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<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=178420717-18032008><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2>We bought our place last fall and are perfectly
happy. We bought in Alhambra near SouthPas, we got a good deal on the
place (about 10k below similar units in the area). The price we paid has
held pretty much over the last few months. I think the real problem areas
are those long commuter communities, the 909 if you will, that will have the
biggest drops in home values. I never thought those houses out there were
worth what people were shelling out for them to begin with.
</FONT></SPAN><SPAN class=178420717-18032008><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2>We might take a loss short term on our place but we would be happy living
here for 10+ years so no complaints here.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=178420717-18032008><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=178420717-18032008><FONT face=Arial
color=#0000ff size=2>Personally, I don't think we should be bailing anyone out,
banks or people. What sort of lesson does that send? If we bail out
all those who got into those situations, what benefit is there for those of us
who are responsible? I'll take another stim check
:)</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><BR></DIV>
<DIV class=OutlookMessageHeader lang=en-us dir=ltr align=left>
<HR tabIndex=-1>
<FONT face=Tahoma size=2><B>From:</B> sgvlug-bounces@sgvlug.net
[mailto:sgvlug-bounces@sgvlug.net] <B>On Behalf Of </B>Miguel
Hernandez<BR><B>Sent:</B> Tuesday, March 18, 2008 10:04 AM<BR><B>To:</B> SGVLUG
Discussion List.; sgvlug@sgvlug.org<BR><B>Subject:</B> Re: [SGVLUG] OT: housing
and bear stearns<BR></FONT><BR></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>Yea, it's a bad omen looming on the horizon. Too many key things were
done incorrectly, imho. You had banks & banking institutions pushing
sub-prime loans on people who qualified for the better loans. That sounds odd
until you find out that the banks didn't care because if (when) people
defaulted, they could re-sell that debt on wall street. Adding insult to injury
to the beleaguered consumer was that the government went to the aid of the
banking institutions (partially understandable as the banks are a large part of
the economic backbone), not the folks who lost their homes or are still stuck in
bad loans.<BR><BR>I feel bad for those who bought recently, as Matti said.
:(<BR><BR>--miguel<BR><BR>
<DIV class=gmail_quote>On Mon, Mar 17, 2008 at 6:28 PM, David Lawyer <<A
href="mailto:dave@lafn.org">dave@lafn.org</A>> wrote:<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE class=gmail_quote
style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: rgb(204,204,204) 1px solid">
<DIV class=Ih2E3d>On Mon, Mar 17, 2008 at 01:45:08PM -0700, matti
wrote:<BR>> Hi,<BR>><BR>> this is off topic...<BR></DIV>[snip]<BR>
<DIV class=Ih2E3d>> I'm guessing we will see what some people like to
politely call a<BR>> "market adjustment" is coming to the socal housing
prices as credit<BR>> tightens and some more banks fail<BR>><BR>>
glad I didn't buy a house in the last year or 2...<BR><BR></DIV>This is part
of a much larger problem: possible financial collapse of<BR>the U.S. gov't but
it may be years away. With the gov't bailing out<BR>companies who took
undue risk, it may wind up that the gov't itself<BR>can't keep going into debt
anymore and has to go thru default itself.<BR>No country has every gone into
debt as much as the US (including all<BR>forms of debt such as private debt)
and not suffered financial<BR>collapse. It used to be that a way to
default was via hyperinflation<BR>so as to make the real value of debts nearly
worthless. Old postage<BR>stamps of Russia and Germany illustrate
hyperinflation. In Germany in<BR>the 1920's it took billions of Marks to
buy some of the postage stamps<BR>(in my stamp collection) when inflation hit
it's peak. But now the<BR>U.S gov't has issued a lot of debt in
"inflation protected securities"<BR>that can't be made to go away via
hyperinflation. The only way to<BR>default on this debt is just to not
pay it back.<BR><BR>So while house prices in real terms may drop, in term of
dollars they<BR>may hyperinflate along with hyperinflation of everything else.
If you<BR>would like to read some hyperbole (that is often humorous) on
these<BR>and related problems see Kunstler's (author of "The Long
Emergency")<BR>site:<BR><A
href="http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/2007/12/forecast-for-20.html"
target=_blank>http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/2007/12/forecast-for-20.html</A><BR><BR>Linux
both helps and hurts our current account balance of trade. It<BR>hurts
since it reduces the monopoly profits that MS can bring into the<BR>U.S. from
other countries. But at the same time, the fact that Linux<BR>was mainly
a U.S. phenomena helps improve the public opinion the U.S.<BR>worldwide and
this may help the U.S. get more sympathetic treatment in<BR>economic matters.
For example, will the oil trade switch to euros<BR>from dollars?
Iran has already switched and wants others to do so<BR>also. Iran
may win this since outside of Linux (and some other<BR>things), world public
opinion of the US is pretty low, and the Bear<BR>Stearns bailout (and related
gov't loans of "liquidity" to Wall<BR>Street, etc.) makes it worse resulting
in a falling value of dollar<BR>which leads to inflation as the prices of
imported goods rise.<BR><BR>I wrote about the problem of free trade years ago
and did<BR>nothing for years with what I wrote. It's now on my website
and while<BR>I've added to it but it's not up-to-date. Many of the
things I<BR>predicted are happening now, but others predicted the same
(see<BR>the list of books on the subject).<BR><A
href="http://www.lafn.org/%7Edave/gov/collapse.html"
target=_blank>http://www.lafn.org/~dave/gov/collapse.html</A><BR><FONT
color=#888888>
David Lawyer<BR></FONT></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR></BODY></HTML>