View From The Front

This is WW4, which according neocons Norman Podhoretz and Elliott Cohen and so on started on 9/11/01. But this is class warfare where the weapons are dollars, which are synthetic goods and services. It is time to wake up and start thinking differently.

Here is one guy who is doing that. What is your solution? Because only you are going to be responsible for your own and your family's salvation. Bank of America does not have your best interest at heart.

Foreclosure Eviction

This photo of an eviction process is so big in England that it won some award. I posted it in the case you want to know what eviction looks like. Another good source for eviction education is the movie Roger & Me. They have actual video of evictions - but they are of renters getting evicted, not homeowners. So there is some difference. Plus, the Moore video is from the reign of King George HW the First, which was a kinder, gentler failure.

Don't worry, this guy is just checking to make sure that everyone checked out on time.

Jericho, USA -- How Big It Is

There has been a lot of horn blowing lately as to what is going on the real estate market, overshadowed only by the fact that the global economy is crumbling faster the boy can plug the leaks with his finger.

So as part of my efforts to separate the gloom from the doom, here is an update. According to Zillow, as reported by Source of Title:

U.S. homeowners lost a cumulative $3.3 trillion in home values during 2008

Other interesting notes include

Across the country, 10.9 percent of all real estate transactions in 2008 were short sales.

Short sales are when a homeowner, in agreement with the bank, sells a home for less than what is owed on the mortgage -- with the bank betting on the seller eventually winning the lottery so the loan can be paid back in full.

On the bright side, the $3.3 trillion loss attributed to the average American homeowner represents a paper loss to those who have not sold their homes. So even though you have lost it, you haven't had to feel it. Yet.


UPDATE:

The stimulus package the U.S. Congress is completing would raise the government’s commitment to solving the financial crisis to $9.7 trillion, enough to pay off more than 90 percent of the nation’s home mortgages.

The Federal Reserve, Treasury Department and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation have lent or spent almost $3 trillion over the past two years and pledged up to $5.7 trillion more. The Senate is to vote this week on an economic-stimulus measure of at least $780 billion. It would need to be reconciled with an $819 billion plan the House approved last month.

“We’ve seen money go out the back door of this government unlike any time in the history of our country,” Senator Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, said on the Senate floor Feb. 3. “Nobody knows what went out of the Federal Reserve Board, to whom and for what purpose. How much from the FDIC? How much from TARP? When? Why?”

The pledges, amounting to almost two-thirds of the value of everything produced in the U.S. last year, are intended to rescue the financial system after the credit markets seized up about 18 months ago.

Here is yet more:
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/090209/bailout_plan.html?.v=10