As an American male, I was aculturated to seek the following:
Education beyond high school
A wife
Couple of kids
Nice car
Wealth
Home
This last one has been a source of much grief, debate and strife across the nation and the world as well. Today it was announced that the Bush Administration came to agreement with nation's lenders to freeze interest rates of some people who have adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs). Personally I think that is very good thing. The conditions I think are limited, because while they help 'tens of thousands', it doesn't really help the 1.1-1.2 million people who have lost or about to loose their homes. I agree, this deal should be tailored to people living in their homes.
MSN has this article lambasting the idea, saying how it's bailing people out. Equating the proposed solution as a government funded plan to switch heroine addicts to crack - that line right there is worth a whole other blog by itself.
Here is my gut reaction to today's news: It's about fucking time!
First of all, this deal doesn't *bail out* the homeowner. The homeowner can still loose their home if they don't keep up with payments. Who this bails out are the people in the back-end who would loose the buttload of money they dumped into financing the sub-prime loans. It costs more for a house to foreclose. Money is LOST in the process. This is how I see what happened: Wallstreet heads started to roll. Portfolios were devalueing faster than a line of coke at Studio 54. All the big wigs who thought they were gonna collect huge profits on people who got ARMs, realized FIN-AL-FUCKING-LY their grand scheme wasn't going to play out like they thought. Their $60 mill bonuses were going to be $35 mill bonuses - and we can't have that now can we?
The way to stop this madness was at the beginning. Lenders could have just said "no". "Sorry, sir/ma'am, this is not a good time for you to buy. We would be happy to assist when your financial situation is optimal." Sense (because common sense isn't common), would tell most reasonable people there is something fishy about buying this $450,000 house for the terms of a $300,000 house, on the whim that in 5-10 years it will appreciate enough for me to refinance and get right again. So you have these people who ordinarily could only afford a piece of shit house in their area tempted with the opportunity to *move up* into a better neighborhood. They look over at their wife/husband, babies there and babies to come...most people would probably say no thank you, let me get the smaller shittier house. But a significant amount of OTHER people would go, sure - gimme the keys!!
The bank took the risk in lending the money, and now the bank is being given a way to still turn a profit or at least break even. This deal surely benefits those people on the virge of foreclosure. However, let's not dismiss who those people send their checks to.
When I was living in Santa Barbara, I didn't a pay whole lot of attention in the early 2000s (that sounds so gay) about the housing market, as it didn't seem like anything I could be a part of. Anything I knew came from second hand information: 3BR 2BA, 70s, ranch style homes one year were *worth* (whatever the fuck that means) $300,000 and then 18 mos later the same house with no improvements was worth $500,000. Damn I wish I had a Lewis Black emoticon for this - what the fuck?!
I am no economist, but the market will correct itself. It will take a collaboration of industry, government and consumers to help it be corrected.
Selfishly, I pray I am never faced with foreclosure. I can't even imagine.
For weeks and weeks I've been lamenting my behavior over a recent incident. Then today I was reminded my actions were not born out of thin air, they were by no means spontaneous. Like Tony Robbins and every other self-help spewing guru on the planet, I believe in owning one's actions. The good and the shitty ones alike. Admittedly, it's not always easy to spot how one's actions are positively or shittily (new word!) effects someone else. Shit like, "you made me feel blah blah" To a point it's true and valid, but at the same time we LET people have that effect on us as well. For all of my cocky, bravado and confidence I am effected by stuff and people around me. It colours and taints my mood, outlook on the world, actions in situation and how I LET people get to me.
I had been focused on the day. Focused on incidents during that day. Concentrating on how royally fucked up I was. How afterwards I apologized to everyone I could think of...groveled even to make amends.
And today I remembered the day before. Today I remembered the 'why' that belonged to the 'what'. Cause and effect. Laws of the universe that I am not immune from or above. It doesn't absolve me from what I did, however it provides a much needed context.
And now I'm a little mad all over again because until today the focus that was thrown in my face was all about the 'what' and the 'why' was allowed to be quietly ignored. Like in the cartoons when the one character is walking along, the other character trips the other and looks up in the air all innocent-like and whisteling like nothing happened.
Context is a bitch.
Sushi and Coronas. That was pretty much the extent of my night. One of my friends came over to measure the fireplace for a mantel shelf - which hopefully will come in way under what Lowes was trying to screw me over for. My fireplace is 73" wide and the pit itself is off-center to boot. Of course the widest mantels I am seeing are 72" wide. Grrrr!!! So I call up Lowes to see what a custom job would cost. And here's the shit:
Pre-fab 72" mantel: $360 - (ouch)
Custom 73" mantel: $670 - (what the flying fuck!?!?)
I asked the lady how could it cost that much in difference?? And she paused and was like, well, we are making this one just for you. That's it. That's all she had to say. For an additional 1", the fucker is more than twice the cost?? I was like, thank you for your time, I need to rethink this.