I suggest that everybody read this article VERY carefully. Most detailed, best explanation of what IS going to happen and why!

I HOPE IT CRASHES SOON !!!

THANK YOU JESUS

Thanks for posting this info. It is right on the mark. And the market is going down. All those that bought homes at these higher prices will be slaves to the NWO. I have been telling everyone that would listen for the last eight years to get out of debt. No, people are fueled by keeping up with the Jones. Watch what will happen this Oct, and Nov. Shock will be in the faces of them that paid too much for their homes..

PAYING MORE TO GET LESS
by The Mogambo Guru

I remember that I was still trying to shake a killer hangover when I read that Total Fed Credit abruptly fell by $7.4 billion last week, taking the total back down to $792 billion. The next thing I knew, I was in the emergency room and doctors were trying to re-start my heart while trying to restrain my wife, who is screaming, "Let him die! He wants to die with dignity!"

But it wasn´t my heart causing the initial distress. It was my brain, which interpreted this fall in Total Fed Credit as meaning one of two things; either the Fed is finally trying to curtail the decades-long explosion of money and credit, or there are not as many people wanting to borrow money, and so they don´t need to expand money and credit to accommodate them. Either way, this is what we in the Mogambo Economics Biz (MEB) officially call The Big Freaking Bell Going Clang Clang Clang (TBFBGCCC).

Ours is a country that does nothing but spend every dime it makes, and which continuously borrows more money. Historically, this is a recipe for disaster. Nobody wants to hear this, especially my family, who think that money grows on trees, and I keep telling them that money does not go to all the hassle of growing on trees, which involves fertilizing and pruning and weeding and applying pesticides and picking, and then some drunken, stoned-out illegal alien migrant worker falls out of a tree and sues the hell out of you, and then they find out how you have been stealing them blind and selling them substandard food at premium prices, and you don´t have a prayer in court and you know it. Brrrrr. Gives me the chills just to think about it!

But this is not about how Mogambo International Exploitative Enterprises (MIEE) is screwing over the poor wretches, just as the government and the Fed are screwing the poor by destroying the purchasing power of the little bit of money they get per month. It´s just that MIEE, as a prototypical capitalist-pig company with no scruples or ethics in my mindless quest to secure profits, demeans the people directly, and they suffer because they get less. The government does it indirectly, making them get less by destroying the purchasing power of their money. But my whole case rests on the fact that, in the end, we both make life miserable for lots and lots of people because they must pay more and get less.

And the only reason that we have anything going for us at all is because we spend every dime, which makes and economy go, to indulge in an orgasmic orgy of glorious, greedy, gluttonous over-consumption, and simultaneously grow the size, the grasp, and the bankrupting expense of a huge, suffocating, inter-locking structure of governments that has, to use a phrase used in the Declaration of Independence "erected a large multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance." By which they mean, in Mogambo-ese, "The government sucking you dry through your wallet to give total strangers money and services for the rest of their lives."

The joke goes, "I spent my entire million-dollar inheritance. Most of it I spent on women, fast cars, booze and drugs. The rest I spent foolishly." In our case, the rest we spent foolishly to party party party (PPP).

Recognizing that this sudden slowdown in the growth of money and credit would mean the total collapse of the United States, you will, I hope, forgive me for jumping up, running in panic, pushing my wife and children out of my way as I run, as fast as I could, to try and lock myself inside the heavily-fortified Mogambo bunker (HFMB), which would, theoretically, protect me from the hordes of scared, angry and desperate people whose lives are being destroyed as the economy is being destroyed, including my family, who were already scared and angry about being related to me in the first place because I seemingly will never die.

And this slowdown may be showing up in the way that inventories are sort of building. I would assume that inventories are increasing because people are not buying as much, which would explain why they are not borrowing as much, although the producers and retailers are still stocking as much. Trying to be as philosophical as I can (and you can tell I am being philosophical by the way I wipe the drool off of my chin and try to act dignified for a change), this had to happen sooner or later, as every schoolchild knows that you cannot continually go farther and farther into debt forever. I, personally, learned this valuable Mogambo lesson (VML) rather early in life, and I remember it like it was yesterday, when I went to my dad and asked to have another advance on my allowance, and how he laughed, and with acid in his voice asked, "Do you think you can perpetually bring forward future consumption into today?" Maybe it was HOW he said it, but I never forgot the lesson about over-consumption via debt, and I hope you don´t either.

