-http://www.philippine-real-estate.org/homes-for-sale/iloilo-real-estate/iloilo-real-estate-index.htm

All joking aside, Wall Street thought they were in Vegas and is hoping that, what goes on in Vegas stays in Vegas. In the game called Craps when you place your bet on the “Don’t Pass” line you are betting against the player. Betting on don’t pass is often called “playing the dark side,” and it is considered by some Craps players to be in poor taste, or even taboo, because it goes directly against conventional play. Wall Street has some extraordinary bets on the Don’t Pass line with an investment scheme known as Credit Default Swaps (CDS.)

Bad Mortgages are a smoke screen, a mere drop in the bucket; they are not the cause of this debacle. It’s the unregulated bets, amounting to 62-Trillion dollars, that Wall Street has made using Credit Default Swaps. Ironically Wall Street is asking us to buy an active bet that will eventually expire or play out. When CDS’s expire the only loser is the player (Wall Street) not main street. Failure, like a common cold, cleans out the system.

Incomes don’t need to go up, prices need to come down. America needs to return to saving for something. I’m a real estate broker in Utah and laugh at the NAR statistics and campaigns. The NAR is making us look worse with their false advertising. I’ve told all my clients if you don’t have to buy, DON’T, until 2010.

On the other side of this arguement, real wages in the US will not inrease until the MNC’s start to understand that it is not in their own self-interest to continue shipping jobs to the third world. Thye may have the best damned profit margins in history but of of course there are no buyers because there are no jobs.

Some re-engineering is clearly necessary but let’s not create additional Moral Hazards and longer-term problems in the process.

Some re-engineering is definitely required BUT let’s not create even more problems in the process.

I realize how selfish is it to ask for Barry’s attention to -my- question, but I hope he will.

re: ol’ H.L., he was cantankerous sort, truly, an equal opportunity deflator of bubbles, anywhere found.
if only our beloved hedgistas matriculated at schools that weren’t afraid of him, they might have found this nugget: “Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on “I am not too sure.”"–for the budding Mandelbrot in us all.

but, then, of course, that presupposes that they were, merely, excercising their ‘animal spirits’…
~
also, thanks for the reminder of yon’ Ambrose, I haven’t thought about him in awhile..
http://www.biercephile.com/

This is a major pet peeve of mine, and it may not be applicable to you per se, but my experience with these “happy owner vs bitter renter” discussions is that the happy owner always forgets the leverage, cost of ownership and taxes, etc.

Lets do the math. Assume a down payment of 20% and a loss of 5%. Whats your ROI? -25%!

500k @20% = 100k Downpayment
500k@5% loss = -25k

Throw in taxes, upkeep, condo fees (if applicable) and insurance, and you were still better off parking that money in your 401k.

That’s a good one, I’m also a fan of Heinlein’s TANSTAAFL (”There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch”), but that might be a bit too libertarian for folks

And don’t get me started on Mencken or Bierce..

(ok… “The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind.” .. “Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.”..)

The NAR has one goal- to increase the pace of sales, and get commissions flowing to its members. For that to happen, someone has to buy. They don’t care if its actually a good thing for those buyers or not.