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<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>Good question. I heard a news report last week (CBS I think)
that stated that a large percentage of those poor people who are currently
going through foreclosure are speculators who used other people’s money to
purchase properties and are just walking away from them now that the value is
upside down. These are the people our tax dollars are going to bail out?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'>Matt<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>
sgvlug-bounces@sgvlug.net [mailto:sgvlug-bounces@sgvlug.net] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Zack,
James<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Tuesday, March 18, 2008 10:14 AM<br>
<b>To:</b> SGVLUG Discussion List.<br>
<b>Subject:</b> RE: [SGVLUG] OT: housing and bear stearns<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";
color:blue'>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. We might take a loss
short term on our place but we would be happy living here for 10+ years so no
complaints here.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";
color:blue'>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 :)</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'> 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</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'>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<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal>On Mon, Mar 17, 2008 at 6:28 PM, David Lawyer <<a
href="mailto:dave@lafn.org">dave@lafn.org</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></p>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal>On Mon, Mar 17, 2008 at 01:45:08PM -0700, matti wrote:<br>
> Hi,<br>
><br>
> this is off topic...<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal>[snip]<o:p></o:p></p>
<div>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'>> 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...<o:p></o:p></p>
</div>
<p class=MsoNormal>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>
<span style='color:#888888'>
David Lawyer</span><o:p></o:p></p>
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