However the short term solutions need to be coupled with some long term solutions. Drilling in ANWR is just one step. Drilling along our coasts is better both long term and short term.

When the proverbial shit hits the fan and global oil supplies dwindle to a trickle there will be a mad scramble for the precious black stuff. We better be prepared for that sooner rather than later. Looking for new fuel then will be much more difficult.

I’ll see you under the umbrella in January! (unless of course Cheney/Bush & Co. decide otherwise)

I’m not for Obama, but the race is his to lose.

BTW, I make a wicked hot toddy…you’ll enjoy the time under the umbrella. You can school me on recession and why we still won’t be in one while every analyst says otherwise, and then…we can retire to sleep in one of your new cars down by the river.

“in which case that would put them in the same class as those “that received ARMs” (meaning: they bit off more than they could chew),”

Not all of them but some. Simply put some will have to take a small loss on their home from the inflated prices they purchased it at, that is if they want to sell now, OR they won’t get the same bloated profit they would have made had they sold the house 2-3 years ago.

I would fall into the latter. As I was considering selling my home, but really see no need for it right now. I’ll let the new housing prices drop a bit more to get me truly interested.

“I’m guessing that they can all go to hell in your “free-market” fantasy-land”

But yes, the free market at work. Its not fantasy land. It only is for those like yourself that refuse to come to grips with the reality of 100% 6 months gains on a flipped house as being ridiculous. If you are one of the fools that fell into the trap, I want to thank you for paying for my cars

“Either way, you seem optimistic that mortgages are abounding and it’s a buyer’s market.”

Actually it is a buyers market. There are so many pieces of property out there with sellers willing to pay your closeing costs and new home builders willing to throw upgrades at you that I would have to say that it IS a buyers market.

“I agree that the housing market is cleaning up.”

So you really just posted for the sake of argument. LOL.
I like that.

“I’m sure that the dollar, the price of oil and this housing crisis are just a phase, and you’ll be back basking in the glow of Empire again soon.”

Like everything in the market, it comes in phases. Its almost a given to have a recession after an 8 year presidency. At least it has been for the last 24 years. Carter not included.

Tell you what, IF Obama gets elected my optimism will fade quickly and I will join you under the dark rain cloud. Deal?

Of course this would have to discount all those upstanding citizens who were horn swaggled by all those nefarious real estate people and commited fraud without really, really meaning to. No one really wanted to profit from getting a house and we all full well know that buying a house insures that the value of the house will never, ever decline. And with the usual suspects at the banks deciding they didn’t need equity anymore we had willing accomplices. But you know one of the awful truths about the real estate mess? If you didn’t buy a property in the last five years and you didn’t ransome your equity for yet another flat screen TV or carbon footprint investment, its not much of a crisis. So your house lost value. Big deal, they do that occasionally. It will come back.

And the bickering can go back and forth, on and on, that seems to be the major use of the internet after you take out porn but what’s the point? The point for me is that we in the US may have seen the best standard of living we will see for quite some time. Speaking as someone who has had to go backward in his personal life financially and then able to dig myself out and come out of it, it isn’t fun. No matter what excuse for governance manages to blunder their way into the WH this fall, many of the chances we had to head this off or make it less painful are gone, pure and simple. Under the best of circumstances, with people like the countrys’ founding fathers, you have to wonder if they could do anything about it today. We sure don’t have the best of circumstances or the sharpest tools in the drawer filling those seats in DC. The best we get in our duocracy is long term middle of the road impact as the voters cycle between their beliefs in whose campaign lies to believe. But it can take a while to see that balance working its way out.

Inevitably, the housing “event” will shake out. Probably a year from now it will be declared officially over. Oil is doing what natural resources with a finite supply do when there is unlimited demand. The dollar? Most likely it will strengthen as the Fed goes back to tightening. Will it make an “Empire”? Not much of one in my mind. And I suspect that with a bit more perspective you might find out that the blue pills don’t make you any bigger than the red pills do. They’re not meant to. They’re only meant to get to want more of either without knowing, or questioning, why.

Now there’s a truly scary thought.

http://www.stuffwhitedbagslike.wordpress.com

The U.S. is not in recession because it hasn’t experienced 2 back-to-back quarters of negative growth…repeat….the U.S. is not in recession because it has not experienced 2 back-to-back quarters of negative growth…no recession….just a “slowdown”…no recession…this slowdown is nowhere near as painful as a recession…message received….no recession…just slowdown…different piles….(same shit)….

“new home buyers are having to compete with existing home sales on the market and are being forced to reduced prices to ATTRACT BUYERS…”

Perhaps you meant, “new home *sellers*”, in which case that would put them in the same class as those “that received ARMs” (meaning: they bit off more than they could chew), and I’m guessing that they can all go to hell in your “free-market” fantasy-land (seriously man…catch up…the free-market got hi-jacked while it stopped to let you drain your bladder at the side of the road….don’t make me spell out what you’re left holding…)

Or – maybe you did mean “new home buyers” are actually competing with themselves. Either way, you seem optimistic that mortgages are abounding and it’s a buyer’s market.

I agree that the housing market is cleaning up.

Your optimism is charming. Sorry that I didn’t take the time to “read deeper” into your blog, but I’m sure that the dollar, the price of oil and this housing crisis are just a phase, and you’ll be back basking in the glow of Empire again soon.

….the blue pills are best washed down with red Kool-Aid.

Don’t make the same mistake I did….the red pills….not so good

First, we are NOT in a recession.
All the talks for the last 6 months of us being in a recession have been WRONG. Look up the definition of a recession and get back to me.

You can have a hard time buying the claim that prices have dropped to attract buyers but its a fact. I work in the industry and yes while there is an over supply of housing, new home buyers are having to compete with existing homes on the market and are being forced to reduce prices to ATTRACT BUYERS to their homes and not existing ones.

Again as you stated, simple Supply and Demand.
Or are you just wanting to get into a debate of semantics?

The housing market is cleaning itself up.
The people that received ARMs on homes they could not afford are leaving, those that are still in homes at fixed rates, for the most part are all making their payments on time and are not falling into foreclosure. The system is ridding itself off.

As far as the bailout for the banks, read deeper into my blog and you’ll see I was NEVER in favor of such a move.

Well….since we *are* in a recession, we “screamers” have already commenced (commenced means: “to begin”).

I have a hard time buying your claim that new home prices have “dropped 15K-25K” in order to “attract buyers”. It seems that in the wake of the sub-prime crisis, prices of new homes are dropping because there is an over-supply of new housing. The supply outweighs the demand. (Kind of like the American currency….losing its place as the world reserve currency….supply is outweighing demand).

The housing market is not cleaning itself up because of a natural reaction to a free-market economy. It’s tanking because of the “weapons of mass financial destruction” (Warren Buffett), that have been created with bad mortgages as collateral.

The housing bubble is bursting because *the derivatives bubble is bursting*.

That’s not a free-market friend….it’s capitalism for the poor and socialism for the elite.

Tell me the bank bailouts are part of a “free-market capitalist” society….c’mon….say it….