We are all socialists now

Same here! I'm 32 and am still renting. Mainly because, like you said, it's hella cheaper! Plus I plan to move around a bit... I almost bought a house back in '01 but when it came time for the paperwork, the financing didn't make sense. MAN am I glad I didn't go through with it!!

 

nice, i like that one

 

and you can proudly say you didn't add to the mortgage crisis (initial reason)

 

And it allowed me to dump CASH into my truck rather than build it on credit!

 

We're pretty old-fashioned and plan to buy our house with cash, if at the very least, most of it. Renting allows us to save 50% or more of our incomes. Buying, even now, would mean if either of us lost a job, we would be SCREWED. I don't ever want to get into debt if I can help it.

In my opinion, high home prices ruined the quality of life in the US. When it comes down, the better things will be in the long run.

 

I hear ya. I bought my house in 2004. However, I bought a house I could afford and put 70,000 down on it. Now my house is worth less than I owe and if my wife or I lost our job we would lose our house, because we couldn't sell it.

 

I am confused. How is losing your job = losing your house? I have zero worry of losing my house. I put 20% down. I pay less per month for my house than i did in rent. We have an emergency fund that will bridge the gap between not having a job. Please explain.

 

If I lost my job I couldn't make the house payment. My house is worth less than I owe, so i couldn't sell it. Therefore if I couldn't find a job quickly enough the home would go into foreclosure unless I could find someone willing to pay me more than it's current market value. As long as I'm working, the house payment is affordable. Hopefully the market will turn around.

 

I'm not a pessimist by nature. I'm pretty happy going, easy to get along with guy.
But in a few short weeks I've seen a new administration come on board and demonize the private sector like no other has done before it.
Not to mention lie to the people several times smiley face and all..

"Transparency" is not slamming the door shut on the other party in entirety and penciling in new provisions. Telling the people you will post all pending legislation on the net a minimum of five days for public viewing before the Pres signs it. -- Then not doing it on several bills already..

Wall street "flipped the bird" the other day in trading and did the same today as a direct result of the treatment the goverment is showing toward corporations.
I hope I'm wrong. I hope it gets better. I don't want that to turn to despair. You can't piss all over businesses/corporations and expect them to hire people.
I'll take my extra 13 dollars I'll get from O and buy a couple Happy Meals a Coke and a smile.

 

I just can't believe what they are trying to push through in just 3 weeks of being in office.

 

As of 11pm last night no one in congress was able to lay their collective eyes on the 'stimulus' package in it's near final draft state..

But all the lobbyists had a copy of it. They had it before the congressional aides had a copy.

So much for the "new era" and the "transparency" and the openess that was pledged to us all a few short weeks ago at the inauguration.

I see Harry Reid wrote in a new train for his buds to run from Vegas to Disneyland. The economic impact sutdies alone will run into the hundreds of millions of dollars for that one before a single spike is hammered in the ground.

 

that's pretty fukt...

Sorry you obama-ites... change = the same ole shit... just like we've been screaming... but you were duped... you should be ashamed of yourselves...

 

Word

 

You can fool some of the people all the time...all of the people some of the time but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.

You can blame both parties all you want. Yeah Bush was the President when this started to hit the ocilating generator. (Fan) But as you recall we did have a Majority of Democrats in both houses that caused problems as well as some so called Republicans that would switch sides.

Now I am so tired of argueing who casued it I will tell you who caused it.
It was the stupid Americans. The white ones the black ones the yellow ones the red ones the brown ones. In other words it was all of us. Me included.
No I did not recieve a bail out or big bonus and I am not in charge of anything but little ol me.
But when we collectively let every one divide us and then sit back and do nothing we are as much at fault.
Collectively we (not me) voted in Obama that is our system of government. Now because he is President it does not mean we bow down and do nothing but his bidding. If he is doing things right back him. If not then voice your opinion.
I know my opinion matters only to me but with yours and then others it might matter to those elected to serve us. Not us serve them like it seems to have gotten to be lately.
I think Senator Mc Cain had it right when he says he is elected to serve the People.
Yeah if enough of us could stand together we could change things but getting people to stand together when others are falling is kind of hard to do. And then there is the difference of opinion.

I remember what a Scuba instructor told me about water rescue of a drowning person. Some times it is better to let them drown a little while longer than to try and rescue them when they are strong and could cause you to drown during the rescue.

We need to get back to basics....we are all humans....we are all americans not black americans white americans jewish americans etc. We need to throw out all the politicians that are serving themselves at our expense. We need to produce in this country not just be consumers.

Just an old guys .02

vince

 

Well said! I couldn't agree more. What you said at the end really bothers me the most: division. I have firsthand experience with this because I grew up in a very rural, southern area and have lived in the San Francisco area for the last 10 years. These two places couldn't be anymore different from one another from a notoriety perspective in the national mindset- one being highly conservative and the other highly liberal.

