Easy Intelligence Test
Are you a politician? Yes? Then you're probably going to vote like a drooling idiot.
Witness the latest from Megan McArdle on "Housing Insanity":
If you want to know why us libertarian types are skeptical of the government's ability to prevent housing market bubbles, well, I give you Exhibit 9,824: the government's new $1000 down housing program.No, really. The government has apparently decided, in its infinite wisdom, that what the American economy really needs is more homebuyers with no equity.
Jeebus. I guess these pricks just dont get it. Government cannot decide "a car in every garage, a chicken in every pot". The free market decides it. If we want communism and government housing, seems to be the road we are on. Sans revolution, we are screwed because the "have nots" now well out number the "haves" at the voting booth, and the moment that happens, government handouts increase until government collapses.
ron at August 7, 2010 6:45 AM
Yes, I read elsewhere that the Obama team wants to bail out people who are underwater on their mortgages - make some of their principal balances disappear. The writer said Obama is gambling on the idea that more people will be grateful for the assistance than offended that they (and their children and grandchildren) are picking up the tab for someone else's mortgage problems. Good point.
I am on the board of my condo association, and we just had our seventh unit (out of 120) slip into foreclosure. One unit has been in foreclosure for four years already. What irritates me is that the banks that own these units (five of the seven are owned by Wells Fargo) don't pay the association dues on them. These banks certainly don't make good neighbors. They make loans to deadbeats, the deadbeats skip town, and then the bank lets the rest of us pick up the tab for snow removal, mowing, parking lot repairs, elevator maintenance, etc. Thanks a lot, banks! You're really helping make this a nice neighborhood!
Pirate Jo at August 7, 2010 7:23 AM
Pirate Jo
Have the condo HOA place a lien on the foreclosed units for the dues. The bank will not be able to sell them and recoup some of their loss until they pay off the lien.
Jay at August 7, 2010 7:30 AM
Talk about not learning a thing from the RECENT housing crash. What will it take for these mindless twits at the reins to learn that they can't keep driving the stagecoach off the cliff?
Is it possible that the powers at be in America nowadays are dancing to the beat of a different drummer? In other words, is it possible that they actually want the American capitalism system to fail? This recent revelation illustrates that not every prominent figure is necessarily in support of growth & prosperity.
Robert W. at August 7, 2010 7:37 AM
Jay
Liens have already been placed on all of the properties. That only helps when the properties are sold, and as far as we can tell, they're not even listed anywhere. Like I said, one of those units has been owned by the bank for four years. The amount owed to the association by the foreclosure units is enough to pay for snow removal (our largest expense) for an entire year. We have no idea when we'll see a dime of this money.
Pirate Jo at August 7, 2010 7:53 AM
Just curious, how many of y'all have bought any gold bullion?
Pirate Jo at August 7, 2010 7:53 AM
Not only does a lien not do you much good until the property is sold but liens (secured transactions) have a priority list. This is why second mortgages and liens are so dangerous in a declining market. You rarely ever get paid because the first mortgage (bank usually) has priority over any subsequent lien, and then there is the tax issue. Those take priority also. IMHO you are better off taking the property owners to small claims court for the dues and getting a judgment. You can use this to attach any of their property that they might have in the jurisdiction and it gives you a few more options, although if they have fled the jurisdiction and have no property or income left to attached you most likely will still be out of luck.
Isabel1130 at August 7, 2010 8:03 AM
You guys dont get it do you. This whole economic problem has been orchestrated right down to the last note. Have you heard of Cloward and Piven? These people are intentially using the capitalist system against itself to bring it down. See for yourself.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/02/the_clowardpiven_strategy_of_e.html
Dragonslayer666 at August 7, 2010 8:20 AM
From the article:
These people are insane. What are they thinking?
They're just building another freakin bubble that we're on the hook for.
PJ,
Gold is out of my reach. But I'm buying silver on a regular basis though.
Jim P. at August 7, 2010 8:31 AM
Jim, do they ship the silver to your house? Or is the balance of your account kept in a computer file somewhere?
Cause if the government does fail there will be noone to hear your civil court claim for the theft of your monies, and there will be no criminal courts to prosecute the offenders, and there will be no mechanism to enfore the retun of your investment
lujlp at August 7, 2010 8:39 AM
One grand? I put more than that down on my car.
When I bought my current house, I put a lot of cash into the deal. I had sold one place, and had a lot of cash (relatively a lot. It's not like I'm a Rockefeller or anything) to hand. I bought a guitar and a TR6, but put the rest into my current house.
The lender was amazed that I'd put that much into it. He said that I didn't have to, that my credit was good enough to qualify for a higher loan amount. I told him I had to do it if I was going to be able to make the payments, a viewpoint that has rewarded me with a >800 credit score.
I guess if I had a moral space which would allow me to walk away from an obligation I made, a grand down loan on the chance that I might make some money on the property later on could be a reasonable decision. But I have not that space.
Ah well. Poor me.
Steve Daniels at August 7, 2010 9:07 AM
Dragonslayer666 remember what Napolean said: "Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence."
