Some good news about the economy for once

Principle goes out the window in that situation. It's about self survival and making a good business decision. No sense throwing good money after bad. You are balancing the lesser of two evils. In those severe situations struggling to pay the mortgage is just postponing the inevitable.

 

I don't see it as shitty. Buying a house is (or was) in many cases like buying a put option -- for a given stream of cash flows, you received the right to control the underlying asset for some period of time until you sold it. So long as the asset appreciated, your option was "in the money." When the asset depreciated, your option fell out of the money. That the banks mis-priced this put option isn't your fault.

 

It sucks. I can say I would never do it, but a large portion of my house has been paid off. They were saying that they would rent for the next seven years when their credit would then be cleared.

 

I wonder how much that would cost them. I don't know about the cost of renting in Vegas but lets just say it costs them $1000 per month. For seven years that's what? $84,000? Even if they rent for a $1900 or less per month they are probably still coming out ahead.

 

Makes sense - and the money they are saving now from not paying mortgage will go to rent deposit , ect. It's about survival as opposed to honor when you get in that situation. The days when you are sticking it to the local savings and loan are long gone.

 

All that shit's over with anyway.

Over the next 30-40 years, the vast majority of Americans are going to experience a steady and precipitous drop in their standard of living.

However good your life was in the last 3-5 years, you better have enjoyed it, because it'll never be that good again. Probably not even close.

 

Raises the question - Ford did not take Obama bailout money and were rewarded for good business decisions. GM and Chrysler were poorly run and saved for now by Obama bailout.

I still think we should have let the free market runs it course. Time will tell.

 

That's a lot of jobs saved by Obama ... for now. But even if temporary those bailouts will have kept food on the tables of thousands of middle class workers for several years. And like the first Chrysler bailout (remember Lee Iacocca?), the money will be repaid to the government.

 

The jobs saved in the constituent-heavy auto industry are miniscule compared to number of jobs that have been lost and aren't coming back in other industries.

 

So?

 

Perhaps the bailout money could have been better spent.

 

The number of people applying for free and reduced lunch in my school division keeps rising. About 10 percent of students owe us money as well on their lunches (can't pay). This number is not going down either.

I would say another five years of this. Maybe three, but five seems right.