout the "Ownership Society." When congress loosened the leashes of the GSE's which then made gargantuan piles of hot liquid money available to Wall Street to leverage on top of leverage all this magical mortgage largess. Were there a few bad apples scamming the system? Of course, there always have been and always will be, but the vast majority were scammed not scamming, so for those that resent your own probity in all this and demand a pound of flesh from those who you perceive as less well integrated I say grow up, most of your so called insulted ethics were nothing more than a case of bad timing and your resentment speaks volumes about your own jealousy. And how many of you also used your houses as ATM's and now regret it because you are locked into a house no longer worth the mortgage? Or nearly so, perhaps you blew a ton on useless toys only to find that your margin of equity has evaporated to nothing so you are now pissed off that you blew a nest egg on trivial bullshit, I know lots of people claiming to be offended in just that boat, literally that boat. If it is moral hazard you so dislike then let us require FASB to end mark to unicorn rules and end all bailouts and loans to Wall Street, and end all zombie mortgages that are more than 90 days in arrears demanding houses be sold on courthouse steps for market price with no reserve within 6 months of foreclosures that are not cured. Let the chips fall where they may eh?
Hyper inflationary crash, deflationary depression crash, or 20 years of stagflation that reduces 98% of us to subsistence poverty, take your pick. There is no wizard behind the curtain to offer you a fourth answer where you click your heels together repeating "there's no place like home, there's no place like home." The only people that will get out of this without any pain are the top couple percent that own you.
I like your idea of kicking them out after ninety days and a courthouse auction no reserve.
It has always been true that a fool and his money are soon parted.
NO MORE BAILOUTS!
@ topcallingtroll Yeah! No more walk-away mortgages ! Forget namby-pamby FICO scores. Bring back debtor's prison.
That is not my idea. It is the idea of the far right that thinks that businesses are always right and people are always wrong, it is the idea that the nobody ever anywhere should be bailed out unless you are a banker or wealthy, it is let the chips fall where they may. But where they may fall is on the working people who just can't take any more chips. They are not even so much angry as they are overwhelmed.
In a few important ways the nation we were born in and loved is already a dead stinking corpse. Don't look at me, I am gay and did not raise spawn to believe what the fuck these little bastards believe; like how they hate having white skin, not my fault, you bore them not me. I do not understand why they hate their white skin, and if they hate being white so much why don't they get head to toe tats of a beige color rather than those snakes and chinese alphabet bullshit inks they have. Just go into the tat parlor and ask for an Obama. Never mind how we taxpayers are going to have to eventually pay for the removal as we already do for the gang related tats in inner city neighborhoods. Oh, you did not know that Medicaid paid for tat removal for gang members?
But like I said, I am gay, all the social expenses and problems are your fault not mine. I worked full time in the day in the Governors office in Ohio and went to college carrying 16 semester hours in the evening while working at a pizza joint on weekend and even then I goddamned near starved. For three and a half years, in my thirties. Got my degree in finance and it amounted to NOTHING!
The end of my faith happened so many times, I always started over, but the last time was in December 2001.
I had a call from my sister in California who I cannot stand, and that crazy fucking cunt has nothing good to say about me either. She said Mom was in the hospital in a coma, the doctors want to unplug her from the machines and I had to come because they would not do it without consent of all her children. That was the evening before Thanksgiving 2001. Man, it is hard enough to get around New York that night and especially right after 9/11. I tried to get across central park with my bags and got searched and stopped ten times. By the time I got to Columbus Circle it was two in the morning. My plane was to depart at 5:30. I just got a cab to JFK. Eighty bucks later I was at the terminal which was a mess of construction, and the line for the new security was hours long.
Technology was the only thing that saved me, a United worker got me out of the line and granted me use of the new kiosks that printed boarding passes that let me skip the lines, and I was awed that once I got on the jet I was pretty much the only passenger. Nine attendants and 7 passengers. On Thanksgiving. When I got to the hospital in my hometown where my mother lay in a coma at $5,600 per day room charge it became clear that she was aware I was there. She was drugged but alive. I refused to give permission to unplug her and a week later she woke, she had five more years of life that was to her a joy.
