Politics

[Newboomer]

My wife and I have been hesitantly looking for a home for a while now but have decided to hold off for a bit given the current climate. I just wanted to add something on the topic of home loans. When we discussed it with our bank they approved us for a loan that was over double the budget we had decided on. Significantly above the national average. I’m not going to get into the details but the payment would’ve been an amount that would’ve practically guaranteed foreclosure if one of us lost our job and weren’t able to work. When our loan officer told us how much we were approved for it floored me. I wanted to ask her if she was serious. I’m admittedly overly cautious in a lot of ways but I seriously felt that it would’ve been a predatory loan and I can’t imagine that they would consider it. It’s no wonder that people are living paycheck to paycheck if they’re choosing to get loans like that.

That's how they sucker you into some catastrophy. Make it sound sooo great and "Oh, don't worry about the payments."

 

[Lone Star Bluegrass]

Once again, a prophetic message from the late President Richard Nixon. This time, subject: Russian Imperialism

 

[ActionBob]

I would have taken the loan if it was 0% interest instead of 0% down. Jeep had a deal a few years ago, 0% interest if the loan duration was 36 months. Jumped on it for girlfriend's Jeep. I figured it was another 10+% discount by having that money invested.

Exactly! Back in the day those 0% loans were somewhat common. I remember buying a pickup where I wanted cash back instead of the loan... they were actually offering more rebates if you took the 0% loan than if you didn't!??? Crazy.....

 

[DillonG]

Exactly! Back in the day those 0% loans were somewhat common. I remember buying a pickup where I wanted cash back instead of the loan... they were actually offering more rebates if you took the 0% loan than if you didn't!??? Crazy.....

I thought I was lucky getting a 1.9% this year. I remember being a kid and that rate was normal. That kind of rate was constantly promoted on tv ads.

 

[ActionBob]

The worst schemes are the new vehicle leases. I had a deal all negotiated on a new Ford PU years ago (it was something like $20,000, so a while ago) when this recent college grad overzealous sales kid comes back and wants to change the deal to "The Plan". A Lease program Ford was pushing. Well I had my laptop out and was running the numbers and it came out to so really ridiculous, userous interest rate. So I showed this kid my quick spreadsheet... His response was that no the promotion had a really good rate so that couldn't be.... Then he points out the "error" I made. I had put the $20,000 price in that we negotiated. He explained that was all wrong, so I quickly plugged in the list price of about $24,000 but the effective rates still came back way higher than what The Plan rate was being quoted. Then the kid slaps his head and says, ohhh! I nearly forgot, when we do a lease, we use this number! As he's pointing to a seperate number in finer print several thousand over list!

I started calling it "The Scheme".

 

[ActionBob]

Not to mention that the housing crisis in 2008 was brought about in part and made worse by writing sketchy home loans. Made worse further by the difficulty to foreclose on properties with loans in default. A brilliant example of not learning from history.

That was Bill Clinton! He campaigned on "every American deserves to own their own home".

Then conspired to back off all the common sense rules for financing homes. The Real Estate Agents, Home Inspectors, Appraisers, Mortgage Brokers and Bankers were all in it together. Fueled by stupid if not dirty politics.

And the buyers who over extended themselves are at least as guilty! But the one who got all the credit for the great economy was Bill Clinton.... when in reality he is responsible for turning World wide finances to shit! Then Obama got credit for bailing it all out. We the tax payers got screwed and cheered about it. It was all ridiculous!

I bought several houses in 2009 and 2010

 

[ActionBob]

@Tanks - I have a friend that is so good with finance and management that he is now the general manager for 3 LARGE car dealerships in DFW that are owned by a publicly traded auto group and the information I get from him is scary.

Defaults on auto loans for people with 700+ credit scores have almost tripled since covid. The main cause being the massive "adjustments" to prices because of the supply chain issues + high interest rates + depreciation = vast amounts of people that are $30K+ upside down on car loans within 2 years of purchase.

While in college my personal finance professor made us look through different 0% interest loans and explained that the finance department had looked over the loan paperwork from several auto finance offers and came to the conclusion that with all the "initial fees" they could not find a single 0% loan that was financially better than a 5% loan..... and that was in 2003!

Housing is another bubble - @Wishfulthinker580 When I started my business in 2020 I took out a personal line of credit @4.25%, fast forward to 2024 I was quoted 12.75%!

That is crazy! You need to talk to other bankers, if you are sound financially you should be able to find a much better deal than 4.25 over prime!

Strive to get into a commercial loan with a commercial banker who is on your side. And get your rates based on SOFR.

 

[PHOENIX PHIL]

That was Bill Clinton! He campaigned on "every American deserves to own their own home".

Then conspired to back off all the common sense rules for financing homes. The Real Estate Agents, Home Inspectors, Appraisers, Mortgage Brokers and Bankers were all in it together. Fueled by stupid if not dirty politics.

And the buyers who over extended themselves are at least as guilty! But the one who got all the credit for the great economy was Bill Clinton.... when in reality he is responsible for turning World wide finances to shit! Then Obama got credit for bailing it all out. We the tax payers got screwed and cheered about it. It was all ridiculous!