These twits are just entirely out of touch with reality. They live in a little glass fishbowl populated only by other people from same educational institutions, who belonging to all of the same clubs. The rest of us aren't quite real to them, and they certainly have no idea what our lives are like.
Just remember Obama saying how he figured they weren't really much different from the rest of us - and then look at Michelle Antoinette Obama and her current trip to Spain.
Totally clueless. Which, unfortunately, works just as well as malice at destroying the country. I suppose my point is: don't get wrapped up in your consipiracy theories. Keep it simple, and help get these nitwits out of office - and avoid replacing them with the other group of idiots.
Democrats and Replublicans are currently just two groups in the same country club. As a rough but effect measure: anyone with a degree from an Ivy League university should be considered unqualified for political office for at least the next 20 years.
bradley13 at August 7, 2010 9:28 AM
They are printing money like paper. The only way to offset this (since we have non-commodity backed fiat currency) is to create more debt.
It will create a short term fix, but ultimately prolong the inevitable and thus making the depression deeper than it would have been without the limp-brained Keynesian politicians intervention.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pt2Lo786zLk&feature=related
Feebie at August 7, 2010 9:42 AM
I imagine guys like Steve and the 3\4's of American homeowners who are not underwater will take to the streets if Fannie and Freddie decide to forgive some principle to underwater homeowners. There simply is no way to fairly address the situation except in the cruel world of the marketplace.
We have a family member who is playing the game with both his mortgage payments on a lakeview home and his medical payments on 3 recently delivered babies and a severely broken leg from skiiing. He simply stopped making any payments, so the county is picking up their medical costs and the bank his mortgage payments. In the past year they have taken all the money they have saved and gone on 3 vacations, including Sun Vally and Disneyworld for 10 days.
Our friendship is under severe strain because their lifestyle hasn't changed, but we are struggling like many others to continue to do the right thing. His way of thinking is that when they were making six figures and paying taxes they supported the government, so now the government (we) owes it to them.
Anonymous at August 7, 2010 9:46 AM
"Just curious, how many of y'all have bought any gold bullion?"
As a hedge. I've bot gold 1 oz coins and silver 1oz rounds. They deliver via mail - but you have to go to the post office to sign off on it. The Government can confiscate bullion over 1 oz because there is still a law on the books that says they can - they did this in 1933 (during the depression).
And bradley, totally agree with your post. But if the impact and consequences are the same - I don't care if it is incompetence or conspiracy...all I care about net outcome. And no matter which theory is applied, the consequences don't seem to deviate much. Thus, I think it's foolish not to at least read up on different theories to have all my basis covered. I don't trouble myself with trying to figure out if it is conspiracy or incompetence. It doesn't matter. What does matter is that I am prepared and not caught hanging in the wind.
Feebie at August 7, 2010 10:15 AM
I have the physical silver.
They deliver via mail - but you have to go to the post office to sign off on it.
I do it via eBay -- one to ten bars at a time. It slips through easily.
Jim P. at August 7, 2010 10:43 AM
It's not that I don't think poor people should be helped, I do. But throwing more money at a market, be it loans or any other form, just results in inflation. For everyone. So the poor people are STILL shut out and everyone else is pushed further into debt.
NicoleK at August 7, 2010 12:09 PM
You can also go to a shop where they sell bullion and buy them. You don't even have to pay sales tax on coins, at least for now, and you take it home with you.
At first I thought it would be a bad idea, since prices are higher than ever. But we are living in a different time than ever before, too. Even with the inflation we've had in the past, no one ever thought the U.S. dollar would someday be worthless, but in a couple of years I think it will be. I am not sure what will happen to stocks.
Pirate Jo at August 7, 2010 12:43 PM
"These people are insane. What are they thinking?"
Here's what they are thinking. They are thinking that Freddy's Fanny and the politically-connected banks must be preserved, at any cost. Why? Because they are massive patronage machines for the ruling class. They are used to reward political operatives, saboteurs, and sycophants with extremely-high-paying, no-work jobs. This is in exchange for their services to the Party and/or keeping their mouths shut. The ruling class must maintain a constant stream of income for these institutions in order to keep the patronage machine going, and they will do so even at the risk of federal government bankruptcy.
Cousin Dave at August 7, 2010 1:32 PM
I have not seen an creditable (in my humble opinion) where the US dollar will become worthless within my life. Down, of course, but not worthless. The US produces and exports so much food that it is unlikely to totally go under without something like a Nuke war. For the US to go down (quickly), all the other major countries are going to pretty much have to go down too.
Perhaps like the New Zealand Dollar that works fine within in NZ, but takes a huge it in value as soon as you are outside NZ. When I came back from there, it basically was not worth exchanging anything less than 100NZD which should have been worth about 50USD.
So if you bar of either silver or gold and the economy has gone away, what are you going to do with it? You cannot do much with it a significant economy - make jewelry? When bartering it is not going to be worth much. Gold and silver's worth his highly depend on the existence of economy to afford the luxury or the industry to use it (which is again dependent on people being able to buy from that industry). And what about change?
