Bush Lies. The Economy Sucks.
Yeah, we all know the stock market has been doing its usual “let’s pump up the numbers before election day” jump. And we all know that won’t last, and in fact, with a drop in the consumer confidence numbers that was just reported, when an increase was fully expected, along with unexpected drops in other indices such as the Chicago purchasing manager’s index and the Russell 2000 index, the market may not be able to sustain its strength through Election Day. Why? The trickle down effect is now moving back up the chain. People are afraid to spend money. Just ask Walmart– they showed tepid numbers for the last quarter.
One of the most telling signs of how badly the economy sucks is the rise in housing mortgage forclosures and delinquencies. Many of these are caused by those adjustable rate mortgages and interest only people have been talked into using to buy “more house”, which could leave them with no house when the rate resets. But there are also a certain number caused by people losing jobs or having to accept lesser jobs when companies downsize. According to a recent article in the Chicago Sun-Times, “The inventory of unsold homes hit 7.3 million units in September, up from 4.6 million homes listed for sale in the same month a year ago. (And there might be many more sellers waiting in the wings, who plan to list their home when the market “recovers.”) . . . Prices are falling, too. The National Association of Realtors reported the biggest drop in home prices since it began tracking the data in 1968. The median sale price slipped 2.2 percent to $220,000 in September following a 2.2 percent decline in August. These two declines are the first time median home prices have fallen since 1995. ”
The article in the People’s Voice paints an even more chilling picture:
You probably have heard about the incredible amount of sprawl housing growth around Las Vegas. But not this: The number of foreclosures in Nevada has more than tripled in the past year and jumped 83 percent since May. Nevada recorded 2,016 foreclosures in August. That was 83 percent more than in May and 255 percent more than in August 2005. Foreclosures are rising at a faster rate in Nevada than the rest of the country, where they are up 24 percent since May. In California, foreclosures increased 43 percent since May.And what about the ever-sprawling Sunshine State? Florida has one new foreclosure filing for every 254 households, more than four times the national average. Foreclosure activity in the third quarter of 2006 rose by 14 percent compared to the second quarter of the year. It was 39 percent higher than the same period last year.
How about the Northeast? In Massachusetts, 1,812 new foreclosures were initiated in August, which is 72 percent more foreclosures than August of last year, and 266 percent more than in August 2004. The July to August increase was 34 percent, making it the largest month-to-month increase in the past three years. When comparing foreclosures during the year ending Aug. 31 (15,309), to the previous year (10,517), foreclosures increased statewide by nearly 46 percent.
Nationally, in August, 115,292 new properties were listed on the database of online foreclosure tracker, RealtyTrac, a 24 percent increase over the level in July. More significantly, RealtyTrac currently lists 650,000 properties nationwide in foreclosure or pre-foreclosure, up from 75,600 just one year earlier, when the Gulf Coast was devastated by Hurricane Katrina.
The volume of bank seizures is immense. Foreclosure.com, another online tracker of distressed properties, currently lists more than 1.27 million properties in some stage of foreclosure, bankruptcy, or bank auction. Approximately 5,000 properties are added to the listings each day.
Getting behind in mortgage payments is one thing, called default. It’s estimated that nearly 20 percent of homeowners in default earlier in the year lost their homes to foreclosure in the third quarter. That’s a more than a three-fold increase over last year, when the default-to-foreclosure rate was only 6 percent. Meaning: People are having a harder time coming up with cash to cover mortgage debt. Guess Bush has not heard about this.
So the next time Bush opens his mouth and mangles the English Language once again to tell us the Economy is strong, we can all tell him how absolutely full of bull doody he is.
Technorati Tags: mortgage foreclosures, weak economy, Bush Lies, housing slowdown
11/1/06, 10:45 PM |
Well, gee…. so people are biting it because they haven’t a clue about:
1. How much money they actually have coming in (known as “cash flow”)
2. How much it actually costs them to live on a monthly basis (the hard numbers: housing, fuel, food, utilities, insurance, medical, child care)
3. But they’re all still buying their toys, their takeout food, hitting the malls on shopping sprees
And they don’t get why they have no money and are losing their homes? Oh how sad. How about people just live within their means and stop blaming everyone else for their plight?
