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Actually, Scott, it is now $250 billion for the home rescue plan…possibly more to come. It is supposed to help almost 9 million mortgagees.
Grfz,
A mortgage is just another financial instrument. On the bank side, the instrument is an investment designed by the bank so that it can make money…. and as all investments, it carries risk. A mortgagee walking away from a mortgage is not scum even if such action was calculated from the outset. It is no different than shorting stocks in the market. Neither action is illegal.There are only two kinds of legal players in free market capitalism; those who now how to work the system, and those who do not, commonly referred to as the hard working citizen who “follows the rules”. The worker rarely knows what the rules are and is always at a disadvantage. If you are trying to apply morality to the most evil and destructive economic system ever devised,then you are playing right into the hands of those who know the rules.
Imxp, you and I are in total agreement on what we sense might happen soon. Rioting in major US cities is looking more and more probable at some near future date. Uncle Sam cannot buy his way out of this mess and the Obama house rescue plan will only delay the inevitable.
However,I am not so sure of your assessment of the kind of real estate buyers who purchased in Costa Rica. I have read a few articles a while ago, 2006, 2007, which pointed out that even back then some Americans had mortgaged their homes at over valued levels and used the money to buy in Costa Rica and elsewhere. There were reports of people just walking away from their US homes to move to Costa Rica and leaving the banks to deal with the foreclosures in California or Michigan.
Wealth is always on the move. It is like a restless, hunted animal and it cannot stay put. Much of it moves between the stock market and real estate. Both of those places are dead ends right now. The consequences of this state of affairs is going to be pretty serious.
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/176478/%22Worst-Is-Yet-to-CEdited on Feb 18, 2009 10:46
Edited on Feb 18, 2009 10:51
The details to the plan are not in yet. I can’t see why a HELOC would be excluded if all the other conditins are met. In any case, I was making a general observation without any specific data as to how many Americans have bought CR properties with refinance money. But my bet is that it is a substantial number and there will be some positive effect of this new plan felt in the CR real estate market, even if only to a small degree.
On the whole, I agree withyou. The world is in for a big change.
Edited on Feb 18, 2009 10:50
I have noticed how many north Americans tend to like wood as a house building medium. Soft woods have been plentiful in North America and a building tradition with that material developed because it was inexpensive and handy. However, I have never been fond of wood floors or wood framed houses. And I don’t understrand why they would want to import that building concept to Costa Rica where an established and succuessful masonry building tradition exists.
Wood framed houses are structurally inferior to masonry and, in my opinion inferior in aesthetics. I have seen that hurricanes and strong winds in South Florida knock the wood buildings down while leaving the brick and block houses standing. There are no hurricanes in Costa Rica, but there is moisture and there are a lot of hungry insects as well. When in Rome, or Costa Rica, build with concrete and block like the Romans did and like the Ticos do. Save the beautiful hardwoods for carvings, doors and window frames.
Edited on Feb 18, 2009 08:44
It has been callculated that if all the money used for these bailouts were applied to pay off U.S. mortgages, it would pay off 100% of them. No American would owe mortgage on a home. Imagine what that would do for the economy. But the fat cats are keeping all the dough. Working people will see only a smidgeon of relief, I think. The captain and crew, along with the rats, are jumping ship with all the life jackets and life boats. We are left on board and sinking. It is every man for himself.
I don’t know if printing and borrowing money and injecting it into the economy will save us. My sense is it will probably not work. I am no expert, of course. I am just going on what I hear from politicians and so called experts. They are mostly scared sh**less. You can hear it in their words. Obama is walking a thin line trying to tell the American people how bad things are without sounding like an alarmsist. Not possible.
Edited on Feb 11, 2009 06:37
I was not questioning your rights. I was pointing out your bias against Obama which was then further confirmed in your last post by your refernece to Fox news as some kind of authoritative unbiased source of valid information. It is not. If you have no bias against Obama, I am hard pressed to understand how you could have interpreted his remark as an attack on free speech.
I am personally NOT offended by misinformation. I am not even offended when misinformation is presented as fact. You are allowed to misinterpret all you want. You are even allowed to represent your misinterpretations as facts, which is what you did here even though it is more accurate to say “I believe that Obama is trying to quell free speech” rather than to say that he is definitely doing that. But do not expect to go unchallenged when you do this. It is no more disprectful to you when I express my ideas than it is disprespectful to me when you to express yours.
By the way, do you support Obama? Was I wrong in my assessment?Edited on Feb 10, 2009 12:27
Yes. I heard the same report of what Obama said and I did not hear any threat of freedom of speech..and I am usually sensitive to that sort of thing. I believe Chromebuilder may have only heard what he wanted to hear which is indicative of a pre set opinion of Obama and the concept of change.
I have friends who voted for Bush and the politics of the rich over the middle class and the poor. These friends are not rich yet they continue to follow the politics of the far right which go against their best interests. I have never understood how ingtelligent, well meaning people could be so far off the path of their own self interests but apparently there are many of them. Bush, after all, was elected twice.
I’ve never actually met anyone that liked haggis. I am well integrated with the Puerto Rican and Cuban communities and those cultures eat just about every part of an animal that can be chewed and some that cannot be (patas de puerco, comes to mind) I guess you have to develop a taste for such things. But I cannot imagine what extreme set of circumstance short of dying of hunger that would induce me to develop a taste for haggis.
Every single time taxes were increased, workers’ wages went up and the middle class grew. Every time taxes were decreased by republicans for the wealthy, we get a recession or, as in the cases of Hoover, Coolidge, Reagan and the Bushes, a depression.
It is as simple as that. History from 1900 to present.Edited on Feb 09, 2009 16:40
I just love watching you guys try to wiggle out of taking the blame for this catastrophe. You want to blame the recently elected democratic congress for our current mess. What a stretch. What an imagination.
I guess I can agree with you on one thing, though. “But the fish, with their ever short memories, keep on swimming.” In other words, they keep on electing politicians like Bush and Reagan and their destructive ideaology right up to the bitter end. It is too late to fix this now.
Where and when has “Uncle Barak” started to remove free speach? I didn’t see any reference in your post about that?
Also, I have a pretty good imagination and I don’t trust my government to do the right thing usually. But even I can’t imagine all savings being frozen until we reach the point where we see 25% unemplyment, rioting in the major cities and a massive flight of regular american citizens to safer countries. By that time, your dollars in the banks will be nearly useless anyway as will most printed and minted currencies. So it is a non issue. At that point in time, you need to be counting your canned goods for a measure of your wealth….
No, chromebuilder, Castro and Chavez did NOT remove free speech and neither is using a “personalized” form of governing. Both are following established progressive ideologies and applying established methods of socialized forms of government. You must be drinking the Kool Aid that Rush Limbaugh has been passing out for the last 10 years.
If you think his ideas are so good, perhaps you would like to blame the current mess on progressives who haven’t has a single bit of influence in the States for a long long time.
Today’s problems surely couldn’t have anything to do with Republican legislative dominance for the last 15 years, could it? It must be those rascally Caribbean commies who have brought down our great economy with all their silly ideas of promoting the working class and making a more eglatarian society.
Those who have created the laws, ignored oversight and promoted the wealthy getting wealthier at the expense of the rest of the country and have brought the world economy to the brink of catastrophe. They have lost their credibiltiy and should no longer be in the business of giving the rest of us advice.
Edited on Feb 09, 2009 10:43
Edited on Feb 09, 2009 10:44