But I've learned a lot living in these two places. That would be that people everywhere- myself included- are extremely judgmental and presumptuous. It's very easy for some highly educated, liberal, hi-falootin' person living in SF to basically write off the entire South as a land full of bible-thumpin' hillbillies with no mind for progressive thought. I've experienced this firsthand myself and in some cases, people have assumed that I'm stupid because I have an accent. But at the same time, I definitely remember people back in my home state making comments about how everyone in California were a bunch of liberal, crazy, un-patriotic, hippy, lazy, good-for-nothing socialists.

Here's the thing though: I could bet that in most people's group of friends, one of them is a good ole' boy, another is probably liberal, and another is who knows what else. But that's ok because you've gotten to know who they are and in fact, they're decent people after all. Trust me- I have friends of every stripe and backround, ethnicity, belief system, and religion, and in some cases I highly disagree with what they think is right. But at the end of the day we're more similar than different. People in general are nice and willing to go out of their way to help one another. Doesn't matter what you believe in, that's just human nature.

Yet the name of the game has been to demonize one group or another. Change or different ideas are seen as threats. But in truth, there is value in conservatism as well as liberalism. The two must exist because all one way is not a good thing at all.

The way I see it, NOTHING will ever get done if everyone tries to protect their own side.

 

I agree. My problem isn't with conservatives and liberals in the general population, it's the ones in Washington D.C. They don't do what's best for America, they do what's best for their own interests. I have no idea what to do about it either.

 

Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but a lot of people are not focusing on the next crisis wave about to hit.

If everyone thinks Subprime was bad....wait until the Alt-A/Option ARM loans start to reset. Their reset period was longer than subprime so we are going to be seeing that wave come in the next couple of months.

I believe the figure is somewhere around 3 million loans with a reset value of 1 Trillion dollars. The reset values of these are so high no one with one will be able to pay for them.

Good luck everyone!

 

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/12/12/60minutes/main4666112.shtml



Some nice little tid bits from teh article. Please read:


Just look at a projection from the investment bank of Credit Suisse: there are the billions of dollars in sub-prime mortgages that reset last year and this year. But what hasn't hit yet are Alt-A and option ARM resets, when homeowners will pay higher interest rates in the next three years. We're at the beginning of a second wave.

"How big is the potential damage from the Alt As compared to what we just saw in the sub-primes?" Pelley asks.

"Well, the sub-prime is, was approaching $1 trillion, the Alt-A is about $1 trillion. And then you have option ARMs on top of that. That's probably another $500 billion to $600 billion on top of that," Tilson says.

Asked how many of these option ARMs he imagines are going to fail, Tilson says, "Well north of 50 percent. My gut would be 70 percent of these option ARMs will default."

"How do you know that?" Pelley asks.

"Well we know it based on current default rates. And this is before the reset. So people are defaulting even on the little three percent teaser interest-only rates they're being asked to pay today," Tilson says.

 

The division part is not just from the Politicians. It is from everyone that feels they were disenfranchised in some way or other. In other words If I wear glasses and I am picked on or my skin color is red and I am picked on. Now in my world everyone is picked on to a degree.
We all need to relize what you said about everyone being basically good. If society as a whole would stop catorgorizing themselves rednecks hillbillies rich snobs and etc. and understand a leson I learned when in the USMC a long time ago. There are white black red christian jewish catholic female and male etc. a$$holes and then there are good in all the above too.

We need to get the good out more than the bad.

Less greed and more helpfulness at all levels.

When going through a divorce I worked 2 jobs for a few years and the night job I had I was 0ne of 3 non hispanic people working till 2 am. It helped me understand that all people want what the american dream is. And that a lot of illegal people here are great people too.

We just need to be more responsible in finding out how to get our dreams and then take responsibility for ourselves and our actions also.

If we could get 60-75% of the people to take responsibility for their actions and their decisions we would be doing beter than what we have been.

All of us know that the job of a Pro Athlete is not worth 20 Million a year when the Soldier over in Afghanistan is paid what 30,000.00 to defend ours or somebody elses freedoms. The Fireman gets 50,000.00 after 10 years on the job when a Actor that plays a Fireman gets 20 Million for the picture after all is said and residules.

The Balance needs to be returned to the world. Not continue to be twisted any way possible for the greedy.


Getting down from the box so some of the rest of you can climb up.



vince

 

The problem is (as has been said before) the nation sits back and accepts what congress dishes out and honestly I don't think they even care to ponder over it. (it's inconvenient). WE run the government but WE aren't doing it right now when we don't voice up!.

Right now I don't care if you voted democrat or republican, what I do care about is that the things going on in Washington right now are removing our rights as FREE individuals. When the government starts giving money to the private sector they start controlling it. THIS IS WRONG!. And now they are setting up the foundation for Universal health care. Do you want the Government telling you that you don't need a procedure performed? example: "my son deeds braces"....gov. says "sorry we don't think he needs them, his teeth will be fine" then your son gets TMJ because his teeth cause his jaw to sit wrong his whole like.

And now they want to control the sensus. OMG WTF. To me, everything going on right now does not sound like they are trying to gear the government to listen to the public but more to control EVERYTHING.