"Regards, walking away. There might be a greater national good in encouraging walking away. When borrowers are too far underwater their staying and repaying is going to be anti-consumptive. With 2/3rds of the economy consumer derived this may not be the most productive use of their efforts."So, what about it? Making millions less mobile is going to hurt future job prospects and may consume more energy over time. It also stands to put a halt to any kinds of home improvement beyond the minimums, degrading the housing stock. There are more negative social outcomes that worry me but I'd like to hear your ideas.
Seeing as the Dawg House may be getting a 5kW photovoltaic installation two additional ideas rear up. Trapped homemoaners are not going to do this. Then again, maybe we can force them as part of the deal or just deed the solar rights to others or the power company.
44 comments:
We just have to get the rot out over the next few years to get housing to reasonable levels. Consumption is one reason but I also believe that reasonable housing will allow more people to make the leap into starting a business. Too many young homeowners are so stretched that they will never consider going out on their own. I really wonder what the business formation data looks like for areas like California. Once you peel out all of the unproductive mom and pop mortgage brokers and realtors and see what has been started ove this decade so far. We need professionals and tradesmen to step out and be business owners for the vibrancy of our economy.
Wow, how about new governor of NY David Paterson coming clean immediately about having an affair right after taking the post. I respect this guy. It is weird hearing all of the dirty laundry involving the NY and NJ governors. The whole threesome thing with the NJ governor is pretty out there.
Let 'em walk. The moral obligation to pay your debts has pretty much been flushed down the toilet. If Wall Street fatcats can loot and steal and walk away without penalty, it's hard to make a moral judgment against the idiots who lied on their mortgage apps and can't pay.
That's another problem with freezing the system in place. We need to disintermediate the mortgage process of the future. That won't happen with all the old players in all their old positions.
And aren't I an AS$, paying my mortgage on time every month. I feel like the kid that didn't cheat and made a C, only to see all the kids that cheat get A's and congratulations from the teacher for "improvement".
//bad taste
///mouth
I'm entertaining "make 'em walk" as a strategy. Tell people that they need to prove that they can and want to stay. They aren't doing us any good living on the edge where a simple stumble could come at a time when the system is already straining. I used the phrase cascade failure for the event(s) needs to be avoided most. That means we need to be able to trust the people we allow to stay.
And aren't I an AS$, paying my mortgage on time every month.
You and me both. The problem is these millions of jackasses CAN'T PAY. You can't squeeze money out of the Casey's of the world.
it's the damn tweeners that piss me off. Those are the people that think they can't afford to meet their obligations but in truth only because they are living an unsustainable lifestyle ex-housing. Got cable? That's half a mortgage payment right there. Short sale the damn SUV and craigslist yourself a 96 Volvo. Vacation means weines and a county campsite not an RV rental in Big Sur. We need an entitlement vaccine.
Get them out of their houses. Let them be taxed at 50 cents on the dollar, for whatever the bank ends up selling the house for. Let their credit be f'd up for 7-10 years. There needs to start being punishment for actions again.
Lenders and RE agents must be held to new and improved licensing laws and standards. No automatic grandfathering in of anyone.
We've got to reach the bottom before the market turns around.
Whatever happened to *real* democracy and free markets?
Get them out of their houses.
Ahem. Get them out of my houses. I know how to get good renters and take care of the property. I know how to make the asset productive. I just need them out of the way so I can work my plan.
For the first time since I was a little kid I woke up with bubble gum all over my hair and had to cut it off.
I guess free markets went the way of flea markets.
I miss the concept of 7-11.
I am a skinhead (I guess).
Signed,
One ANGRY BITCH FOR A BETTER COUNTRY!
WTF is Moral obligation?
Everything has been highly immoral and unethicical since I arrived here.
Morality is a gray area. I Choose Ethics.
I have bubble gum stuck in my hair and feel morally opposed to supporting losers who can't figure out how the flying f to cut it out.
I am a f-ing Christian too!!!
Signed Kierkegaard.
Get rid of cable, turn off the ehater, turn down the hot water heater, time your showers, grow a vegetable garden, avoid all fast food and coffee stores, eat smaller portions of meat that are on sale, pack your lunch, make rice noodles beans and potatoes central to your diet, make iced tea instead of sodas, camp locally, trade down your vehicles, find a way to get by with only one family vehicle, make sure it is fuel efficient and small so that maintenance and things like tires are cheaper, stop giving meaningless gifts for stupid hallmark holidays, wear those clothes in the back of the closet, mow your own lawn maybe even a few neighbors too for a few bucks, pick up two shifts at a part time job, stop buying crap, sell the crap you have.
Wait! This sounds a lot like living through the 1950's.
