Howdy, Fellow American! It has become clear that the "banks too big to fail" have scraped mind-boggling billions of tax payer monies into their cavernous carpet bags and snapped the locks shut and absconded with the loot. Homeowners meekly knocking at their doors have had kinder responses from Unca Scrooge. Anyone expecting they share the good fortune by now has had that naiive expectation starved out of them. No funds will be forthcoming, trickle down, seep out or be otherwise dislodged from their clutches to save America's sad homeowners and small businesses from their pathetic post-crash fate. It is no joke that we all have experienced an economic paradigm shift repositioning our so far generally wealthy country about 600 notches down on the world's financial totem pole. Looking up, we bump into the disdainful rumps of denizens in other countries now way better off than we are. A humbling view.
For most of the erstwhile Middle Class, and the chronically financially challened, the reduction in individual cash flow and quality of life -- can't accurately call it life "style" any more as there is little "style" involved in today's living -- has been acute. I know of many a household where the following "Dirty Dozen" have been billeted by force, pillaged and plundered and rent apart the peace and happiness of the financially pole-axed occupants:
TODAY'S DIRTY DOZEN:
1) Home is in foreclosure -- final stages, like waiting for the imminent court date
2) Employment is sporadic if not altogether missing
3) Income is at best 10% of what it was in the real estate heydays
4) Healthcare is a faint memory
5) Dental problems abound
6) Costly utilities are shut down a substantial part of each day
7) Purchases designed to further one's business or job prospects are impossible
8) Transportation is or at some point, has been a serious issue
9) Stress from financial burdens has caused health and relationship disasters
10) Apathy, Depression, Hopelessness, Anxiety and Fear of the Future rule the roost
11) Our loyal pets are being abandoned in droves
12) Basic necessities now eat up a huge part of our available cash (food, gas, utilities)
"... by God, stop now! I just can't bear to hear any more!"
...who said that?
The money thrown out by our "nice guy" President trying to save our country's financial heath has been gobbled up by the Komodo Dragons of Finance, the Big Boy Banks. Not even crumbs left. (I think he was held hostage by robber barons to cut this deal.) I can still feel their bony jaws snapping at my heels. They want more...more....
While there is a technical "BUYER'S MARKET" in real estate for those that have liquid assets, the majority of our people stand by, hat in hand, as the foreclosed homes they are being evicted from get shovelled into hedge funds owned by the super-rich and turned into cashflow machines by being rented back to those that once owned them, Nice job, Banker Boys in Black!
Ironically, rents are relatively high, given the economic swampage we now slog around in. Understandable -- the disenfranchised homeowners have to live somewhere. So, anyone with access to cash can go shopping in the ruins of the American Dream. The rest of us? In your Dreams!
When there's little money being lent out to fund home purchases, how can the average mortal, even with a j-o-b, a few dollares scrimped away, a loving and willing parental unit opening their mattress stash for the dewy-eyed newlyweds, succeed in obtaining a loan from a Big Boy Bank?
They will be investigated like a government employee trying for a TS security clearance. The algorithm to approve the loan will be computerized, then if they passed, insanitized by paranoid loan "denyers". Blink and you're a goner. No more Happy Handouts, the bank's back end derivatives they liked so much are now a no-no and only can be used to -- well, clean their back end with, so no more gambling fun to be had. Game over.
For most of the erstwhile Middle Class, and the chronically financially challened, the reduction in individual cash flow and quality of life -- can't accurately call it life "style" any more as there is little "style" involved in today's living -- has been acute. I know of many a household where the following "Dirty Dozen" have been billeted by force, pillaged and plundered and rent apart the peace and happiness of the financially pole-axed occupants:
TODAY'S DIRTY DOZEN:
1) Home is in foreclosure -- final stages, like waiting for the imminent court date
2) Employment is sporadic if not altogether missing
3) Income is at best 10% of what it was in the real estate heydays
4) Healthcare is a faint memory
5) Dental problems abound
6) Costly utilities are shut down a substantial part of each day
7) Purchases designed to further one's business or job prospects are impossible
8) Transportation is or at some point, has been a serious issue
9) Stress from financial burdens has caused health and relationship disasters
10) Apathy, Depression, Hopelessness, Anxiety and Fear of the Future rule the roost
11) Our loyal pets are being abandoned in droves
12) Basic necessities now eat up a huge part of our available cash (food, gas, utilities)
"... by God, stop now! I just can't bear to hear any more!"
...who said that?
The money thrown out by our "nice guy" President trying to save our country's financial heath has been gobbled up by the Komodo Dragons of Finance, the Big Boy Banks. Not even crumbs left. (I think he was held hostage by robber barons to cut this deal.) I can still feel their bony jaws snapping at my heels. They want more...more....
While there is a technical "BUYER'S MARKET" in real estate for those that have liquid assets, the majority of our people stand by, hat in hand, as the foreclosed homes they are being evicted from get shovelled into hedge funds owned by the super-rich and turned into cashflow machines by being rented back to those that once owned them, Nice job, Banker Boys in Black!
Ironically, rents are relatively high, given the economic swampage we now slog around in. Understandable -- the disenfranchised homeowners have to live somewhere. So, anyone with access to cash can go shopping in the ruins of the American Dream. The rest of us? In your Dreams!
When there's little money being lent out to fund home purchases, how can the average mortal, even with a j-o-b, a few dollares scrimped away, a loving and willing parental unit opening their mattress stash for the dewy-eyed newlyweds, succeed in obtaining a loan from a Big Boy Bank?
They will be investigated like a government employee trying for a TS security clearance. The algorithm to approve the loan will be computerized, then if they passed, insanitized by paranoid loan "denyers". Blink and you're a goner. No more Happy Handouts, the bank's back end derivatives they liked so much are now a no-no and only can be used to -- well, clean their back end with, so no more gambling fun to be had. Game over.
Dear Fellow American, I have more to say but do not want to depress you all in one fell swoop, er...blog. Instead, I will write another blog tomorrow listing ways for us to pay this financial rear end collision forward, or rather, circuitously back to them that's been shafting us so ungraciously without even taking us out to dinner first.
......to be continued.
No comments:
Post a Comment