The Former Banker at August 7, 2010 1:58 PM
This could work. For $1000 down the house is technically mine to do with as i please, and reverts back to the bank after thirty days when i don't make the second payment. There is generaly about $1500 worth of copper wire and water pipes in a house, plus another grand worth of plumbing and electrical fixtures ($80 for a ceiling fan, easy), cabinetry, carpeting, flagstones on the patio, maybe even a garage door. For only a thousand cash and about thirty hours of work i could "buy" the house for a month and clean out five times that in parts.
Rock On, Brother Hussien!
vermindust at August 7, 2010 2:27 PM
Isabel, yes, regarding small claims court. We learned that lesson early on, and once a homeowner's past dues reach a certain level, we take them to small claims court.
But I am talking about properties that are not owned by the resident anymore. The bank took possession, has sat on the property for several years, not listed it for sale, and not paid dues. The four-year one is the longest, but there are others in the 2-3 year range.
We have a new attorney and are going to find out what the precedent is. My initial guess is that in the past, it was rare for banks to foreclose on homes, and even when it happened, the banks sold the properties within a few months and didn't take a loss on the value of the loan.
As you know, foreclosures are not rare anymore. A property with an original sale price of $135,000, financed with a mortgage of $110,000 (assuming $25K cash down, which IS rare), might now only yield $100,000 upon the sale of the property. The loss for the bank is even worse if it didn't have that $25K down (quite probable).
Until the property is sold, the bank doesn't have to recognize the loss (called a "realized loss"). And current accounting principles (thank you political class!) have been bastardized so that they don't have to report the unrecognized losses either. ("Unrecognized" losses happen when the value of something you have drops, but you haven't tried to sell it. You experience these when the value of your 401K drops.) These assholes either think the housing market is going back up, which it ain't any time soon, or they just want to put off the inevitable for as long as they can - this would be my guess. These people are immoral, self-serving, and crooked, but not stupid.
But sitting on these properties without paying for the upkeep of them is hurting the neighborhoods where these properties sit. I am not sure what is happening regarding the taxes. I hope our attorney can shed some light on that. But condo associations are not taxing authorities, and I don't know how they can assert themselves. Not yet, anyway. I think our county assessor AND the condo associations should have their needs met before the bank's. I hope that is the outcome.
It might happen that the banks will turn the properties over to the Department of Urban Development (our good old buddy HUD), a federal taxpayer-backed entity, and why not rack up the national debt a little more? Our taxes have already bailed out Wells Fargo. Now they will bail out HUD, as well, and then who cares whether we get those dues back or not. It's still our money.
Pirate Jo at August 8, 2010 9:36 AM
PJ, I read an interesting bit of commentary about that this morning. The statement was made that banks are currently sitting on an inventory of about $2T in foreclosed real estate. And of course they aren't about to write it down. So what's going to happen, if it isn't happening already, is that they are going to wind up in in Freddy's Fanny. Which the federal government will then bail out, either explicitly or under the table, because Freddy's Fanny is too politically important and too well-connected to fail.
So the comment ended by saying that this new mortgage program is simply a formalization of what's already happening anyway. Basically it's a loss that we, the taxpayers, will be stuck with one way or the other. It's just a matter of when and where do we book it. Personally, I'm not sure if I believe this, but it was an interesting bit of reading.
Cousin Dave at August 8, 2010 3:05 PM
I'm not sure how much hair I have left to pull out. Maybe politicians have secretly invested in Rogaine.
David M. at August 9, 2010 6:24 AM
I have not seen an creditable (in my humble opinion) where the US dollar will become worthless within my life. .....
Have you done any research on a fiat currency? While I agree it may not get that bad -- it doesn't hurt to hedge your bets.
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-508840/Zimbabwe-bank-issues-10million--wont-buy-hamburger-Harare.html
Perhaps like the New Zealand Dollar that works fine within in NZ, but takes a huge it in value as soon as you are outside NZ. ....
But if you have a country that decides to say fuck the U.S. dollar and is willing to devalue the currency to go back to a gold/silver standard (or some other standard) -- it no longer matters and the U.S. currency isn't worth the paper its printed on.
So if you have a bar of either silver or gold and the economy has gone away, what are you going to do with it? You cannot do much with it a significant economy - make jewelry? ...
There is always an intrinsic worth to both -- just the same as wampum (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wampum) had prior value. But gold and silver have survived as a basis for currency for greater than 3000 years.
It still boils down to in a crisis that I give a neighbor $10K in worthless bills or a 1/2 troy ounce of silver for his potatoes and tomatoes he's willing to barter -- which do you think is more valuable? Especially when I don't have $10K of currency?
He can then use the 1/2 oz. to buy wheat seed -- where the $10K may not be accepted by the next merchant as being worthless.
Jim P. at August 10, 2010 9:05 PM
I wanted to share what I know from working in the supermarket industry many years ago. They know that prime space is eye level, and so the hot moving items are all up high at close to eye level to increase sales. Since jewelry is small and not seen until close, I have found that large photos of my work at eye level really draw customers in.
sell jewelry in clearwater at August 14, 2010 1:40 AM
Leave a comment