As I understand it you have a 30 year fixed mortgage at a reasonable rate, somewhere in the neighborhood of $100,000. I don’t know what taxes are in your neck of the woods but I’m going to guess you need around $1100-1200 per month to stay in the house. Call it $300 a week. You say you haven’t run through your savings yet. And you obviously have a computer and an internet connection and at least 8 hours a day. I imagine you have a digital camera too and if not they can be had cheap. Here’s what I suggest and I’m dead serious. You probably have some sort of hobby, something you know a good bit about. Go on ebay. Look around and you’ll find things related to your hobby. The more you look the more you’ll realize that the prices of those things are often all over the map. When you see them going for cheap buy them. And then resell them at the higher end of the price fluctuation. And if your hobby isn’t the sort that will work in this scenario then get some books on antiques, or pottery, or or militaria, or vintage toys or some such thing that people collect (they collect pretty much everything). Learn about something, learn the prices and do it. It’ll get you by and then some.

With all due respect, sir…. — ‘Honest’ John

I am fully cognizant of the meaning of that phrase, having used it on superior officers in the role of a officer of the United States Army.

It means, “I have no respect for you whatsoever…..”

Therefore, I’d recommend you just speak your mind instead of couching it in terms that will avoid punishment under the UCMJ. Okay? Or are you under the authority of the UCMJ? Fear not. I am not in a position, having retired, of holding you to it’s authority. So, if you are of a mind to, you can say, “GFY, sir.”

Besides. I’ve been abused by the best…..

RE: Your Mortgage and MY Money

…the cycle of the government bailing out the banks that hold these mortgages will never stop. — ‘Honest’ John

As far as I can determine….

….it is not, repeat NOT, the intention of this government to stop ‘bailing out banks’ or whatever suits their purposes.

Their intention, as far as I can determine is to keep the nation in a perpetual state of fiscal crisis for the sole purpose of driving everyone they can into their welfare rolls.

Why?

Because welfare recipients make for THEIR best voter-base.

We saw this with the demise of the Roman Republic.

We saw it again with the Soviet Union…think the demise of the ‘kulaks’ in the early 1930s.

History repeats itself. And if you don’t understand that you are either poorly educated or a potential member of Densa.

Regards,

Chuck(le)
[Stop the insane Jackasses! -- CBPelto]

….misappropriation to Charlie (Colorado) of something said by uburoisc.

My apologies to both…..

And spare me the “greedy rich, greedy rich” bullshit. It is lazy, inaccurate and you sound like an idiot when you say things like that. — Charlie (Colorado)

I hear this line from a series of people down here. They’re always whining about the developers who want to build things. Things like YMCA campuses with pools, baseball fields, soccer fields, etc., etc., etc., convention centers, major community developments (i.e., Pueblo Springs Ranch).

And looking at their complaints, over the span of years from the perspective of a city commissioner, the one continual theme I see in ALL of their complaints is envy.

Go fig…..

Regards,

Chuck(le)
[A sound heart is the life of the flesh: but envy the rottenness of the bones. -- Proverbs]

Just took a major hit on the large-format printer.

Not going to be able to make it tomorrow as I am now, officially, OBE.

Regrets,

Chuck
[Sometimes I really hate this c---.....]

http://greensrealworld.blogspot.com/2009/02/stimulus-cart-put-before-bank-horse.html

And spare me the “greedy rich, greedy rich” bullshit. It is lazy, inaccurate and you sound like an idiot when you say things like that. Greedy crosses all levels of society, it just manifests itself at different scales. When you run around saying such stupid things, you encouage the equally stupid mob to run around with pitchforks looking for greedy rich people, and all you actually do is open the door foe a populist demogogue to lead you around by the nose chasing his personal obstacles to power. Once they are gone, you’re all in the fire. There are plenty of people, debtors and lenders who should be facing jail, fines, and disengorgement, but in order to figure out who those people are we are going to have to actually think and investigate, because the people who made this mess are not stupid, have very powerful friends, good lawyers, and lots of cash, and they are not going to make it easy for you. In fact, they are most likely the ones who will be pointing the fingers at “greedy rich” people telling you to go get them.

Bill, I guess the step that I didn’t make clear is that the banks are failing. Just for one example, Citi’s stock is down to around $2.50 from about $55 at the start of 2007; that means investors who held the stock have lost 95+ percent of their value. If the Fed goes through with the plan to get 40 percent ownership, the stockholders will be diluted to about $1.50; that means they’ve lost 98 percent of the value. Bernanke also made it pretty clear that management will be shaken up. The only difference between this and “failing” is that the renegotiation of their debts will take place without a formal FDIC receivership.

About the only thing more to be done here is for Vikram Pandit to be caned in a public square; Citi can’t fail much more than it has.

No. We are also haggling about how to flow the money out of the government so as to do the least harm to the system, both fiscal AND moral. Speculative people and corporations should take their losses. If banks fail, FDIC the investors. The banks SHOULD fail. Just like GM. What was Schumpeter’s phrase? Creative destruction?

But allowing banks to fail, with concomitant losses to shareholders and management, while keeping bank depositors whole?
Morally proper.

And as so many others have pointed out, neither heaven nor hell is sufficient to prop up housing prices – they must correct sooner or later – how much money would we like to waste playing Canute on that beach?

NB: I wish to hell we didn’t have SOX, MTM complicating the problem.

With all due respect, sir, I never asked for your help, your charity, or your sympathy. I only asked a question: Whose fault is it?

I have an answer that is probably not going to be to your liking: If you don’t “subsidize” my loan or other people’s who are in the same situation as me (whether it be because of greedy business owners or reckless CEOs who have already wrecked our economy and caused a great many defaults on mortgages) then the cycle of the government bailing out the banks that hold these mortgages will never stop. Eventually, EVERYBODY is going to be brought down from similar circumstances to mine. Somewhere, somehow, the mortgage crisis has to be attended to.

I’m not asking for charity. I’d prefer death to the humility of charity! If I had been the responsible party for my financial situation, I’d have already given up my home. But I wasn’t. And a whole lot of people like me got caught up in the euphoria of owning their own home. It’s the American dream come to life.

And now, with consideration to the financial crisis that has been leveled on all of us by the greedy rich, my American dream has been destroyed! Mayhaps all of those greedy wealthy folks should have just been a little less greedy. (As an aside, Henry Paulson made $500 million before he became a government official. He could buy 5,000 of my homes. 5,000!) I, now, can’t even afford my own little home.

I hope there’s a rent-a-cave for me in Eastern KY.

34. Mike2: I wish you well and hope things work out for you and you are able to get another job. Good luck.

I appreciate the sentiment. Know anybody hiring? I’ll work for my mortgage payment. (I can grow my own veggies and kill my own meat.)

regards