But this is not about my cruel life of pain and anguish that I mostly brought on myself for acting like such a jerk all the time, but about money and the spending thereof and how rising prices are no fun. Like gasoline prices. And with gasoline rising dangerously in price, people do not have as much money to spend on the rest of the silly crap that we love to indulge in, making things worse.

The proof of this is demonstrated by the fact that people are going to the movies less, and all kinds of businesses that depended on the flow of all this frivolous discretionary spending are finding that sales are down dramatically. This is another Mogambo Sign That Things Are Not As Good As They Say (MSTTANAGATS) that highly-trained market technicians use to chart the markets.

For you who believe that "the trend is your friend", I will note that the Fed has had this mindless expansion of credit going gangbusters since 1997. So, all this sudden and surprising absence of growth in money and credit is, in a word, ominous. But you probably already gathered that from the spooky soundtrack, which is all low, wailing horns in ugly disharmonies that sound like banshees wailing. Or, if you are deaf, then you can also figure it out from the graph of Total Fed Credit, which has being growing like a huge, malignant cancer since 1997, pausing only in early 2000, whereupon the stock market fell like a stone, which put the Fed back in credit-expansion mode ever since. Until the last couple of months. Listen to the soundtrack, which is telling all that you need to know. OooooOOOooooo!

You´re going to love the way I end this! Slowly fade in from black, see? An indistinct, fuzzy form appears out of the gloom. What could it be? Soon, it looks like a - what is that? A hand? Yes, it´s a hand holding something. As the lighting continues to come up, we see that it is indeed a hand, a hand holding a revolver, and it is pointing right (pause) at (pause) you. Slowly, the thumb reaches up and cocks the gun, and you can hear it going "click click click" as the hammer is drawn back. Then the clicking stops. The thumb returns to its place on the butt of the gun. The forefinger moves to the trigger. And as the camera pans in closer and closer and closer, we plainly see that the finger is beginning to flatten as it begins to pull on the trigger. Of the gun. That is pointed right (pause) between (pause) your (pause) eyes.

One of the reasons that I use this gun metaphor is that the latest reports shows that inflation is running at 0.5% for July, and when you multiply that by twelve months in a year, you come up with (and you can check me on this) 6%. Inflation, even after all the massaging and tweaking by the government to make things look good, is running at 6%! This is terrible, terrible, terrible news! It was within living memory that Nixon (as I recall) seized dictatorial power and imposed wage and price controls on the entire economy because inflation was at an intolerable 4%! So this 6% thing is terrible, terrible, terrible news! And it demonstrates, one more time, the utter, utter failure of the Federal Reserve.

Regards,

The Mogambo Guru
for The Daily Reckoning

The Mogambo Sez: Repeat after me: Oil. Gold. Silver. Ommmm. This is the sound of cosmic salvation. Ommmmm.

What the new bankruptcy laws mean to you
A major new law will make it more difficult to declare bankruptcy. Jean Chatzky explains some of the new measures
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By Jean Chatzky
"Today" Financial Editor
Updated: 11:51 p.m. ET Aug. 14, 2005


Jean Chatzky
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A couple of weekends ago in Chicago, 1,600 bankruptcy attorneys from around the country gathered to learn the ins and outs of the new bankruptcy reform law that goes into effect on October 17.

Attorney Max Gardner from Shelby, N.C., was in the crowd. "I´ve done consumer bankruptcy work since 1974. I went through the last round of changes in 1979. This was the most complex seminar I´ve ever been through," he said. "My head still hurts."
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And that´s what the changes are doing to attorneys — for whom there´s a big silver lining in terms of fees that will escalate, in some cases even double. Where consumers are concerned, the changes in George Bush´s Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act are even more daunting. They make it harder (particularly for middle-class folks) to qualify for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection, which allows you to cancel your debts, give back the underlying assets like houses and cars, and make a fresh start. Instead, most of those people will have the option of filing Chapter 13 and paying back their creditors — not for three years as the old law specified, but for five.

