if you didn't think bush was an idiot before...

[Capt. Orygun]

there is also a problem with the math because your rent potentially will go up every six months, the mortgage never will unless your dumb enough to have a variable

10 years into renting you'll be paying $3200 to rent it

you can't really lose money buying if you play it smart. The principal you pay you will get back when you sell, the interest is tax deducable, and any home improvment you buy is tax deductable on the capital gains you build in equity

where as once rent is spent it's spent

 

[get_nick]

...believe me, there will be legislation coming down the pipe. After the market crash of 1929, the fed. stepped in and only allowed a certain percentage of stocks to be bought on margin because they felt a contributing factor to the market crash was over-leveraged consumers.

Hmmmm.... sound familiar?

oh, that is a total fact. i work for smith barney. been in finance working in the market for several years now. there is going to be a lot coming down. this is going to set a new standard for federal regulation.

Also Nick, the only losers aren't the consumers who were taking out the mortgages. Sure, the banks and the investment intermediaries were making all the money and sitting pretty, but the key word is were. Now they're knee deep in shit and need foreign investors to bail them out of their write downs.

Very few banks were intelligent when lending money during the housing boom. There's a bank in Hartford that only wrote down $110,000 in bad mortgage debt and is doing phenomenal now. Other new banks and small banks are also sitting pretty as they're beating up on the big name banks that wrote the bad loans. In the end, it all came full circle and everyone is getting the shaft as a result of poor decisions on everyone's part.

Dumb consumers who knew they couldn't afford homes, didn't put any money down, and took on mortgages with rates that would adjust astronomically, thinking that they would make more money in the future when the rate hikes came.

Dumb bankers who were only interested in the mortgage fees and selling the risk to investment bankers for a profit.

Investment bankers for not scrutinizing the loans that they were buying. They said, to the banks, "investors are loving these mortgage bonds, write as many loans as you can, we'll buy them from you and sell them off."

People just got caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

i'm referring to consumers the only ones getting fucked. yeah, the companies are all losers, but they did it to themselves. they knew what they were doing was wrong and that it would come to an end. but it's like digging for gold. you dig your fingers off until there is no more gold. you don't have any fingers, but you got a shit ton of gold.

also, marsha worked for wamu capital. she did institutional bond sales. she was raising capital for wamu home loans. everybody there made a fuck ton of money until it crashed. then they all got laid off to cut cost. wamu actually closed the entire capital corp. it's a fuck fest and will be for a while.

Ding, ding, ding.

Dipshit Americans who are uneducated and don't know any better simply say, "Renting is bad!"

Renting is real terrible, when most of the putzes that overpaid for their homes, lost all of their equity. Sure the housing market will be back up in the future, but if you planned on moving anytime in the near future or are forced to move do to work or a change in conditions then look at that pretty investment you just made... losing all that cash, or just destroying their credit because they had no real down payment to speak of in the first place.

It may be the American dream to own your own home, but most don't even begin to understand the complexity of the issue. Renting vs owning always depends on the market and your personal situation.

Nick did a nice little basic analysis, which didn't even include the opportunity cost of what you could have done by investing the extra $1400 you have left over a month.

i'm not going to say the combined income of marsha and i, but we live together and renting is still expensive. yeah, we could buy, but it doesn't make sense. it makes more sense to save money and pay off debt. all home loans are going to do is lose value. if you want to earn money in real estate, you have to go commercial and rent to people with small businesses.

 

[get_nick]

there is also a problem with the math because your rent potentially will go up every six months, the mortgage never will unless your dumb enough to have a variable

10 years into renting you'll be paying $3200 to rent it

you can't really lose money buying if you play it smart. The principal you pay you will get back when you sell, the interest is tax deducable, and any home improvment you buy is tax deductable on the capital gains you build in equity

where as once rent is spent it's spent

you are assuming the house value will go up though. say you own for 3 years. make 3 years payments, 90% or more goes to interest. if you buy a $250,000 house, and lose 10% (which is very common right now), you would be upside down $50,000. you just paid "rent" and actually owe on the house. you can't assume property value is going to go up.

 

[jamesA]

AND ONCE AGAIN YOU MISS THE FUCKING POINT. THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT CREATED A FUCKTON OF JOBS, YOU CAN BE THANKING THEM INSTEAD OF BEING A DOUCHEBAG, CRYING, AND POINTING YOUR FINGER LIKE YOU KNOW WHAT THE FUCK YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT...

If you knew your ass from a hole in the wall I would honestly be surprised. I think you probably have a good heart, but you're an idiot when it comes to any concept that is even remotely complex. Its black and white to you without a care as to why things actually happen the way they do.