Rob, saw your comment on CR about a chitlin being accepted to UCD crop science. Contrats! But wouldn't Cal Poly SLO be better? Just kidding. I have worked in crop production since graduating in '96, let me know if you have any questions about the industry or would like some general big picture info. Also, if it is your daughter she is welcome to speak with my wife about the problems she had as a woman in the industry. Some times it was very difficult for her.
Walking away from your underwater house isn't bad... I did it eight times!! Stole a quarter-million bucks too, but it's all good. Thankfully I have enabling parents who let me live with them rent-free, treat me like a 4-year-old, and give me no responsibilites or deadlines to find real work! Sweet!
We need professionals and tradesmen to step out and be business owners for the vibrancy of our economy.
We are trying our best. We outsourced as many jobs as possible to China and India, and imported workers to fill the rest.
Akubi:
You're not the only one that's pissed... and I didn't even wake up with gum in my hair.
w said:
Wait! This sounds a lot like living through the 1950's.
Thanks for the more more comprehensive list. There's a lot that can be nicer than the 1950s however. DVDs are often $3-$6 new and there's a growing used market for instance. I'll have a post about that soon. There is an new series of flat out lying crap about the benefits of the transit oriented lifestyle out this week that includes the theoretical billions of gallons of gas saved by transit.
re colleges; Thanks, on behalf my eldest. UCDavis and SLO both have accepted along with UCSD. UCD is a UC and also 4H HQ and her interests are the hard sciences more than field applications. When we hear from UCLA, USC, Bezerkly and 'vard I'll put up a full post. This post was a spin-off of a comment I made (the part in bold up top) on CR. It pleases me that the issue is of interest to others. Kunstler is talking about Chernobyl suburbs in the coming dystopia. I think we'll do a lot better.
Bring back the poor houses!!! Gambled on the housing market and lost? No problem, we'll cover your debt... just come over here, you'll share this 6x10 cell with four others and you'll be working this assembly line for the next ten years to pay us back.
Oh, and "vacation"?
What the flock is a "vacation"???
I haven't had one of those in years. My time off consists of not having to go to work.
Boy, am I pissed today.
However, I do have a nice schanenfraude (sp???) story that will make me feel better as soon as I type it up...
PropFlop,
We need them ming uranium and doping solar panels. We really blew it when credit was cheap and easy. We should have started building nukes and rooftop residential solar kit factories.
People don't get it yet. Look at Casey. Selling penis puffer upper pills. Again, nothing useful. We are still a great manufacturing and innovation nation, just no longer the undisputed manufacturing and innovation nation. With a crashing dollar and rising energy it is going to make a lot of sense to start building stuff here again. Unfortunately it will be impossible to put capital to work as long as we have house arrest homemoaners and a financial industry resistant to change. That's why we need to clear the decks of their detritus first.
Rob - Uranium mining would be fine, I'm a big supporter of nuke power.
The problem with manufacturing in the US is the cost - can you get enough people A) willing to work B) willing to work for a price that makes it cost effective.
Hard work, long hours and low pay? No, ship that job off to Mexico... but keep my high pay supervisory position here.
The problem with manufacturing in the US is that there is very little focus on job skills training. Instead of telling every knuckle-head in high school that he needs to go to college and have hime dick around for 4 years at a highly subsidized junior college send him to a job training program where he can learn to use the tools and do the math to get a job making 80k in a factory. We don't need broom factories, we need high end precision manufacturing.
Furthermore, even with the problems in our economy our future will be fine. China on the otherhand is at the end of its rope. Wages, rights, pollution and corruption will short circuit their supposed long march to world supremacy. I am sure that their young generation will be up in arms about health concerns stemming from unsafe food, air and water. They will demand higher wages as they decide that their parents were taken advantage of by business owners. Of course this will be mostly the more skilled and educated part of their society, you know, the ones they need to develop an economy based on more than low end manufacturing. Welcome to the free market! Their best and brightest will look to get out into North America and Europe. China may look more like Mexico than a world power in 50 years.
W - I agree on both points.
It's the American Dream though - manufacturing was fine for your father, but you are going to college to do better...
Everyone wants to be a chief, nobody wants to be the indian.
Also - I'm glad you specified high precision manufacturing. Part of what killed the US factory was low skilled workers demanding $80k/yr. when the job could be done elsewhere so much cheaper. Those jobs aren't coming back to the US, we simply can't compete on wages. The high precision, high skill manufacturing is where we can compete.
Web code monkeys make $28/hr. Plumbers make $82/hr. How many high schools offer plumbing classes?
We will be able to compete on wages soon enough.