The good news in all of this is that it´s still August. Now is the time to figure out if you really need to file bankruptcy. And if you do, to hustle to an attorney´s office well before the October deadline rolls around. Here — in a nutshell (though this somewhat vague piece of legislation is very difficult to actually fit into one) — is a look at some of the questions people who are considering bankruptcy should be asking:

Will I qualify for Chapter 7? You have to pass a means test that says that individuals who reside in households where the total income is greater than the median income in the state in which they live (in New York for a family of four it´s $66, 206) are ineligible.


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How much do I have to pay back under Chapter 13? That´s determined, again, by formula. Essentially, the government wants to make sure that you pay your creditors at least as much as they´d have received if you filed Chapter 7 and gave back the underlying assets. Stretching the time horizon from three years to five is a way to ensure your creditors — particularly your credit card companies and auto lenders, who lobbied hard for this legislation — get paid.

What about retirement assets? There´s a bit of good news here. Under the old law, 401(k) assets were exempt from bankruptcy proceedings. Under the new ones, individual retirement plans — like IRAs — are safe up to $1 million. Rollover IRAs have no limit. And under the old law you´re not allowed to continue to repay pension loans; under the new law you can. "That´s very positive," says Jay Fleishman, a New York bankruptcy attorney.

"I hear you can shelter some money by buying a big house in Florida ... will that work?" Yes, but it´s not as easy as it used to be. In order to claim the homestead exemption in Florida and several other states, you have to have lived there for 40 months. Otherwise, the exemption is capped at $125,000.


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How much will all of this cost me? More than it used to, that´s for sure. The cost of filing a simple Chapter 7 used to be well under $1,000. The new law bumps the filing fees by about $60. But more than that, it requires lawyers to jump through hoops including double-checking all of a client´s personal information. That´ll boost the overall cost of legal fees by 25 to 50 percent, depending on your attorney.

And here´s the other hitch: Before you can file, the new law requires mandatory credit counseling. That throws you into a hornet´s nest. There are many good credit-counseling agencies out there, but there are also a lot of scamsters out to grab outlandish fees from money you don´t have. In this space next week, I´ll tell you how to tell the difference.

Jean Chatzky is the financial editor for “Today,” editor-at-large at Money magazine and the author of “Talking Money: Everything You Need to Know About Your Finances and Your Future.” Her latest book, "Pay It Down: From Debt to Wealth on $10 a Day," is now in bookstores. Copyright ©2005. For more information, go to her Web site, www.JeanChatzky.com.

This San Luis Obispo story looks at another new trend that takes advantage of the urge to speculate. "About 63 percent of the rooms in one proposed downtown San Luis Obispo hotel won´t just be for visitors. They´ll also be for sale. So-called condo hotel rooms are a new trend in the housing market."

"There´s already a 70-room hotel and condominium project, Dolphin Bay, under construction in Shell Beach. Similar projects already operate in Las Vegas and other tourist areas. ´One could probably characterize it as a vacation home with earning potential,´ said Shelly Stanwyck, San Luis Obispo´s economic development manager."

"Stanwyck said she expects the rooms to be sold to a mix of investors and people interested in living in the hotel planned for Garden Street downtown." Hundreds of thousands to live in a hotel? These are 100% speculation units.

"People buy the rooms, the hotel manages and cleans the property and the owner receives a portion of the earnings when the room is rented out. The room´s renting is contingent on the owner´s schedule. Often the rooms are sold before construction, giving developers capital for the expensive projects."

"And because the condos include possible earnings from hotel visitors and are kept up by hotel staff, they often sell for more than a traditional condo would. For example, hotel condos in Westport, Mass., sell between $225,000 to $880,000 while the median condo price in Massachusetts in June was about $287,000."

As Inman News reports, Michigans home buyers are focusing on profit, not a roof over their head. "Residents of metropolitan Detroit say that when buying an existing home, they are most interested in its potential to appreciate in value."

"According to the findings, the top 10 characteristics Metro Detroit buyers assess when buying an existing home include: home appreciation potential, property taxes, square footage, roof age, school district, storage space, furnace age, home warranty, location or placement of home within subdivision, and garage size.