*clears throat*

I WASN'T FUCKING COMPLAINING ABOUT THE GOVERNMENT I WAS SIMPLY STATING THAT I WOULD NEVER GET LAID OFF IF I WORKED FOR THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. I WASN'T BASHING ANY FEDERAL EMPLOYEE OR ANY GOVERNMENT ENTITY. JESUS FUCKING CHRIST YOU'RE SO FUCKING THICK THAT YOU TAKE MY POINT AND TWIST MY FUCKING WORDS AROUND SO THAT THEY MEAN WHAT YOU WANT THEM TO MEAN EVEN THOUGH I WASN'T DISAGREEING WITH YOU IN ANY SHAPE OR FORM. I HAD AN OPINION AND I POSTED IT.

Now, fuck off. Thanks.

 

[dveit]

Whoa there, cowboy. You shouldn't let burnout get a rise out of you, that's what he wants.

This thread has gone down the shitter, thanks guys.

 

[BigJ]

Some good info in here, definitely spot on the for most part in the discussion that Nick and Ian are having. One thing to take into account is the housing market busted a while ago and foreclosures started happening. We're just now getting the numbers in, hence the bear market. Look at wamu. It's sucking serious ass, but they're fucking missmanaging and giving all executives their annual bonus with their annual increase like nothing is going on. They lost 50% of their value in the last week and are fucking stupid. I see a big buy out coming, and some money to be made in some instances.


My papa bought a solid amount of wamu while ago and sold again a few days later when wamu rebounded before their last quarter came out and he made a solid amount of money. But now its just plummeting. Look at Google. Their bubble burst.

 

[jamesA]

Whoa there, cowboy. You shouldn't let burnout get a rise out of you, that's what he wants.

This thread has gone down the shitter, thanks guys.

Some dude is going to yell at me, I'm going to yell back at him. he always does that to me though. He'll take my point and twist it to fit his own little make believe world and then turn around calling me ignorant because he doesn't get it.

 

[BigJ]

why don't you just use the ignore feature?


Personally, I don't have a problem getting along with ian, we talk often.

 

[jamesA]

Because he's intelligent and I enjoy reading his posts, it's just when he starts acting like a tool is when he starts to get annoying.

 

[dveit]

Studies: Iraq costs US $12B per month - MSNBC Wire Services - MSNBC.com

 

[get_nick]

Some good info in here, definitely spot on the for most part in the discussion that Nick and Ian are having. One thing to take into account is the housing market busted a while ago and foreclosures started happening. We're just now getting the numbers in, hence the bear market. Look at wamu. It's sucking serious ass, but they're fucking missmanaging and giving all executives their annual bonus with their annual increase like nothing is going on. They lost 50% of their value in the last week and are fucking stupid. I see a big buy out coming, and some money to be made in some instances.


My papa bought a solid amount of wamu while ago and sold again a few days later when wamu rebounded before their last quarter came out and he made a solid amount of money. But now its just plummeting. Look at Google. Their bubble burst.

umm....yeah. expect a buyout. i'm not going to say who, or when. just expect it.

i called the google drop at 490. i'm thinking 380 before it slows.

 

[totalburnout]

My papa bought a solid amount of wamu while ago and sold again a few days later when wamu rebounded before their last quarter came out and he made a solid amount of money. But now its just plummeting. Look at Google. Their bubble burst.

Google will be back up as soon as the market is back up.

We are showing symptoms of a recession, even if we aren't technically in a recession, the first stocks to always get hit are technology.

Everyone will start with a "flight to quality" and putting their money in less risky, more secure investments after feeling the hurt of losing out in the stock market.

 

[totalburnout]

umm....yeah. expect a buyout. i'm not going to say who, or when. just expect it.

i called the google drop at 490. i'm thinking 380 before it slows.

Buyouts, take overs, hostile take overs, will all be occurring in the near future. Most have looked overseas, with their growing markets and the strength of their currency in relation to US currency, to help in the bail out process.

Apple also dropped. All of that was inevitable, but the fact of the matter is that the earnings really haven't changed significantly and no real material change has taken place in the last few months, which means these stocks will be back up at their highs or near their highs when we start seeing some real growth. Now is a perfect time to buy.

 

[totalburnout]

Its funny. Blue collar workers keep losing their jobs due to recessions, yet the government keeps dumping money into the hundreds of departments they have in the government. No one there ever gets laid off.

I'm running for office in 2012. I'll never get laid off.

James, take this for what its worth. My response was in direct response to this portion of your comment, "...yet the government keeps dumping money in the hundreds of departments they have in the government."

I merely showed you that if it were not for the government that "keeps dumping money in the hundreds of departments" then we would be much more worse off than we are currently.

This relates directly to how I pointed out you only look at the end results or black and white. You look at the symptom, I relate it back to the issue.

I didn't twist your words at all, I'm saying that your point is a moot point because who gives a flying fuck about government job security, when the government just created 80,000 jobs in the last quarter. They're all the growth we have in the market.

 

[totalburnout]

there is also a problem with the math because your rent potentially will go up every six months, the mortgage never will unless your dumb enough to have a variable

10 years into renting you'll be paying $3200 to rent it

you can't really lose money buying if you play it smart. The principal you pay you will get back when you sell, the interest is tax deducable, and any home improvment you buy is tax deductable on the capital gains you build in equity

where as once rent is spent it's spent

Where do you rent from? Rent is typically grandfathered in for many tenants, at least to a degree where long time tenants rarely pay as much as new tenants, even if this is not the case, you did not calculate the buying power of currency into the equation. Inflation helps offset this cost.

