Lehman bro's goes bankrupt...

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5g_jNRMdgDd559V9DvH6EusCYpMqg

I hear from a friend that it's a crazy day in Manhattan.

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Michael LeCompte

good time to buy, buy, buy!!!

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Jon Burke - KI6LSW
Blog: http://psgrallywrx.blogspot.com/

I did pretty well with Gold today.

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Michael LeCompte

Man bank of America is going to be HUGE if they can survive all of this. But fuck them because they wouldn't give me a loan anyways.

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Name: Dawud Jackson (DJ)
Age: 30
Location: Seattle, WA
Occupation: Computer dude.

I have BofA and hate it....I pay them so many god-damned fees.

I love my ING Direct Account (savings and checking)...I wish they'd have better ATM access.

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Jon Burke - KI6LSW
Blog: http://psgrallywrx.blogspot.com/

Well, I just read the breaking news that the feds just gave AIG an 85 billion dollar loan. I'm a fairly fiscally conservative guy, but FUCK, I hate big government. I believe wholeheartedly in capitalism. What these fat fucks on Wall Street do though, is jsut plain fucking greed. I want everyone to make a reasonable profit and succeed, not go so far that they end up in this predicament.

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It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favour of vegetarianism, while the wolf remains of a different opinion.
William Ralph Inge

TANSTAAFL

No joke, I'm completely pissed off at this AIG bull crap. I mean damn, companies fold all the time. Let them go. It's not like the loss of one insurance company wouldn't be swollowed up by all the others pretty damn easily.

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-Jason

At least when the Mad Max days come, we will have our cars ready.

-Al

alkun Wrote:
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> At least when the Mad Max days come, we will have
> our cars ready.
>
> -Al

Last of the V8 Interceptors!

I should really just build my caged shell into a fuel injected suicide machine in flat black and run it on moonshine.

Yeah, these bailouts piss me off. Slimy bankers let any jackass with a pulse buy a McMansion with no money down, then more slimy investment bankers take the crap "liars' loans" and repackage them as "investment grade securities". When the pyramid scheme fails because a) the jackasses can't afford to ride out a storm from a job loss or b) the jackasses didn't read the loan papers or figured they'd move or refinance before the payments doubled, everybody who shouldn't have bought a McMansion in the first place gets special treatment, while my wife and I plug away throwing an extra $125 a month at our 30-year fixed-rate mortgage on a normal-sized house yet pay taxes up the wazoo because she's self-employed. And let's not get started on health insurance. That's going to be more than the mortgage when the second kiddo arrives in the next six weeks.

The corrupt political machine in Washington and their failure to do anything other than legislate loopholes for their campaign donors is the root cause of this mess.

Of course, if these bailouts didn't happen, the economy would probably take colossal dump and our retirement money would all go POOF, and then I'll just be bitter that I didn't spend it all on rally cars instead.

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Andrew Steere
Lyndeborough, NH
KB1PJY

Here's the kicker though, AIG, an insurance company is protected from being investigated by the Federal Trade Commission. Thanks to our Congress they insured, pun intended, to keep the government out of some of their biggest supporters business. The law is the FTC act of 1980. By law, the Federal Trade Commission must forget that the insurance business exists. This is the S&L scandal of this decade.

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It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favour of vegetarianism, while the wolf remains of a different opinion.
William Ralph Inge

TANSTAAFL

Here is a good article I started to read regarding these issues. It takes it back pretty far regarding what happened.

http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-08-05/news/how-andrew-cuomo-gave-birth-to-the-crisis-at-fannie-mae-and-freddie-mac/1

I agree with some of what you have to say but disagree that it was "any jackass with a pulse buy a McMansion". Some people just wanted to become a home owners and get in on that whole "American dream thing". it seemed like it was a risky but good opportunity to become a home owner in my 20's and home prices were only going to go up right so why not!?

Myself and my family actually rode this wave during the peak and downfall of this mortgage crisis. We moved from our modest (like all of our previous places) 700/sqft 2BR condo in Renton to our 1200/sqft home in Tukwila since it was a more centralized location, closer to family, better commute, more room for the dogs, Yard for the kids etc... It's a pretty nice place too compared to the modest living arrangements I was used to. 3/4 acre, Nice detached shop, pergo floors and marble counter tops and a hot tub to name a few. It's not in a fancy neighborhood but it has good schools as well.

From late 2005 to late 2007 our mortgage was about $1700/month so it doubled from where we were. We made the payment on time every month for those two years and then some. After the first year of making payments on time, I kind of stopped worrying and felt somewhat accomplished but remembered that I was GOING to have to refinance soon but that things would be alright. Until our mortgage increased a 3rd time to like $2200/mo. I had a job change (for more money but a lack of income for a short period) and some other income troubles and were late for the 1st time in over two years. The next week we made our payment and got caught up.

I started to look into what it would take about 6 months before the rate on my 1st mortgage started to increase and unfortunatly right around the time the financal markets really started to fall appart. I figured 6 months would be plenty of time to clean up any things on my credit I needed to and to shop around for a mortgage I could live with for the next 30 years. Hindsight is 20/20 because I was REALLY off on my guestimation. It wasn't till August of 2008 that I figured out that myself and my family would end up staying in our home and it really came down to plan Y. Plan X being sell and walk away and Z being walking away and dealing with foreclosure.

I could go on an on about this portion but it's really just filled withm grief, depression, bad news, more bad news and endless racing negative thoughts and feelings going though your mind and alot of fear. The feeling is indescribable and kind of a blur at this point. The feeling effected everything, my new job, my family and the people I loved around me.