"According to the NAR, the median U.S. home price jumped to $206,000 in April 2005, up 15 percent over the past year and 55 percent over the past five years."

"´Even if you´re not contemplating buying or selling anytime soon, today´s home values are changing the way we think about the roof over our head,´ said Jeanette Schneider. ´Real estate is becoming less about longevity and more about value.´"

"´Past generations thought of their house as an investment, but a passive one,´ Schneider added. ´Burning the mortgage after 30 years promised a debt-free retirement and a little legacy for the next generation. But now people track their home values almost daily. And thanks to home-equity loans and refinancing, the home is an easily tapped source of cash.´"

A county clerk in Florida wrote in to his local paper about a problem he sees on the horizon. "We have had constant complaining about the high cost of the impact of growth by Florida Today, the Brevard County School Board, and the County Commission.

"Well, now the numbers are in. Population and inflation are in the 2 percent growth range. But property tax revenues, based on the tentatively requested millage rates, will go up by 16 percent, or $30 million, with the hard-pressed County Commission and 19 percent, or $39 million, with the impoverished School Board."

"If it costs $6,600 per student per year, according the School Board, how come when we have a net gain of 300 students we need a 19 percent increase in tax revenues for schools?"

"The County Commission and especially the School Board are dangerously sinking much of the newfound windfall into recurring expenses, mainly raises and additional employees. When the real estate bubble pops, the tax rolls will march backwards."

"While the new construction will still continue its addition to the coffers, big dollars derived from rising values on existing homes and properties will shrivel and shrink."

"If the current tsunami of new money is not put into reserves and capital, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth by the time next tax year rolls around."

Always in the background of the housing spotlight, appraisal fraud already has some owners upside-down on their mortgage. "Owning a home in western Washington is like sitting on a gold mine these days, but how do you know what your home is really worth? Appraisal experts and consumer advocates alike are now sounding an alarm about a startling problem that could have you borrowing more than your home´s actual value."

"Al Wilson bought a home for his family, but in less than two years time, his dream of building equity turned into a nightmare. If he sold now, it would be nearly impossible to get out with any cash value. In fact, Al would probably lose money if he sold. So how is that possible in today´s hot real estate market? ´I was defrauded, and that by $40,000 to $50,000.´"

"When an appraiser overvalues a home that can lead to an upside down mortgage where you end up owing more than the property is worth. David Callahan, with an advocacy group called Demos..says research shows the numbers are staggering. ´More than half of appraisers say they have been pressured to inflate the value of a home.´ Mostly they have been pressured by mortgage brokers and lending institutions, according to Demos´ study."

"Gary Taylor with the Appraisal Institute says the practice can devastate homeowners when they try to sell or refinance. ´“They have no equity in the property, and they´re stuck with whatever loan they started off with,´ says Taylor."

"So why would appraisers fudge the numbers in the first place? ´Brokers are earning commissions, and many times there is pressure put on the appraiser to bring the value in at a specified number in order for the commission to be earned,´ says Taylor."

"So how can you make sure your appraisal is on the up and up? It´s important to shop for a reputable lender, and to protect yourself before even going for the loan, experts at Bankrate say do homework on the property. Experts say it´s also a good idea to hire an independent appraiser."

Even if prices come down 50% it is still higher than how prices were in the late 90´s.

Those who bought early and sell now will make a huge profit. They can turn around and buy a new house cash.

Those who bought late will lose what, the downpayment? All the interest they have been paying which wasn´t theirs to begin with?

There will still be plenty of areas with high demand.

The LA Times reports on the loopy Las Vegas condo market. "About 8,000 condominium units are under construction or about to start. It´s a building explosion fueled in part by speculators in the torrid real estate market here and the desire of buyers from California and Asia to own a piece of Sin City´s action."

"But some analysts wonder if the market will be left with a Las Vegas-sized hangover in the form of a real estate bubble fueled by the large number of speculators, estimated to be as high as 40%, who never intend to live in the units they are buying."

"(Marty) Burger said that as much as 60% of the buyers at the Icon tower were Californians purchasing vacation homes. But he and other developers concede that a large percentage are real estate brokers and other speculators attempting to lock up positions with the expectation that they can resell at a profit."

