Planetfurry BBS

[Rabbit]

A friend recently sent me the URL of a radio program from NPR and a local Chicago educational station that explains what's wrong with the economy better (and more impartially) than anything else I've read or heard yet. Plus, it's amazingly entertaining and even funny at times. It'll take most of an hour to listen to it, but if you don't understand what's going on just now, it's possibly the best investment you could make. This crisis affects _everyone_.

http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=355

This URL is certified as non-political/non-partisan. =;)

[kristie_kitten]

its very simple if you think, the governing body government took out the regulating personal that watched the market, and banking loans. Once those people were out or simple moved to other places, the governing body made sure that the stock market and banks could regulate them selves. And now we are just seeing a domino effect of what the governing body has done to the country and economic situation. So if there is any decent fur out there in this country of ours, do not re-elect any officials that are going for the same job again, they have proven inadequate to do their job properly.

[anthony]

Better...

Put a bounty on their heads...

I was lucky and got myself a fixed rate on my loan earlier(at 4.6%. As I have 80% financing - that is, 80% of the cost of my apartment is paid for by the loan - I can't get any better.), but I pity the poor souls trying to get one now. Not only will they end up with 8% rates, but the banks check that they can take a 12% interest 'short term'...

This is a global problem, and it was triggered by idiots in the American banking industry...
What kind of morons lend out money to people who can't afford to pay it back?

One or two here and there, to help stimulate the economy, maybe(but that's not the concern of privately owned banks) but so many?

As for banks crashing and going bankrupt.
Here in Norway there's been very little 'panic' with people taking out all their savings and exasperating the situation. This is mostly because of a big fund 'Bank warranty fund' which will cover up to 2Million NOK(about $225.000) of every customers' savings if a bank is bankrupted.

Rumours here are that our 'oil fund'(earnings from oil) will be withdrawing 'some assets' from the american investment market later, when the situation stabilizes.
(It's among the top 10 investment funds globally. If they pulled out now, American banking would be history... )

[Sigurd Volsung]

What needs to happen if there is going to be some massive bail out is that the US government should buy up the safe mortgages not the toxic waste crap as the Bush administration proposed. That would give banks an influx of cash but they'd still have to deal with the mess they got themselves into.

Truthfully one of the big causes were the BS sub-prime mortgages that the banks were handing out like candy. I got a fixed rate mortgage and a fixed rate home equity loan (Which I just refinanced, 6.7 was a good deal considering my credit).

[Concolor]

Yes. Correct. If they are going to 'bail out' the crooks and morons who approved $1,300,000,000,000 worth of BAD loans (I mean, honestly, the guy buys a house that costs twelve times his annual salary and the bank expects him to pay it BACK? What was he smoking?) where is the incentive for a bank to conduct business in a fiscally sound manner?

The whole thing started when the Glass-Steagal Act was repealed back in (I think it was) 1993. That effectively put the foxes in charge of the henhouse. The whole, big, idiotic Ponzi scheme was predicated on real estate prices always rising. As if there were no limit to the insanity of paying upwards of $3000 per square FOOT for houses in certain locations. Please. And now China owns about $350,000,000,000 worth of those toxic mortgages; Japan has another $250,000,000,000. They aren't happy.

Let the banks fail. Let the knuckleheads who rolled those loaded dice for a decade -- and then got caught -- suffer the consequences. That's how the free market is supposed to work. It is self-correcting ... as long as other knuckleheads in positions of power leave it alone. Henry Paulson has my vote now for the title of Satan's Evil Twin. "Just give me control of all your money, remove any kind of oversight, and give me total immunity from prosecution ... and I'll make it all better." Right. And he'll call us in the morning, too, right?

We're being sold down the river, folks.

[Xaqtly]

I just bought a house, it closed last week. I was one of the last people in the country to get a loan with Nehemiah assistance, as the Nehemiah program was cancelled. It was a great program, it's just too bad so many bad loans were given out in the first place.

In the subdivision I'm living in right now (just for another month or so), there are three houses just in my cul-de-sac alone that have been abandoned. Not sold - the people who lived there just packed up, left and stopped paying the mortgage. It's pretty scary.

But hey. I live in Vegas now, so you know what that means - party at Xaqtly's house!

[The Silver Coyote]

I don't know that I've seen any homes abandoned in my neighborhood yet, but there are a lot of them for sale, and very few of them are actually selling.

My folks bought a home in our neighborhood about a year ago. (Paid cash for it after selling the house they had lived in for almost 50 years, so no worries about loans there...) While they were shopping for homes in our area back then, we toured potential homes with them. Some of those homes are still on the market in my neighborhood.

The real estate market is glutted, but nobody's buying any more. The result is kind of the same, there are empty houses ... quite a few of them ... in my neighborhood. Many of the unoccupied homes are being maintained after a fashion, someone is paying groundskeepers to keep the weeds cut, but others are not so fortunate. Many of them are re-possessions by banks, a few are still taken care of by the owners even though they are no longer living in them. And no one can rent a home for anywhere near what their mortgage payments are ...

It's kind of creepy. Some streets in my neighborhood will be mini ghost towns before too much longer. That's never a good thing in a suburban area ...

Congrats on getting your home nailed down, Xaq. Good luck with it. What's the best housewarming gift delivered in, glass bottle, aluminum can, or pizza box?