At the end I had a $3100 mortgage and was about 3 months behind and about half way thru the foreclosure process. Our credit score had gone down just shy of 200 points and my credit cards were bursting out the side to "Just hold on another month for a solution". We almost weren't a family because of the stress of everything. I'm not sure if that was rock bottom but it was uncomfortably close enough for me.

It's HARD out there right now. No ones giving anyone money unless your in the 700+ credit range, make at least 3 times your mortgage payment and have a squeeky clean job history. I don't know anyone except for maybe my Mom who meets that criteria. I mean unless you already HAVE money, you really not getting a loan. Oh it also helps to have good loan to value on your home if you already own a home. That's kind of hard when housing sales go down the shittier because the appraiser was working with the real estate agent that worked with the broker to pad everyones pockets from the bottom to the top. I'm not saying thats what happened to me but it did for a lot of people or part of that happened or something along those lines. Some people were told more lies than I was initially, some people are easily taken advantage of or can't smell or resist what's too good to be true.

I know people that are struggling just like you mentioned. I know I'm struggling and putting effort to make things better for myself and my family probably like you do yourself. I haven't had medical insurance since I was 18 for various reasons. I woulden't consider myself greedy. I bought a home in the upper $200's which is just below the medium for the area. I was approved for much more but knew it would be stupid to go much higher. Thinking back, I wish I bought a home that was about $30k cheaper but again hindsight is 20/20. I really thought I would be able to refinance if I maintained a reasonable credit score, maintained steady income and made my monthly payments on time but found out that hard way things unfortunately don't work out how they are planned all the time.

I admit there are some things I could of done better. Looking back I'm not sure I would of made the same choice to buy a home but I definately didn't want to loose what I already had. I'm sure the hundreds of thousands of people going into, or dealing with foreclosure right now are feeling the same way. For some it really was never meant to be and a lot of those people were LIED to. For others like myself your going to have to put in ALOT of effort to hold onto what you have.

I could ramble on about this for forever and go into the nitty gritty details but really just wanted to say it's not as simple as you think. Read the news article it might help you change your conclusion.

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Name: Dawud Jackson (DJ)
Age: 30
Location: Seattle, WA
Occupation: Computer dude.

Well, maybe I was a bit harsh with my "any jackass with a pulse" comment, especially since my wife and I bought our first condo with just a few percent down (the proceeds from an XR4Ti sale and a little extra cash) and the help of a first-time buyers' program. It got us in the door and was probably the single best financial decision we've made. We were also at the point where we wanted to upgrade out of our college apartment, and anything that was really an upgrade would triple our rent, as opposed to buying only doubling our payment.

Maybe it's just our paranoid nature, but we've always borrowed significantly less than a lender has said we could afford on anything we've bought on time (car, appliances, furniture, house). In the time of go, go, go, spend, spend, spend, having a cushion in case sheet happened felt better than pushing the limits.

Nope, it's definitely not as simple as my earlier comments, there's plenty of blame to throw at lenders, borrowers, the government, lobbyists, etc. Greed got in the way of common sense.

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Andrew Steere
Lyndeborough, NH
KB1PJY

fiasco Wrote:
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> Well, maybe I was a bit harsh with my "any jackass
> with a pulse" comment, especially since my wife
> and I bought our first condo with just a few
> percent down (the proceeds from an XR4Ti sale and
> a little extra cash) and the help of a first-time
> buyers' program.

As I did as well.
Djs house is a modest house though, and so is mine at what? 1150 sq/ft.






It got us in the door and was
> probably the single best financial decision we've
> made. We were also at the point where we wanted to
> upgrade out of our college apartment, and anything
> that was really an upgrade would triple our rent,
> as opposed to buying only doubling our payment.
>
> Maybe it's just our paranoid nature, but we've
> always borrowed significantly less than a lender
> has said we could afford on anything we've bought
> on time (car, appliances, furniture, house). In
> the time of go, go, go, spend, spend, spend,
> having a cushion in case sheet happened felt
> better than pushing the limits.

You can't think like that Yossarian!
"Why not!!!??"

What would happen if EVERYBODY thought like that?

"The I'd be crazy not to!"
>
> Nope, it's definitely not as simple as my earlier
> comments, there's plenty of blame to throw at
> lenders, borrowers, the government, lobbyists,
> etc. Greed got in the way of common sense.


Greed is the middle name of the Republigoon Partei.
Look back 25 years or 30 and look at the trillions of dollars "lost" in all the major crises that are the shake out of DEREGULATION" and listen to the fucking moron Republican Politicos yammering away about "Gubbymint IS the problem".

I don't know all you boys personal politics, but it's clear over a span of time that ONE PARTY run have as their central MYTHOLOGY that Government is BAD, the MARKET cures all, REGULATION is OPPRESSION, and yet in area after area, when de-regulation occurs, choas, massive "losses--OF STOCKHOLDER SHARE VALUE EVAPORATES, CEOs get millions in 'golden parachute settlements' and eventually Da Big Bad Gubby-mint assumes the debt.

Fuckin morons who vote for a policy of greed.
>
> Andrew Steere, 1973
> Lyndeborough, NH
> KB1PJY

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Monika Hawkinson
Seattle, WA

John yer still logged in as Kevin.

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Michael LeCompte

pikespeakgtx Wrote:
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> John yer still logged in as Kevin.
>
> Michael LeCompte


Yeah but Kevin is a as big a Commie/socialist/anarcho-syndicalist as I am because he's been a metal worker his whole life except when he was in the US Navy.

So what I may say is OK.

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Monika Hawkinson
Seattle, WA