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2009-02-18 Home Front Economy

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Posted by GolfBravoUSMC 2009-02-18 10:05|| || Front Page|| [11130 views ] Top

#1 Speculators helped drive up Merced prices during the boom,...

...who had the assistance of financiers (re:banks) and willing accomplishes in people who wanted someone else's property but without the means short of out right theft to get it. Welcome to the 'victim' culture. It's not my fault! /sarcasm off

Posted by Procopius2k 2009-02-18 11:30|| 2009-02-18 11:30|| Front Page Top

#2 About 17 percent of Merced's population is of Laotian descent and 52 percent is Hispanic And 31 percent other, ummmmh!

Posted by GolfBravoUSMC 2009-02-18 11:55|| 2009-02-18 11:55|| Front Page Top

#3 And if you think of buying cheap, remember Detroit,
where million dollar homes sell for twenty do-lah!

You really, really think that the replacement population from messy-co is ANY better than
what replaced the native Detroiters?

Posted by Ming the Merciless 2009-02-18 13:07|| www.DarthProphet.com]">[www.DarthProphet.com] 2009-02-18 13:07|| Front Page Top

#4 Sorry, they made their bed let the burn in it.

Screw California.

Posted by OldSpook 2009-02-18 13:32|| 2009-02-18 13:32|| Front Page Top

#5 i'm with you old spook i don't feel sorry for that woman one bit. She is kinda like my sister in law who is in real estate who thought she was hot shit riding around in that $70,000 vehicle and buying the big house when things where good now whining and bitching because she cant' hardly pay the cell phone bill. tough shit

Posted by rabid whitetail 2009-02-18 13:41|| 2009-02-18 13:41|| Front Page Top

#6 I have some sympathy for these folks.

A lot of folks were nudged into mortgages that they shouldn't have taken, but it's hard to resist when the realtor, banker, and mortgage broker are telling you that it's alright and they shove a paper full of numbers in front of you to prove it. We all understand the proper use of credit, but it's not clear to some.

Add to that the desire to get away from the big city. Why were those folks leaving San Fran (or Detroit, or Gary, or New Orleans, or Chicago, or Denver, etc)? Crime. Poverty. Bad schools. High cost of living. Extraordinary high cost of housing. A 2-bedroom flat for 600K in a marginal neighborhood versus a 3-bedroom house with a backyard for 350K in a nice suburb?

Sign. me. up.

Throughout the past decade and a half the message from government, bankers, mortgage brokers and real estate workers was the same: buy, buy, buy. Don't worry, you can always re-finance or flip. It's going to go up forever, doncha know?

It didn't and now ordinary people are holding the bag. You bet it was wrong, and we all know that now, but you put that message in front of otherwise reasonable, sensible people day after day and see what happens. Especially when you reinforce that message by having people experience life in a marginal neighborhood in the big city.

I understand what happened. I don't blame the homeowners for 100% of this at all. I'm not happy that my (and my daughter's) tax dollars are going to be used to bail them out, as well as bail out the bankers and brokers, but I don't see a lot of options here.

Posted by Steve White 2009-02-18 14:07|| 2009-02-18 14:07|| Front Page Top

#7 I see an alternative.

Bankruptcy.

The bankruptcy laws didn't get created in a month. They have evolved over centuries to deal with situations exactly like this. It goes for stupid, ignorant, gullible, innocent, greedy (take your pick)homeowners as well as automobile manufacturers and insurance companies. Let them all go under. Have a short, sharp panic. Let prices fall to the point where the market clears. Then begin the recovery process.

We're ultimately going to do that anyway. We're just going to make it take a lot longer and socialize the loss so that the lessons are not learned so well by those who were stupid, ignorant, gullible, innocent, greedy.

And those who weren't learn a whole lot of lessons about how it doesn't pay not to be an idiot when every one else is because you end up picking up the tab anyway. It's sort of like how you order at a restaurant when you all agree that the bill will be divided by the number of people attending as opposed to separate checks.

OS is close. Screw the debtors who can't pay off and the creditors who lent to them. Even the ones in Colorado.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2009-02-18 15:12|| 2009-02-18 15:12|| Front Page Top

#8 Especially when you reinforce that message by having people experience life in a marginal neighborhood in the big city.

My ancestors faced that, but instead pulled up stakes and really moved, not out to the burbs, but across an ocean. There is plenty of less expensive housing all around the country in non-threatening environments, but no big city or California Dreaming(tm) perks. If a million people want to live in the same spot, even a dump is going to be expensive. If 25,000 people want to live somewhere, you can expect to see a lot more for a lot less money. It was just as much about ego and status as it was about property. Entitlement(tm) versus you get what you earn by your own labor.

Posted by Procopius2k 2009-02-18 19:01|| 2009-02-18 19:01|| Front Page Top

#9 All that's been said here in the 'Berg has been right on, but it won't change anything. Obambi hasn't done the one think that is ESSENTIAL to put an end to this "cricis" - gut the Community Reinvestment law. As long as the Federal Government continues to force banks to make bad loans, the results will continue to unfold exactly the same way. Nobody in Congress even dares BREATHE a word about repealing CRE, yet it was the prime perpetrator of today's debacle.

I've been paying an extra $50 principle on my mortgage for the last 12 years. The result is that I'll have my mortgage paid off COMPLETELY six years early. It's been tight here a few times, where beans and rice was the menu several nights in a row, but the mortgage always got paid.

Posted by Old Patriot">Old Patriot 2009-02-18 22:11|| http://oldpatriot.blogspot.com/]">[http://oldpatriot.blogspot.com/] 2009-02-18 22:11|| Front Page Top

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