At $600,000 and up, these out-of-state buyers could stay in hotels for much less. They are speculating, pure and simple.

"Janine Hogg, a San Francisco Bay Area transplant who owns a smoothie shop in the Las Vegas suburb of Summerlin, has placed down payments on four condos in three projects and is considering purchasing a fifth. ´Real estate investments are my retirement strategy,´ Hogg said. ´Hopefully I am not gauging the market wrong.´"

How many retirement strategies are discussed like this? "No one expects all the projects on the books to get built. ´There´s not enough skilled labor in this town to build even half of what has been proposed,´ said Richard Lee."

"Even more circumspect is developer Irwin Molasky, whose Park Towers opened in 2001. ´I don´t think more than 25% or 30% of the proposed projects will get built,´ he said. ´Building these high-rises are not for the faint of heart.´"

"Las Vegas isn´t the only town that is going vertical. High-rise living, a long-standing tradition in New York, has spread to the likes of Boston, Denver, Miami, San Francisco and Kansas City, Mo. At least half a dozen new condo towers are planned for Los Angeles, Irvine and Pasadena."

The LA Times takes a closer look at option ARM loans. " Borrowers with dangerous adjustable rate mortgages that give them the option of paying just about any way they like may find the loans even more perilous, and more expensive, than they ever imagined."

"For starters, borrowers may find that as the rates on their mortgages adjust, they could be paying as many as three or four percentage points more than they would had they chosen a different type of adjustable mortgage. Perhaps even worse, once borrowers realize they acted unwisely, they may not be able to get out of their loans without paying a hefty penalty. Even if you sell your house, you could be required to pay a prepayment fee totaling six months´ interest to terminate the mortgage."

"In exchange for all this, the broker who put his client in this precarious position is getting paid three times as much as he would had he placed the borrower in a more consumer-friendly adjustable mortgage."

"These kinds of extreme charges are not attached to any mortgage other than pay-option ARMs, a loan that allows the borrower to choose from four different payment options each month. ´The kind of stuff going on out there is wrong,´ says Mitch Ohlbaum, a West Hollywood mortgage broker. ´I think these loans work well when explained and priced properly. The problem is that no one is educating borrowers on what they are getting into.´"

"Peter Ogilvie, a Santa Cruz loan broker who taught an ethics class to a nearly empty room at the recent California Assn. of Mortgage Brokers convention in San Diego, agrees. Many brokers ´think it´s OK to charge three points up front and three points on the back,´ he said. ´They believe it´s their clients´ duty to know, not their duty to tell them.´"

"´A regular person with a regular job will fall behind very quickly if he makes interest-only payments. People who know what they make each month have no business in a loan like this. They will get demolished,´ Ohlbaum said.

get da fuk outta here wit dat shit.

This report from the Yuma Sun in Arizona, shows that speculators are popping up in unlikely places. "Within the next five years, Coyote Wash will bring Wellton 2,500 residential lots, 140 condominiums, 36 holes of golf; a three-story, 92-room hotel; two shopping centers, a park, restaurants, a gas station, grocery stores, a driving range, new recreational vehicle park; a church, a fast food restaurant and a new bank, said Spike Curtis, president of Glen Curtis Inc., which is building the development."

"´There´ll be more stuff; this is just what´s committed right now,´ he said."

"´This town hasn´t seen any activity for the 30 years that I´ve been here,´ Town Manager Gary Rinehart said. Rinehart estimates the town´s population could double within the next three years, and town officials are looking at Wellton´s population possibly tripling or quadrupling within the coming decade."

"The mayor said the 500 lots that have been sold so far haven´t yet put enough of a demand on the town to dictate an increase in public works staff. The city´s interim police chief, Keith Titus, said, ´Basically, for us, this growth means more crime, more houses that can be robbed,´ Titus said."

"But Curtis said he was surprised by the large number of San Diegans, who bought about one-fifth of the first 500 lots. Rinehart estimated that about half of the people buying up lots in the new developments are investors, which raises questions about the possibility of a housing bubble."