My mom was the best person I have ever known, not just because of imprinting of offspring to parent, not because she had an IQ in excess of 177, not just because she was one of the best looking women that ever lived, mind you I am gay but I am telling you she was prettier than Liz Taylor and I have the photos to prove it. She was easily the most forgiving and loving human beings you ever wanted to meet. She never once said anything bad about others or had a political bone to pick, she was open to all of life. And she loved, me, life, people, weather, seasons, work, coffee, freedom, even my brother.
And to think, all that emotion, all the sentiments, all of what makes us who and what we are is just a fucking tool to those that own us.
Mother lived because I refused to allow them to unplug her. But I went back to New York and a month later the house burned down. Erik died in the fire. Because of New York law I got nothing, not a dime. A five million dollar loss and it all went to people that had never seen the house or the farm, never met Erik, and I had nothing to wear, no ID, a man in France sent me $1,500 so I could get back out to California, but my house, the man I loved, the life I lived, those were all a joke to most of you, and half the people running for president right now think I am a spoiled baby getting fat off the taxpayers when I should be dead in hell, because they are really just crazy. After what I have been through if you think I am going to let you get away with using my life as a political tool against me then I have news for you, I will kill you before I let that happen. Get it? Kill. If life is going back to basics I have a whole lot of scores to settle, and most of you just will not like it much.
I can buy most of what you say, but, in the end, anyone who bought a house they could not afford expecting appreciation to be what saved them made a judgement error. Just because the lemming herd all did it does not remove the moral hazard that accompanies their bailout. It was not 'a few bad apples' it was a societal delusion - that yes, we should live in far more home that we could really afford, and have far more toys than we really needed.
There are those who have not participated in the debt bubble, nor bought too much home. Believe it or not, there are those who paid off their homes. There are those who can stand on the fact that they did were able to think for themselves and not participate in this behavior. It does not make them better than anybody else, but it should exempt them from paying for everybody else, IMHO. How do you accomplish that? Where are the big, bold plans that take that into account? This is the crux of the 'moral hazard' arguments - its not us versus the banks, its not us versus our neighbor. Its the fact that bad behavior that was not universal is being rewarded on the backs of everyone.
Your prescription for ending moral hazard it the correct one. In fact, its the only one with a prayer of restoring the meaning of the creditor/debtor bond. Its the fact that this bond is hopelessly broken that is a chief cause of the two-tiered Wall St versus Main St economy we live in now. Owing money is meaningless, so the credit givers put their copious, easy money elsewhere (ie, speculation). Its a feedback loop. And therein lies the real rub - universal forgiveness does nothing but weaken this bond further, which, in the end will serve as a huge accelerator for the feedback loop that is driving all western economies into the dumper.
There actually is a solution that would work, is neutral as to how much house one owns or whether you "did the right thing" by paying off your mortgage, and would be far simpler than all the zany and unworkable ideas to date, send every address a check for $100,000. Even renters.
It would be a devaluation of the dollar, but rather than taking years and being channeled through the very wealthy where nearly all of it will stick it would be democratic. It would not care if you were a flipper out to scam the system, or a responsible party providing shelter for your family. If you used your house as an ATM to buy crap from China or toys you don't need then you can use the money to pay down the resulting debts. If you have no debt but lost a ton on equity with falling home values this gives you a chance to recoup and save something, or get your kid out of that minimum wage job at Mickey D's and into a decent college after all. If you are a renter because there has not been "affordable" housing in the last 15 years you can use it as a down payment to finally own a piece of the dream.
It would in a single day get most of the banks out of immediate danger as people caught up on their mortgages, though with the leverage they applied to all the acronym soup of crap they created they would still have that mess to clear up. If you choose you can just blow it and that would be OK too, it would fuel a consumer revival that would put people back to work, OK mostly in China but a few here as well.
It would be inflationary for certain, but all devaluation by definition is. And we are doing it anyway just not all at once. This is the only way to do it which would be morally neutral. Everyone gets the same no matter what you did or did not do. Those that have been "good" through all this mess would not need it to catch up their mortgages so would be able to have some of the goodies they so resent others for having bought. Those that are accused of wrongdoing when they did nothing irrational or immoral other than to want to buy a house can now turn their nightmare of disequity and arrears into a dream again.
