Oh, the suprise. A recession. No way! Couldn't happen. Not to America. Not in the land of:
"Homes for Sale! Homes for Sale! Step right up and get your No Money Down Home For Sale! Never mind your income, we don't need to see it! Never mind that you have no savings, 2 car payments, 5 credit cards, a personal line of credit and you make $45,000 dollars a year! 'Wink' - boy do we have the loan for you! What's that you say? You actually make $125,000 a year? GREAT. Sign here. It's yours. Hey, whataya say about buying another one, or even 3 more like it, cuz housing NEVER goes down, you know. It's the best investment EVER. Yep, this baby here, for a paltry $450,000 has 1100 square feet, 1 and 1/2 baths, 2 bedrooms and a postage stamp lot, both in size and shape! I'm telling you, these are FLYING out of the plan. Sold 4 yesterday to that guy over there. He works at 7-Eleven. No, he doesn't own it... sign here, here, here, here, here, here and oh yeah... here. He's the clerk! You'll probably be able to sell this a week after you close for $525,000. MINIMUM. Bought 2 myself and flipped 'em in a month. If you promise to keep it a secret, the builder is gonna raise the prices in the next phase by 15%... how's THAT for a guaranteed money-maker? Ok... I'll just take your $500 hand money check and turn this in to my Sales Manager. What's that... oh, sure... we'll wait 3 days to cash it. Payday comin' up Friday... yeah... I did that too."
HOLY CRAP people, why are we suprised about this? Why do we glue ourselves to cable vision every night and listen to "economists" and politicians and business "experts" tell us that we are going to "narrowly miss" a recession. That the labor market is still good, inflation is still
WAKE UP, America. You are smarter that that! Debt is bad, any way you look at it, it's bad. I'm 37 years old. My father is 65. The difference between his generation and mine is that they believed it. Mine was taught to leverage leverage leverage. Want a car... borrow the money. You MUST get a credit card in college to establish your credit. What?!? I've got to go into debt to show I'm responsible? BAAAA-LONEY.
This country has been borrowing short to live long for 40+ years. We've been told that we can do it because the good 'ole U.S. of A's credit rating is second to none. Top notch. A+++ (that's AAA if youre a rating agency). And now that we've passed along our toxic and criminal way of investing on to our "friends" in.. oh let me see... China, Britain, Spain, Germany, Scotland, Canada, Mexico and more... how's that credit rating, America? Of course, with every new political and business cycle, we "refinance" the debt and push it off to "future generations." Our pundits and politicians cry at the podium about how much they "care" about delivering a "Better America for our children" by borrowing more now to live large. RIGHT. Unfortunately, folks, my generation is paying for it. The cards have dropped.
Now I'm not saying that we're screwed across the board, and I'm not saying that it's over by any means. But the rhetoric isn't working anymore, and our economics have become "Wreck-Onomics".
The medicine we are taking is absolutely the wrong kind. Let's lower rates while lenders tighten credit more than in the last 50 years and at the same time raise "energy efficiency" standards to the point where our raw materials prices soar through the roof. All the while, the value of the very backbone of our economy, the housing market (think of it... 70% of the economy is fueled by consumer spending... what did George Carlin say... "you got all this stuff, you buy all this stuff, and then you need to buy a house to put all your stuff in" or something like that)is dramatically declining in value and volume. So.... do the math.
Keep you cash, pay off your car if you can, buy canned goods and go ham sandwiches, America... this is gonna be a long one.
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