"´They sold 500 lots in four months, but you don´t actually have people in the houses,´ Rinehart said. Rinehart said of the 500 lots, 160 building permits have been issued. ´We don´t talk about bubbles,´ Curtis said. He said Wellton is such a ´new, pretty place´ that he´s sure the houses will fill up."

"´There are so many baby boomers looking to retire, it´s a huge market,´ he said. ´I´m not going to panic about a bubble for another five or six years.´ Rinehart said as long as the cost of land is reasonable, he thinks houses will sell. ´They´ll sell eventually. Really, this is the Sun Belt,´ he said."

This LA Times shows that Wall Street is beginning to worry about getting repaid. "While talk of a housing bubble has been incessant over the past year, only now are the money-changers on Wall Street beginning to worry about payback - that is, how much of the credit extended won´t be paid back."

"Home mortgage and equity credit line debt has swelled from $5 trillion in 2001 to $8 trillion now. And there´s a lender behind every borrower."

"Richard X. Bove, a banking industry analyst, this month sent clients a research report with a chilling title: ´This Powder Keg is Going to Blow.´ Bove notes that the variations on adjustable-rate mortgages with low ´teaser´ rates have mushroomed, leading up to the newest twist: the so-called option ARM, in which the homebuyer chooses among several payment options, including paying only the loan interest each month. We´re reliving the 1920s, Bove says. In those boom years, interest-only loans were standard, and lenders usually had the right to demand full payment on home loans after five years."

"When the Great Depression arrived in the 1930s, and incomes and asset values dived, home repossessions soared. Bove believes the lending industry has taken a step backward with option ARMs. ´They are an outrage,´ he said. ´The consumer simply does not understand what this loan is´ in terms of the risks it poses."

"For Wall Street, however, just the scent of a significant homeowner delinquency problem could be enough to spark a vicious reaction. Hedge funds and other trigger-finger investors won´t wait to find out how bad things might get. The biggest threat of upheaval is in the mortgage-backed securities market itself."

"´Securitization shifts risks from banks to other investors, but this does not necessarily mean less systemic risk [to the economy and markets] because we don´t know how these relatively new market participants will react in a declining market,´ Joseph Abate, a senior economist at brokerage Lehman Bros., said in a report to clients Friday. If nervous investors were to pull back from the mortgage market, credit availability could dry up in a hurry. And ´at the extreme, contagion effects might radiate outward to other asset markets,´ Abate said.."

"If the mortgage-backed securities market were to seize up because of a pullback by nervous investors, the ripples would be felt across Wall Street, and around the globe. The question is, will it take a full-blown financial crisis to get the lending industry to admit the truth to people whose homeownership ambitions far exceed their means: ´No, you really can´t afford that.´"

This CNN Money article looks at what is driving condo sales. "Cell phone rings. It´s Keith. Got a proposition for you, Chris: a one-bedroom condo under construction in Scottsdale, Ariz., 1,800 miles away, for $135,000. The catch: Only 60 seconds to decide. Sight unseen. Over the cell."

"´It was a no-brainer,´ recalls Cowen, 32, who owns 28 condos (solo or with partners) in various stages of completion. Two months after his impulse buy, ´I´ve already made $35,000,´ he crows." That was in May, BTW.

"Condos are to the real estate boom what Internet stocks were to the 1990s bull market. And like the Internet day-traders before them, the new condo flippers, with their talk of instant riches and easy money, are about to become the life of every cocktail party."

"Cowen is so bullish, he quit his corporate job at Siemens to develop his empire full time. ´Even if you make six figures, you still work for someone else, paying 40 percent taxes and putting in 60 hours a week. What do you get for that?´ he scoffs."

"´To some degree, what´s driving condo prices is sheer greed,´ says economist Gleb Nachayev. ´Condo prices have increased faster than single-family homes, and they will fall faster.´"

"Overbuilt and over-concentrated in city centers, the condo market collapsed in the early ´90s, smashing overstretched owners in the process. No one knows when history will repeat itself. But c´mon: The easy money has been made. The right time to invest is not after a record five-year run-up in prices. It´s not when the supply of new product is set to nearly double."

This guy is relying on the baby boomers. "´It´s hard to concoct a scenario where condo prices collapse in most markets,´ David Lareah argues."