Look, they are already monetizing debt in favor of banks and government which is inflating all of us out of our lunches and dinners, even as real median household incomes are dropping and real household net wealth is about half what it was three years ago. This is actually a fairly modest proposal when compared to the scale of the problems and to the gifts made to bankers and Wall Street. The chips fall where they may method might hold a neener-neener-neener self-righteous glee for those that have watched this whole catastrophe while they denied themselves fun and toys because they were "smarter" or more "adult." But it will also take us ALL down with the Titanic. And if those that are so pissed at the rest because they did not get in on the action they are willing to see the entire world suffer there is another plan to get that out of the way fast and in a neutral way, just nuke the planet. That is the only thing that will make them happy.
I don't see why you think it will take me down if I object to bailing out the deadbeats.
I can buy more cheap houses and have more servants.
And yes I will have a neener neener self rightous glee as I watch my servants toil. The pretty ones will have special privileges and special duties and may get to stay in the air conditioning when it is hot, provided they have the right attitude and perform adequately.
You really are the filthiest excuse for a human being I have seen here for a long while. Troll, you magnificent piece of shit, how is your old boss by the way? Enjoying his stay in hell with his lovely bride Eva?
Oh, and I thought the planet had done your type in when the bunker behind the chancellery was destroyed.
Does anyone remember someone telling them; buy real estate; they're not making anymore of it. They used to have articles in the Sunday Supplement about the "housing shortage" and dramatic pictures of the huge new housing estates under construction, "that almost sold out already, before they were built". There was plenty of propaganda to go around. There used to be three real-estate offices right here locally, in Hawaii; they're all gone now. I notice they took the for sale signs with them; so the big housing estate that goes on for miles and miles doesn't look too bad when you cruise through it in your car; until you notice that there's nobody home and weeds are growing in the yards. I know a man who paid a million dollars, easy number to remember, for a little community golf course near here; in 2007 ! He told me that the home owners association that sold it was crazy and it was worth a lot more than that. People are amazing.
My crystal ball is broke as well. But I can tell you one thing: The banks WILL NOT suffer a dollar of loss. If anything, they will "expand their balance sheets" with any so-called program the the gov't comes up with. Bank on it!
"Bank of America leads financials higher---" MarketWatch. $8.25/share. they say the sale of their Chinese Bank Stocks will finalize in the third quarter; doing wonderful things for their "balance sheet". My crystal ball seems to be doing alright; either that or I'm just lucky. But I think TBTF means that heavy hitters and large mysterious forces will be mobilized when the hive mind decides it's time to short it into the ground. Cheap, is cheap as long it's not going to be allowed to go Plop. As far as I know it's been doing phoney bookkeeping for thirty years and I never met anyone who didn't hate them. Their idea of customer service is to kick you in the balls on the way out the door; but at $7.00/ it was awful cheap.
Dick Bove reminds me of a fish out of water. Poor bastard.
Dick is dick.... we get it where we can.
it's gotten such that i +1 you before i even read...always top quality stuff from the boiler.
give em HELL, son!
Deflationary depression crash for me please. Can we end up with a broken and powerless elite? Can we all be broke but free again from this oppressive class of parasites delivering free goodies in return for political power? Can we be sane again?
Not a chance.
I'll take a free house...so I can flip it!
"So, how do you produce even mild inflation, let alone hyperinflation, with the housing market in a full-blown Depression?"
Sovereign default, that's how. Where did all the MBS go? Onto the books of the Fed, that's where. Holy Bad Bank, Batman!
Sovereign default would work theoretically. Now, next step please? When the sovereign's money is no good any longer how does he pay cops and soldiers to enforce his will?
1. Massive PR campaign
2. Issue new currency with much fanfare about how we've learned from our mistakes and promise not to do it again.
3. Men with guns enforce the acceptance of the new currency
Exactly. Funny how quickly people forget the outer ring of fire in this inner ring of hell.
Mr. Ackerman,
i think you may be correct on most everything. that's some good thinkin.
i agree -- it's massive deflationary; so massive in fact that the only hope is aggressive everything (mortgage gives, printing, 2/10 t-bill monkeyin, international central bank coordinated printing, ect.), to the point that hyperinflation becomes inevitable, if not preferable. i don't see how they have any choice. i don't see how qeiii can be anything less than 3.5 T. and, you are certainly right about populism...i'm expecting something sweeping and grand in vision, sparse and sorry on particulars. and he'd best impress, this is his last shot to save anything resembling a 'legacy' -- and i'm sure he knows it.
this presidency has been incoherent, schitzophrenic, idle, and splintered (in terms of priorities) -- signals are bizzare from the white house; and this is after 16 years of bush and clinton zaniness.
