Police in Taunton, Mass., report today that Carlene Balderrama, 53 shot herself to death Tuesday afternoon -- 90 minutes before her foreclosed home was scheduled to be sold at auction.
Two fuses were lit this past week that could eventually explode later in John McCain's campaign -- a housing-banking crisis and the senator's penchant for falsehoods that gives new meaning to Bush III.
The funny thing is, while homes get bigger, and this McMansion trend swallows up neighborhoods and landmarks, families are actually getting smaller.
Anyone who follows Obama's record in the State Senate understands his background -- where his vote against a rent control ban in Illinois was just one example.
I was extremely confused by Bush's rosy economic speech. Here my local bank, IndyMac, is collapsing, with distraught customers waiting in line for hours last week to get their money.
If the guarantees work, private speculators, having driven the stock down, will clean up on the upside. And the bank's CEOs will continue to pocket the multi-million dollar salaries. Call it Wall Street socialism.
It is bad enough that homeownership rates for blacks and Latinos are close the 30 percentage points below that of whites, but the housing crisis affecting cities is threatening the vitality of neighborhoods.
For decades, conservatives have vilified the word regulation. This has brought us corporate slavery approved by the U.S. government and panic lines of depositors outside banks.
Who knew that when Bryan Burrough fingered CNBC for helping kill off Bear Stearns Cos., he was starting a minitrend?
I know if I was in this situation I would want to know all the facts before walking away and living in coulda, shoulda, woulda land.
A million families face foreclosure this year and many are trying to do something before their lives go on the auction block. The statistics are hard to wrap your head around; a parade of real people can't be ignored.
I understand the pressures with the collapse of FNM and FRE, but those stocks have to sink or swim on their own. Stabilizing the multi-trillion debt market behind those companies can be done without bailing out the stockholders.
Think of it: a beautiful home with no mortgage that's environmentally-responsible with almost no heating and cooling costs due to fantastic insulation.
It makes more sense to invest for the probability that the world will outlive this collapse -- as surely as it did all others in history -- instead of for the remote possibility that the apocalypse is finally upon us.
To oversimplify it, the companies have too little capital to handle the growing number of troubled mortgages they either own or guarantee. Not to minimize anything but there are solutions and "This too shall pass."
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I don't know, the president seems to think it's all pretty funny though.
Why would anyone, with the money for a downpayment and an adequate credit score, being purchasing real estate with the existing market conditions. In most parts of the country, putting down 20% and getting an 80% mortgage, there's a good chance that by the time you closed escrow, you will have decreased your equity position by 5 to 10% and be in the position of ruining your credit. That's not good business sense.
Isn't the stock market supposed to rise on bad news? When companies post huge losses and declare they're cutting their workforce, stocks go up. When the price of a barrel of oil goes down, something that will never translate to any real savings at the pump, the market ignores all other economic news and rises. Funny how the only ones benefitting from this market manipulation are already filthy rich. Looks like a scam, to me.
you got it Rok, people better get ready to bite the bullet. It's a coming.....
it's almost canned food time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxoP_9W6FC8
Remember to sterilize your canning jars if you have a workable stove and water.
A couple more weeks and it'll be food canning time here (of the garden harvest).
My fig tree is producing about 3 pounds per day. I blend the figs with other fruits and berries to make preserves. I've got about 150 jars so far. Bluebery Fig, Rasberry Fig, Blackberry Fig, Dark Cherry Fig..............Mango Fig.
Started here 'bout two weeks ago. Already put up a crop of green beans, squashes, plums, blackberries, peaches, dug a bunch of 'taters.
Oh, yeah baby!
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