Bye Bye Banks and Wall Street

[LSPoorEeyorick]

It's affecting me, but I don't feel up to looking at our retirement fund to find out how much. It'll get better someday but... bummer.

[BarTopDancer]

I'm not even looking at my 401k. So far my job is safe, they just announced merit raises (max cap 3% and no one gets that). But I'm still worried, money is still super tight and just getting tighter. At least gas is down about $1 from 6 months ago, which is about $50 a month in savings (with how often I fill up).

[Not Afraid]

Twice a week? Try twice a day, babe!


I was just reading an article on "Depression-style". I'm always interested in how some of the fundamentals of American culture are effected by such things as war or the Great Depression. I wonder what sort of trends we will see this time?


My job hasn't been effected at all - as a matter of fact, I'm busier now that I ever have been. Weird.

[Not Afraid]

Thurston still LOVES cat poop (as do most dogs) but he can't get to the cat boxes. Poor deprived dog.

[Morrigoon]

Originally Posted by Not Afraid

Thurston still LOVES cat poop (as do most dogs) but he can't get to the cat boxes. Poor deprived dog.

I supposed I should stop complaining about my dogs' obsession with used Kleenex...

[Chernabog]

Wow ok this thread took a sharp turn for the eeewwwwww.

[Not Afraid]

I'd MUCH rather talk about dogs and cats than the fact that it's raining cats and dogs.

[Kevy Baby]

Originally Posted by Moonliner

I took Kevy's comments to be about today's stock market dip rather than the crisis as a whole.

Yep.

Originally Posted by Morrigoon

Okay, so the 700-point drop is affecting me right now at this very moment. It's scaring my company's potential customers off pursuing real estate right now, and therefore they don't need what I'm selling (access to foreclosure database). So my performance and commissions are being directly affected.

What will happen tomorrow when the market goes up (as I predict it will)?

But I still don't think it is a good time to invest in real estate as values will only be going down from this point. That is, assuming one is a cash investor. While real estate pricing will go down from here, the cost of money will go up, so the net cost to purchase will remain about the same.

[BarTopDancer]

Does whatever bailout they are proposing have any help for people who didn't fvck up and take on more debt then they could afford?

Or are us people who didn't get in over their heads expected to hold on for the dive.

[The Lovely Mrs. tod]

Originally Posted by BarTopDancer

Does whatever bailout they are proposing have any help for people who didn't fvck up and take on more debt then they could afford?

Or are us people who didn't get in over their heads expected to hold on for the dive.

A lot of people who went in "over their heads" didn't know they were doing it...there was a LOT of predatory lending and "pick your own payment" action going on out there.

The majority of foreclosures didn't have to take place. Most homeowners WANTED to pay their mortgage. But they were stuck in ARM's and neg am's and the banks, rather then working with them simply made land grabs. Wachovia sold homes without notifying their customers they were going to do it. Those houses are sitting empty now, and some guy is making a fortune painting dead grass green so they don't hurt neighborhoods plummeting property values any more than they already have been.

It would, most likely, take some sort of government intervention to accomplish it, but not to the tune of how many bazillion dollars? Take that empty house, put the owner back in it and give him a payment plan he can make for 12 - 18 months. THEN go back and see if the loan CAN be made workable. Call the terrified owner up and say, "okay, we don't want your house, we want your business. Let's see what we can do to save this."

And yep, I know there's WAY more to deal with than just that. But it's a jumping off point.