Thursday, January 17, 2008

The Next Wave

"The next wave of problems will come from prime borrowers who bought too much house or borrowed too much against it,"


That from a Reuters article "Wealthy may be next in line in U.S. home crisis." Yes indeed. The destruction of the middle class has been a common theme here. It has just become so pervasive it has become subtext. Now, finally the MSM is waking up to the facts. Pity the hard workers in their 40s, they'll not see retirement until their mid 70s and then receive a pittance eroded by inflation and taxes and mandatory participation in various programs.
All the money will go to saving these people:
"For those who utilized home equity loans for five to ten years to finance their lifestyle, the chickens are coming home to roost,"

7 comments:

wagga said...

Wasn't that the first wave, not next wave?

Rob Dawg said...

Wagga,
I used a similar picture 2 years ago:

http://exurbannation.blogspot.com/2006/04/why-are-home-prices-still-going-higher.html

Makes for interesting reading after all this time.

Northern Renter said...

Hey Dawg,
Given the blurb on your blog page, why aren't you paddling out and surfing this wave? Perhaps you have some feeble excuse like sanity, or an IQ above room temp? Those surfers will get immurst.

NR

Rob Dawg said...

NR,
Exactly. I feel safely out in front of the wave and intend to surf. The FBs are gonna get buried. I got rid of all my non-personal use real estate by April 2006. since then I've tried to reduce secondary exposure with mixed success. I've made a little money on things like lumber futures but lost on interest rate bets. When we hit bottom I'm going to buy 3-4 maybe more purposeful rental properties but I'm not even going to tease myself by looking until Q3. That's when I'll know if the bottom is 6 months or more than a year away.

Anonymous said...

That plasma tv is going to look awfully good when they're living in a van down by the river. Scratch that, they won't even have a van.

Lou Minatti said...

I'd like to say "fu@@ them" except for the fact that unlike the rest of you here I ain't rich and these assholes may pull me down with them.

chickelit said...

Enough already with this talk about chickens coming home - I'm getting nervous!