Note, I also didn't say that rent is always a long term plan or option. What is smart is renting until you have large enough of a down payment, that is meaningful, to put down on a house, buying a house, within your means, when your credit scores are high and when the housing market is in a slump.

Buy low, sell high.

There was no sense in these people that have zero money to put into a house, to buy a house when they were priced astronomically.

If I was in the financial position to buy a house in the next year, I would probably move to buy, rather than opt to rent until I'm a bit older.

 

[jamesA]

James, take this for what its worth. My response was in direct response to this portion of your comment, "...yet the government keeps dumping money in the hundreds of departments they have in the government."

I merely showed you that if it were not for the government that "keeps dumping money in the hundreds of departments" then we would be much more worse off than we are currently.

This relates directly to how I pointed out you only look at the end results or black and white. You look at the symptom, I relate it back to the issue.

I didn't twist your words at all, I'm saying that your point is a moot point because who gives a flying fuck about government job security, when the government just created 80,000 jobs in the last quarter. They're all the growth we have in the market.

My point is, I'm all for a subsidized government. I think it's gotten too large and it's spending too much money elsewhere over fixing our fledging school systems and actually getting aid to natural disaster victims, among other domestic problems. We've been focusing too much on what goes on outside our borders that we're forgetting the problems we have within our borders.

What happened with Katrina was absolutely apalling. This 6-7 year war has gotten out of hand IMO. We're losing soldiers, after learning about Vietnam, to me it feels like we're heading for another outcome exactly as that one ended.

We're no closer to ending it than we were 3 years ago. I said that because of my viewpoint on the government spending, yes the government has helped create 80,000 jobs, thats fine and dandy. But what happens when a guy like me, who applies for assistance, can't get it because his parents made too much money, yet couldn't afford to pay tuition? Isn't creating 80,001 jobs better than creating 80,000? Blue collar bastards like myself got shafted because i wouldn't let my parents take out a second mortgage on their house to send me to school.

I'll tell you what, the little guy... me... gets stuck in mediocre jobs being laid off 3-5 times in 12 months.

What do you think the billions of dollars this war has cost would be better spent on... fighting this war, or providing tuition aid to college students/and or public school systems?

 

[totalburnout]

Its a capitalistic society. Public schools are one issue, while private college is an entirely different issue.

I come from humble beginnings, I understand the paradox that is school, but I also understand that even if you have student loans out of the ass, that the education will pay for itself over the future years. Higher education, in almost all job fields, is a wise investment.

Even though its difficult to make it through the system, when you are living a true middle class life, I don't believe in the government simply giving handouts. Philanthropy is a great thing and should be the basis for scholarships for struggling students in my opinion. Far too many people take from the system, while they are unwilling to give back to the system.

I'm sorry to hear about your situation and I hope that you can find loans, regardless of their rates, to go find yourself higher education and better your life.

 

[BigJ]

Word.

I'm in debt up to my ass. I owe at least 25k in student loans without the interest attached(around 7% for most, about 10k is interest free). I'm not the least bit worried about the loans. I have a year to go, and I'll take out another 15k in stafford loans to pay for it. Doesn't bother me. What does bother me is not looking at my future in 5-7 years and not building towards it.

 

[totalburnout]

J, make sure that you consolidate your loans as late as possible, since the rates keep falling. They were near an all time high when I first started school, which is only a year ahead of you.

I'm going to save at least 2.5% by waiting until after they drop the rates and consolidating in June. You have a six month time period after you graduate to do so.

 

[DarkHand]

Ding, ding, ding.

Dipshit Americans who are uneducated and don't know any better simply say, "Renting is bad!"

Renting is real terrible, when most of the putzes that overpaid for their homes, lost all of their equity. Sure the housing market will be back up in the future, but if you planned on moving anytime in the near future or are forced to move do to work or a change in conditions then look at that pretty investment you just made... losing all that cash, or just destroying their credit because they had no real down payment to speak of in the first place.

It may be the American dream to own your own home, but most don't even begin to understand the complexity of the issue. Renting vs owning always depends on the market and your personal situation.

Nick did a nice little basic analysis, which didn't even include the opportunity cost of what you could have done by investing the extra $1400 you have left over a month.

Now I agree with you there!

I've rented a 3-bedroom house on 2.5 acres of wooded land for the last 10 years. In Burr Ridge IL, with one of the highest property values in the state, rent has been $1010 for that entire decade, and has never gone up. Landlord lives right next door, and is a great guy. He pretty much leaves the house to us to maintain. All he's done in the whole time we've been here is replace our water heater, well compressor, and kitchen sink. He also cleans the gutters every year or so, and cuts part of the grass when he does his. The rest we take care of. In return for us handling the rest, he hasn't raised our rent once. Pretty sweet deal.