"Last year, for the first time, the median condo cost more than the median home, $9,500 more. Prices in some parts of the country look even more ridiculous when you compare them to the low rents that condos currently generate."

"In Minneapolis, for instance, the average downtown condo sells for just over $256,000, up 77 percent from mid-2000. But area apartments rent for a measly $915 average a month, down from $918 four years ago. Even with a 20 percent down payment, a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage would cost $1,150 a month. This condo investor is $235 a month in the hole, even before paying association fees and taxes."

"Growing fears of overbuilding are also cause for pause. With so many condos being built today, one has to wonder: Who´s gonna rent them? Apartment vacancy rates have been rising. ´My guess is construction is growing faster than demand in some markets,´ says Raphael Bostic of the University of Southern California."

GOOD

I HOPE THE US ECONOMY CRASHES

IT IS AN ECONOMY OF WHORES AND BLOOD MONEY

The Lansing State Journal has this on the new buyers market in Michigan. "Tammy Wise and her husband, Dan are in the driver´s seat now in the Lansing-area real estate market. There were 3,587 homes up for sale at the end of June - nearly 28 percent more than in June 2004, according to Coldwell Banker Hubbell Real Estate Co., marking a nearly six month market surplus."

"It can mean great deals for buyers, especially because 30-year mortgage rates are still under 5.5 percent. But local sellers, many of whom are seeing their homes languish on the market for months, are being forced to drop their asking prices and accept offers that are thousands of dollars below what they wanted."

"In other words: There´s no real estate bubble here. ´The market is flooded,´ said realtor Susan Sasse, a 14-year real estate veteran. ´Buyers will submit an offer that is much less than the asking price and if they don´t get it, so what?"

""They´re not doing a lot of negotiating. They´ll just move on to the next house.""

Yep all our friend either bought or built new houses a few years ago. My husband and I thought about it. Our house is payed for. Its small, but it´s in a nice neighborhood and is on a nice big lot. I told him, no way dude. I like my house, its not fancy it not a stasus symbol, it´s my home. All the improvement we have done togather, lot of memories. Hell togather now we almost make a carpenter.LOL I´ve never been one to chase anyone and chasing the Jones will give you the Jones. Half the people at work are having nervous breakdowns worring about bills. I feel so sorry for them, but I talked to everyone one them and said yes it a beautiful home, but I think thing are going to get rough and I just can´t see being in that much debt. Sure enough all the over time at work dried up and even salaried jobs took 25% cut. Bad business and sad times.

It is what he evolved into, that worried others, not himself.

His cranial capacity, was now quite extraordinarily large.

He had the ability, at will, to transmute matter.

Such items as jet planes, cars, the business days duties, all seemed trivial to him.

He was caste as a god, in an infantile world.

What he did not realize as he walked outside, for the first space in three days, is how powerful he was.

The human authorities seemed as insects, where with a simple wave of his hand, could expel out of way.

*It was not what he had become that frightened little beings who hid behind closed doors.
It was what he could mean to others, if he was around less developed humans.

In this respect, humankind was very sad indeed.This new ediface, to something that should not even be allowed in this century.

Little people, little ants.Little minds, then little chores:

? dude you have some good drugs..

Hey faux rich fucks, welcome to the middle class.....did you really need that third suv, did you really need that vacation home, did you really need the country club membership.....

you assclowns are so worried about your neighborhood status you forgot to read between the lines...

have fun with your new status you greedy, selfish, morons....LOL

We have a nice home that we have lived in for 12 years, my husbands paycheck has tripled since we brought it and his work colleagues have often joked about the area he lives in and the size of his house. But it is our "home" not just a house.
If the shit hits the fan we will not lose our home, his workmates living in their "borrowed the limit" mansions are not going to be so lucky. A few are already having sleepless nights worrying about the repayments.
I reckon it´s all about status and looking good to strangers, never could understand why impressing strangers was important.

Some of the posters here don´t quite understand what "economic collapse" really means!

Most people assume that they´ll still have a job or that they´ll still have money to fill their gas tanks when the economy crumbles....Of course, they really don´t have anything to compare it too, but the chaos that follows such a complete collapse will have repurcussions around the world.