“People are having a harder time coming up with cash to cover mortgage debt.” Well then people need to stop playing with their money instead of paying their bills.
Sorry - they have no one to blame but themselves.
11/1/06, 11:14 PM |
Vicki, though I agree a lot of these situations are self created and more or less deserve what they’ve gotten, a whole bunch aren’t. For instance, two income families who become one income families due to all the corporate mergers and downsizing– a situation that’s hit this area very hard since we’re in telecomm and financial services country. Then there’s Katrina, and other natural disasters (such as the three major Delaware River floods in my area) which have put a lot of people into situations they didn’t plan on being in. And there’s the financial situation of a lot of our Reservist and National Guard troops who were called up for this blasted war and find, when they get home, that though they have a job, it’s not the well paying one they had when they were sent out. Three guys I know were in this situation. Their salaries were cut in half. They had some fallback resources but it still puts a hurting on things, and some were better prepared than others, not to mention that no one expected it would go on as long as it has.
Life is something that happens when you’re making other plans. There’s been an awful lot of life happening the last few years since Bush took office. Granted he didn’t cause Katrina or the flooding in this area, but his policies and his appointees to certain offices haven’t helped those who were caught out, and other policies of his administration have contributed greatly to that hardship in many cases.
How would you feel if you were half of a two income couple who, all of a sudden, found you were a one income couple due to layoff and, when you try to sell your home so you could continue to be financially responsible and downsize to a lesser property, found out that your current house wasn’t worth what you owed on it? Believe me, this scenario is not unusual anymore.
11/1/06, 11:57 PM |
Were I in that situation, I wouldn’t be in that situation. We planned better - we were NEVER in a position where if EITHER OF US had become unemployed, our remaining money wouldn’t have paid our bills.
Sorry, this one is NOT materially the government (much less Dubya’s) fault. This is the fault of people who are conspicuous consumers and have no “money smarts”. This is people who are whining babies of the “I want it and I want it NOW” attitude. This is people blaming everything THEY did wrong on the government - and expecting the government to bail them out. It smacks of socialism. I will NEVER agree to socialist anything.
And really, there’s no reason to drag Katrina into it - that’s a whole other situation, and has very little to do with idiots who can’t figure out how to pay their bills simply because they would rather play than deal with their obligations.
11/2/06, 12:05 AM |
Oh - and give me a break. The only reasons for “needing” two incomes? You can’t figure out how to stop having kids (oh hey, how about ZERO POP GROWTH - can we get that on asap?); you have a house you can’t afford; you have cars you can’t afford to drive (uninsured because you can’t have the BMWs and Jags and pay the insurance on them); you take “millionaire” vacations in Aspen or Vail; you own a second million dollar vacation home; and the toys go on and on….
And of course your toys - the house, the fancy cars, the snowmobiles, the boats, etc. etc. ad infinitum ad nauseam - are uninsured because it would cost several tens-of-thousands of dollars to insure it all, and you’d rather play with the money - and besides, if something happens, the government (aka ME the taxpayer and the other millions like me) will have to cough up to fix your problem.
Yup. I’m a hard-ass.
11/2/06, 2:11 AM |
Things must be different out there. In this area and east of here the “median” house price for the rest of the country can barely buy a doghouse. Two incomes are needed just to buy a “starter-home”, and we’re not talking a palace, we’re talking pretty bare bones.
Me, personally, I’d rather us taxpayers build some daycare centers here in the US than pay Haliburton to build schools in Iraq, but if we did that people would start calling us socialists. As long as we pay big companies to do it in other countries for other people than our own it’s being a patriot. I never did understand that.
11/2/06, 9:48 PM |
No, things are not different “out here”. The “starter home” here goes for about $350k. That’s 3 tiny bedrooms, 1.5 tiny bathrooms, on a 50 x 90 lot. With no grass or trees. And the appliances suck.
So what’s the solution? There isn’t one, because the “later generations” ARE those “I WANT IT NOW” folks - and they’ve been assured they have the RIGHT to HAVE it now.