BMW Announces Plant Expansion
Spartanburg, S.C. (3/10/2008) — BMW today announced it will invest an additional $750 million in its Upstate South Carolina factory to add 1.5 million square feet and 500 new jobs on site to produce three models and to increase production capacity to 240,000 units by 2012.
----
Hardly surprising because since the plant opened US wages have declined 40% relative to their German counterparts.
Yup, plumbers / electricians, etc. can do well - they are the "high tech" of the construction trade. Of course, the plumber may bill $82 / hour, but that's not what he takes home. If he's working for someone else, he's getting a fraction of that. If he's independant, he's covering his truck, supplies, etc. out of that.
BMW is expanding, but how many of those new jobs are $80k / year? Few outside of management would be my guess.
I think a lot of it comes down to education, skill and drive. If you are doing a job that a monkey could be trained to do, do not expect to make a lot of money.
If your job requires a lot of education, you can generally charge more. If your job requires a high degree of skill / specialization, you can do well.
Not saying education (or even skill) will be enough - if you get a degree in philosophy, you really aren't all that marketable. Ditto for many skills. You need to have the education / skills relevant to the world's needs.
Drive is also critical. This is not the get rich quick drive of the Casey's of the world, this is a true desire to succeed and the willingness to do the work. With this, you can usually do well.
you are right flopper, but the BMW jobs are just assembly I imagine. If these guys want to make better wages they need to move to a parts manufacturer or other ancillary manufacturer who makes things. I would bet that these assembly jobs sure beat getting 39 hours a week from Walmart and no benefits. There will always be underperformers in society. They won't all be skilled professionals but hopefully they can be more than a broom engine at Walmart. These 500 jobs at BMW just gave 500 families enough money to buy a modest home and probably good medical and some type of retirement plan. If the local school system has a job training program maybe these would be entry level jobs for young people. Then some of them would have a spark and get themselves the skills necessary to work in a tool shop. There are no plumbers if there are no apprentices. Deep thoughts with w, here every Tuesday morning.
Imagine on the playground: "My Dad makes BMW X3 SUV's"
"My Dad stocks shelves"
We need to be a nation of proud builders, inventors and farmers.
> Deep thoughts with w, here every Tuesday morning.
Very good.
Defintitely not knocking the BMW manufacturing jobs - people just need to have reasonable expectations. They can earn a decent living working the line - but often people want so much more. For that, they need to -DO- so much more.
Also - add to last rant:
If your job involves asking "Do you want fries with that", you absolutely CANNOT expect to make more than a subsistance living.
> We need to be a nation of proud builders, inventors and
> farmers.
That's the core of the problem. Regular jobs have lost their prestige. Builders / farmers are looked down apon. Inventors are only admired if they make a fortune from the invention.
So true.
But media and educational system send people a lot of false signals. Families on TV seem to have a pretty plush lifestyle any more and nobody seems to work too hard. Kids need to see less Desperate Housewives and more Married with Children.
Since I control what my kids watch they will grow up with the expectation to be the protagonist in a world of very cute Japanese forest spirits. Or maybe a cowboy.
Ballpark figure on that 5kW solar install after all federal/state subsidies?
Be sure if code allows it to get an "islanding" inverter, so your inverter still works even if the grid doesn't (normally, when the grid goes down grid-tied inverters shut down)
5kW would satisfy all my demand except for central A/C (too humid here to use a swamp cooler)
That means my kids are going to grow up running the warp engines in the nacelles.
Ballpark figure on that 5kW solar install after all federal/state subsidies?
Be sure if code allows it to get an "islanding" inverter, so your inverter still works even if the grid doesn't (normally, when the grid goes down grid-tied inverters shut down)
5kW would satisfy all my demand except for central A/C (too humid here to use a swamp cooler)
I are a real eniguneer and my B-I-L be a real electrician so I am able to save quite a bit. Decent panels are running about $4.50/watt in the 165-190W 12v or 18v configuration. Inverter(s) conditioner, etc $3200. Parts, supplies and misc labor; $2000. Probably $22k that I can legitimately call $33k in the rebate application. That should get me back about $12k. Net $10k which as a home loan is about the same as the annual electricty savings for as long as SCE is forced to buy it back. That is going to end bu by then rates will also be much higher.
w said "Kids need to see less Desperate Housewives and more Married with Children."
Respectfully disagree on two counts:
1) Kids "need" less TV in general and
2) "Married with Children" is a terrible show. A sitcom called "Married with Pets" would be more like it- one that pokes fun at what many kids grow up to be- pretend adults with lifestyle expectations grounded in material gain.
If Casey Serin could star as himself in a comedy farce, I'd buy it!
But you have to admit that Married with Children was not a glamorous lifestyle to be emulated. Personally i have my kids watch things like Rifleman so they are prepared for handling rustlers and gunslingers.
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