I've said all along, $800 Trillion (?) of bets have to play out. Someone has to win therefore bets will be paid. These bets that have been made OTC are still bets, legal or otherwise. Money has been created, just like a loan (only a time factor has been built in for the green light for payment). Money will be printed, inflation will be the tool used to facilitate the transfer. This is but another iteration of the strategies that they will use. Nothing new under the sun.
Gets you some PMs.
mailman's bringin my lastest installment of the shiny stuff today.
Right, the only way to put out the fire now is to dump gasoline on it. Personally I think this will not go over well at all and blow up in Obamas face, people are NOT as stupid as theyd like to believe. And offering 1% less debt to people is a fart in a hurricane. I think everyone is tired of Obamas crap, and all Obama has is crap.
That's right! And the McCain/Palin crap would have been SO much better. I'm not saying that what you state is not true; I'm saying that it doesn't matter whom you blame. You might be pointing that crooked little finger of yours at the wrong entity. Focus on where the problems actually are, not where the boyz want you to look.
couldn't agree more, SD1.
the point is that they're as helpless and cornered as, say, this possom i caught rustlin around my hen house last night. so, this filthy, stinking plague of a mega-rat gets the gumption to come and raid my birds; janus gets wind of the foul affair and springs to action just like one of the more popular comic book heros -- probably superman. 22 rifle in hand, hollow point seated steady in chamber just itchin for the trigger, janus cool and collected at the ready. possom scatters, janus gives chase. possom stuck, wedged in the corner of my garage and back porch. we lock eyes, a bit of mist gathers about janus's lashes as he mourns the semi-cute possom orphans he's bout to create. 'say yer prayers, varmit'...click. what tha? it seems one of janus's sons had emptied the available rounds on some target less worthy.
but what can a nimble ZHealot do in such situations? improvise, bitchez! at first i reckoned, 'i'll just pretend there's a bayonette affixed to the butt of this thing, give the old boy a few clunks on the head...done and done!' didn't work out that way. seems possoms have a stronger will to live than i'd been willing to credit them.
it's starts to get a bit messy here, but stick with me, i do have a point: so, even though the thing is clearly wounded and put out with all the chaos and blood and very blunt bayonettes, he's got most of his wits about him. all the while this villian is scanning for weakness or escape, i'm lookin just as frantically for something sharper, blunter or, really, anything quick and certain to finish him off. while i'm inspecting the surrondings, the little bastard buggers off -- right to an opening under the porch. OH HELL NO.
at this point i grab whatever; and in this case 'whatever' tunred out to be a 2X2 with a warped nail gnarling from the far end -- sort of like a baseball bat with a stinger. and just as this son of a bitch saw an escape, i brought the business end of that 2X2 down on him with such wicked and heroic force that i swore i heard the thing sigh in awe of my fury...really, i can't blame him; i was likewise impressed. but again, possoms have found themselves a comfortable niche in the evolutionary process, and the millions of years of refinement have invested them with a few advantages when it comes to standing their ground against jealous chicken stewards.
but at least at this point, he was immobile. from there out it was this perverse orgy of savage blow after savage blow till i was certain that that possom would never, under any circumstances, be given custody over a people's money supply.
i guess the moral is: if at first you don't rupture their liver, try-try again. or: who needs bullets when you can brain bankers? or: God will provide.
whatever the case, and however it happens, one thing is fo sure: bitchez are goin DOWN!
"and the Lord said to Joshua, go forth and cleanse the land of all living things; for they are an abomination unto mine eyes. and ye shall neither leave child nor oxen, neither ass nor first born son. leave nothing for the stench of their iniquities have filled the heavens."
LOVE,
janus
This is bullshit, we've already had about 10 'refinance at new low rates' programs along with 'cash for clunkers' and all the other faceplant failures....so 'the new thing' is do it over again? This is nothing new! Same old crap regurgitated!
Add to that how much this latest zany scheme convinces John Q. that our elites really are as stupid and venal as my crabby old grandaddy has been saying all these years.