SC

[Rabbit]

First of all, congrats to Xaq!

I've been very lucky so far. When I bought my home in 1989 the real estate market was heavily skewed by the nearby construction of the Saturn plant, and I was forced to buy on top of a price spike (for roughly 70k, I forget the exact figure). There was a long home-value lull after that, but about five years ago prices began to rise again as large-scale commercial development began all around me. (Some _square miles_ have become shopping malls in the last couple-three years.) Where I once lived in the country, now I'm solidly in the suburbs. Before typing this note I checked my home value, and I'm astounded to report that, even now, it's _still_ rising. (I'm up to about $125k, plus I've since bought the empty lot next door.) And, I owe only $40k (a big car payment!) at 5.25%. Thus, I consider myself very fortunate. Still, there _are_ trouble signs. While "basic" houses such as mine are holding up well, the $300-500k stuff that's been going in all around me has stopped cold. And, there's one house in my subdivision that should be cheaper than mine that's been on the market for at least six months.

My prognosis is that if I simply play a waiting game I'll come out of this better than most Americans. Congress just yesterday bailed out my employer (which I would _not_ have supported, given a choice) so my job prospects are good for some time to come. In short, I personally think I'm sitting very pretty indeed...

...except that my heart is sickened by what I foresee in the near future for far too many of my friends and relatives. And, of course, by the fact that very much against my will they're gonna pay for my prosperity via the bailout.

[anthony]

Basic houses are $50 - 70K?

Lucky you...

I paid $200K for my 65square meter apartment.
(That didn't include the $5.5K bathroom, spackling, wallpapering and painting inside walls, parquet and carpets on the floors, or the $3K of 'extras' in the electrical setup)

And no, it's not in an 'exclusive' area or built with 'exotic' materials.

It is built to rather strict building codes, and expected to last at least 50years, probably a lot longer.
(That is, 50 years with our climate... )

[Xaqtly]

Thanks, SC and Rabbit. Pizza box, definitely. Foxes love pizza, it's a little known fact.

Anyway yeah. I feel pretty lucky at this point to have gotten the assistance I needed along with a decent fixed mortgage rate (5.75%) in a time where house prices are relatively low in this area. Also, I like the house and I plan on staying there for a while. It should go up in value eventually, when the market swings back up again.

[The Silver Coyote]

Xaq said:

[Leonato]

I believe me and foxy are setting pretty as well in this whole debacle. One good thing that came of the bubble bursting (finally) is that homes that were overpriced now are back where they belong. Condos in particular were getting inflated in this area. And that is what we have now, a condo, at 5.5% and a price that is actually accurate for its size and location.

And of course, we have a fixed rate, any sort of an 'A.R.M.' is a joke really, a trick thought up by the shysters with the banks. I say they need to suffer as a result of their sick ways. The market should be ALLOWED to correct them, correct them in a way that proves to other banks and businesses that they can NOT get away with such bad practices.
Yes, there will be people who lose their homes... and they have no one to blame but themselves and the business that actually convinced them it was a good idea to begin with. I'll be honest, I nearly fell prey to the same kind of business practice... they can make it sound VERY appealing, they can say many things, and seem to be very helpful. (In my case it was LendingTree). That, and they have a number of names for their loans... and none of them are 'A.R.M.'... Thankfully, I never said yes... and looked for somewhere more affordable than where I was renting.

Anyway, the Fed has NO place stepping in here, and it is WAY outside of where their reach should extend. It's enough to make me wonder if the Glass-Steagal Act being repealed wasn't intentional by certain members in power. Repeal something preventing the greed from becoming self inflicting, in the hope that enough greedy bastards won't be farsighted enough to help themselves. Then, when they fall down, and face bankruptcy, and cry out for help, ol' uncle sam is more than willing to overstep its bounds 'just this once' and help out. Makes me sick... whether or not it was intentional, we may never know... but we do see the result right here... Every time the feds step in and 'bail out' a failed business (bank), using OUR MONEY to do it, they reduce the value of the dollar. They hurt our economy... and they inch us just 'that' much closer to being a socialist republic, not a republic of the people by the people, and for the people.

That's just this cat's two cents.

PF's resident Lynx/Domestic Reader/DJ,
Leonato

[Sigurd Volsung]

I pity you Anthony. When my parents bought the condo I live in in 2000 they paid $65k for about 850 sq ft. I then bought it from them a few years later for the remaining mortgage plus an extra ten thousand out of the $40k in equity that had built up in three years, the extra $10k was used to buy a car that we still have. The value of the condo has stayed steady as a rock since we bought it, right around $110k-120k. We are thinking of selling in a few years to buy a larger condo in the same building, we live in a great location, quick access to our jobs.

[Concolor]

[Asalis]

This in turn has prompted the government to interfere yet again and bail them out of their insane debt. Eventually it will reach a point where even government intervention cant save the amassing debt and you will see a complete and total economic crash the likes of which the world has never seen. For the US this would not only mean the collapse of the economy but the entire western culture as we know it. What little that would remain of the government would still try to execute a control that at that point just would no longer exist. Yes I know this is a worst case scenario that may not happen but the bigger this problem gets the more likely this outcome seems to be.