Power Line News

Cars sales, huge million dollar homes. $ 2,000 purses for women. Ipods and computers for kids. All bought on CREDIT. Sure the GNP was growing. But at some time those credit card bills had to be paid. 10% of the home buyers in America CAN’T afford a home. Never have. Never will! But the shyster mortgage companies, along with the real estate freeloaders came up with a way to ALLOW these people to buy without paying. Now, America is Suffering? I’m laughing. I never bought ANYTHING I couldn’t afford. When the dust settles, the 10% of America that can’t afford houses will go back to their rent houses, and the world will get back to normal.

I have posted before that I believe our economic problems are the result of millions of individual decisions all revolving around the lefts political philosophy of ‘the free lunch’ where one can get something for less than it is really worth, or should be able to. Homes, health care, and expensive cars come to mind.

I note the markets are all over the place again today. No one knows how to deal with a government that is simply printing money to throw at the problem nor do they know what next years effect of all this government largess will be.

I don’t know what is wrong with people, PowerDad.

I was able to retire a couple of years ago at age 59...not because I am loaded—far from it—but because I am happy to live very modestly.

Yesterday, I spent most of the afternoon on my wonderful deck enjoying the springtime.  I live in a very modest townhome community.  But I am situated with wonderful privacy on a wooded and hilly property about a hundred yards from my nearest visible neighbor.  (I also have a string of neighbors attached on one side but with the units arranged so that I do not see my nearest neighbors.) I sit well up on a hillside and my 180 degree view down the slope is near post-card picturesque.  I feel no need to be the actual owner of all I survey.

So I sat on my deck amid my many potted plants and flowers and shaded by my $40 umbrella (thank you, supermarket and Chinese workers) reading, listening to some music, enjoying a favorite adult beverage and eating a delicious fresh baguette ($2.29) from an authentic French bakery of some national acclaim that just happens to be in my neighborhood.  It is Spring—you may have heard—and I asked myself amidst all this deliciousness of life if a person could want for anything more.

Apparently most people do want for a great deal more.  Those $2k purses that you mentioned (sure ain’t gonna get no ~Birken~ bag for for that kind of chump change!), flashy cars, boats, hot-tubs, kitchens equipped with commercial-grade appliances, closets the size of my bedroom, yada yada, yada yada.

I am no leftist, John Lennon type.  Imagining “no possessions” is a nightmare to me.  I ~love~ my little IPOD shuffle ($49, Amazon.com), my Kitchen-Aid and Cuisinart appliances, my “little” 37” flat-screen TV, etc.  But enough is enough already.  At least for me.

I don’t mind people who have done well enjoying life a little more lavishly (although high consumption is nothing to brag about, IMO).  But I am really saddened that so many Americans are caught up in the senseless chase for THINGS.  Technology, cheap Chinese labor and the world market has brought us such bounty!  It made some sense to me spending piles of money for quality music reproduction, for example, as we emerged from the pre-60s era of Low-Fi.  But now it is not necessary.  People seem to actively work at maintaining a stressful level of spending when such an easy and pleasant life can be had for a pittance.

So, yea.  I don’t get the buy-it-with-plastic thing.  America seems more and more “impoverished” to me but not (yet) for lack of money.

JIMV - 27 March 2008 11:40 AM

I have posted before that I believe our economic problems are the result of millions of individual decisions all revolving around the lefts political philosophy of ‘the free lunch’ where one can get something for less than it is really worth, or should be able to. Homes, health care, and expensive cars come to mind.

I note the markets are all over the place again today. No one knows how to deal with a government that is simply printing money to throw at the problem nor do they know what next years effect of all this government largess will be.

Who said, “Reagan proved that deficits don’t matter”?

But the shyster mortgage companies, along with the real estate freeloaders came up with a way to ALLOW these people to buy without paying.

This was all started by a shyster Congress, who decreed that sorting people according to their ability to actually PAY THE MORTGAGE was discriminatory.

Then it was kicked into high gear by, guess who? Bill Clinton, who further decreed that ‘all that paperwork’ and “qualifying” was also discriminatory.

While some blame can be affixed to the folks who multiplied the fault with their particular business dealings, people will find a way to make even bad policies/laws work to make money.

barney - 27 March 2008 12:18 PM

JIMV - 27 March 2008 11:40 AM

I have posted before that I believe our economic problems are the result of millions of individual decisions all revolving around the lefts political philosophy of ‘the free lunch’ where one can get something for less than it is really worth, or should be able to. Homes, health care, and expensive cars come to mind.

I note the markets are all over the place again today. No one knows how to deal with a government that is simply printing money to throw at the problem nor do they know what next years effect of all this government largess will be.

Who said, “Reagan proved that deficits don’t matter”?

I don’t recall anyone saying that inflation does not matter. I’d rather have deflation. At least what money you have has value.

As near as I can tell the feds have printed over half a trillion in the last 8 months.....