If this gets Obama thru 2012, WINNING!!!!
What are you actually saying?
'Maybe theres a plan, same as the old plan' near as I can tell.
A magical 'OK we're the Gubment, we're here to help you bankrupt underwater homeowners who havent paid your mortgage in 24 months so now you can maybe refinance at 1% lower and suddenly youre saved'....or something.
Or, you will be needing re-training for the new New economy. We'll get you some bona fide gubmint student loans, and get you trained for the green economy. You'll live in a dorm with hundreds of other olive-drab clad trainees,a dn then be a community leader when you get out.
Uncle Sugar will go into the rental business big time. Fannie, Freddie, FHA are stuck with a quarter million forclosures they need to dump somehow, someway, some year soon....they hope. We taxpayers hold the bag.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-26/u-s-government-struggles-as-the-biggest-seller-of-homes.html
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
the rodeo is near
Ah yes, the solution to irresponsible behavior is always to reward it and encourage more irresponsible behavior. This ends well < sarc off >.
Either the banks or the homeowner get "rewarded". I would rather the banks not get rewarded again.
BULLSHIT, neither one HAS to be rewarded.
Exactly, Laws
Who came up with idea that one's home is a 'security', anyway?
Merrill Lynch was the first in 1980, then Shearson, EF Hutton, PWC----all 'securities' firms that sold out to the banks as soon as they could(Dean Witter went to Sears).
A home is a home---an abode where families abide--- I remember clients in the early eighties(attorneys and accountants mainly) signing on with the brokerage funds sing:'Free money, free money, whoopee!!'. They knew what I did not understand----how the system worked rather than how it should work.
The unending whining about the banksters who, although the deserve most of the blame, were not the ones who thought they were getting a free ride. Now, the rest of the world thinks we are idiots even as they follow us on this proven track.
A home is a home----ask the homeless.
Right on, brother--I concur with:
BULLSHIT, neither one HAS to be rewarded.
thanks om
Yes, but you have to invest. After the S&L crash and the nineties tech bubble, what was left to do with your retirement savings? Remember the investiment potential of the mortgage tax deduction where you were paying your taxes back with equity in a home? Almost worked. Can we finally get back to the government getting out of the incentivizing everyone into what they thinks is good buy?
Clark,
After the S&L crash and before the tech bubble, I took my retirement funds, rolled over into an IRA and lived quite comfortably on those funds until 2003 when my SS account finally began to return something. I heard that argument then and I suppose that I will hear it forever, but THERE ARE other things to do, i.e. invest in a better quality of life.
True, I might have made more money the other way, but I was rewarded by having a happy and healthy SEVENTEEN years without responsibility to the machine.
Life is great, my friend---don't give up on it with a simple shrug of the shoulders om
Wow! I feel very energized and inspired after tapping out that little bit of nonsense thanks for the post
After the S&L crash? In 2001? Silver Bullion at $4.35/oz. Simple question; simple answer. There's always a right answer; but you do have to do your homework.
oops
Wrong! It's one of the (lesser known) Laws of Physics. It doesn't stop until the Event Horizon is reached. And Nobody wants to deal with the Event Horizon -- much too much uncertainty there! There could be the dreaded Black Hole on the other side -- even nastier than that black hole that's consuming wealth at an unprecedented rate on this side.
Sorry, you can't control when the "event horizan" is reached. The rate at which all things "paper" are detaching from all things physical is excellerating exponentially. Too bad people don't understand what an exponential function is or the implications with respect to energy demand required for survival. Oh well, no matter. Got physical?
How do you propose that? Debt has to be restructured. In someone'e eyes, one side is going to get the better deal. Judging by your first comment, anything that leaves the homeowner in the house they cannot afford because a winning situation for the homeowner (and homeowner should be in quotes throughout, but nonetheless).
I say, let the system crash. Because of the very things you cite, the sooner we do, the sooner compensation will return to those that are actually worth a shit. A homeowner will only be able to stay in his house if he can maintain the property and feed himself. If that is the case, then so be it, at least the homeowner is working to make it so. I own several properties, NOONE stays in a house "rent free" if they want to keep everything working live in a safe neighborhood. Crash the system, crash it now. Fuck the banks and the tyranny. Time to get to know your neighbors again people.