I bought several houses in 2009 and 2010

Agree basically with you, but GWB rode the housing wave too. I wish I could find it, but Senator McCain saw it coming, it was probably too late, but he introduced legislation to clamp down on the loose lending. No one, either Democrat or Republican wanted anything to do with it.

Another issue is that so many 'lenders' really aren't lending the money. The money was coming from the gov't via Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac. The banks were merely servicing many if not most of those loans and were being pressured into writing those risky loans.

What saved us here in Phoenix from even worse destruction and put a floor under plummeting home values was @BRICKBURN's fellow Canadians. They swooped in once prices got low enough, mostly with cash in hand and big ass smiles on their faces.

 

[ActionBob]

I just wish I had some hope that Trump could deliver as remotely an articulate rebuttal as Gabbard did. I posted highlights from the Harris debate with Pence, who sounds like William Jennings Bryan compared to Trump, and she was prepared and reasonably articulate. She will have her answers well rehearsed and the format will facilitate those type responses. I fear that there is as great a chance that the contrast between her and Trump could be almost as bad as the contrast between Trump and Biden.

I hasten to add it will not be because Trump is staring into space, but because she will have a low bar and will seem to sail far over it - particularly in contrast to Biden. Conversely, Trump will seem to wander through exaggerations, boasts, and hyperbole much as he did with Biden. Biden's fiasco simply hid all that. In other words, Trump did not have to win that debate because Biden lost it so catastrophically. If Trump isn't really well prepared, she will have facts and statistics to puncture many of his broad claims. All she has to do is nail him on a couple and that will be the total news cycle. He, on the other hand, will have to Tulsi Gabbard her.

Finally, all the reporting indicates that Trump has been fairly undisciplined in his debate prep in the past. I do not believe he can afford that approach this time around.

I wonder how Harris is going to handle her alcoholism problem? Really curious if she can make it through a debate without a drink or if she will carefully consume just right amount to balance her out? Or will she be drinking all day beforehand?

 

[ActionBob]

Agree basically with you, but GWB rode the housing wave too. I wish I could find it, but Senator McCain saw it coming, it was probably too late, but he introduced legislation to clamp down on the loose lending. No one, either Democrat or Republican wanted anything to do with it.

Another issue is that so many 'lenders' really aren't lending the money. The money was coming from the gov't via Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac. The banks were merely servicing many if not most of those loans and were being pressured into writing those risky loans.

What saved us here in Phoenix from even worse destruction and put a floor under plummeting home values was @BRICKBURN's fellow Canadians. They swooped in once prices got low enough, mostly with cash in hand and big ass smiles on their faces.

Yes Bush the Younger rode the wave but Clinton set off the tsunami.

When I referred to Bankers I meant the ones on Wall Street that put together the huge packaged derivatives of garbage.

Yes it was mostly government money. And perhaps some Wall Street money. The loans were mostly just brokered by some Bankers and a lot of mortgage brokers who were not even Bankers. I don't know of any actual servicing that went on after the loans were made until they went defunct.

 

[ActionBob]

My wife and I have been hesitantly looking for a home for a while now but have decided to hold off for a bit given the current climate. I just wanted to add something on the topic of home loans. When we discussed it with our bank they approved us for a loan that was over double the budget we had decided on. Significantly above the national average. I’m not going to get into the details but the payment would’ve been an amount that would’ve practically guaranteed foreclosure if one of us lost our job and weren’t able to work. When our loan officer told us how much we were approved for it floored me. I wanted to ask her if she was serious. I’m admittedly overly cautious in a lot of ways but I seriously felt that it would’ve been a predatory loan and I can’t imagine that they would consider it. It’s no wonder that people are living paycheck to paycheck if they’re choosing to get loans like that.

You are to be commended for making wise financial decisions. You are in the minority. Or another way of putting it could that you are in an elite class of consumers

 

[Sheldor]

Exclusive | Map shows Chinese-owned farmland next to 19 US military bases in ‘alarming’ threat to national security: experts

“These locations can be used to set up intelligence collection sites and the owners can be influential in local politics as we have seen in the past,” said former United States Air Forc…

nypost.com

 

[PARA45]

Exclusive | Map shows Chinese-owned farmland next to 19 US military bases in ‘alarming’ threat to national security: experts

“These locations can be used to set up intelligence collection sites and the owners can be influential in local politics as we have seen in the past,” said former United States Air Forc…

nypost.com

And we are allowing it. Just crazy. SMH.

 

[Red Leg]

This is going from bad to worse. A major figure down ticket can pull down the top of the ticket as easily as the reverse.

Fox News Poll Shows Kari Lake Getting Absolutely Smoked in Arizona Senate Race

Republican Kari Lake is way, way behind her Democratic opponent in this cycle's U.S. Senate race in Arizona.

www.mediaite.com

 

[John Wasmuth]

Didn’t Hillary have similar numbers in 16? They had her winning by a landslide…… I don’t trust polls.

 

[deewayne2003]

Yes Bush the Younger rode the wave but Clinton set off the tsunami.

When I referred to Bankers I meant the ones on Wall Street that put together the huge packaged derivatives of garbage.

Yes it was mostly government money. And perhaps some Wall Street money. The loans were mostly just brokered by some Bankers and a lot of mortgage brokers who were not even Bankers. I don't know of any actual servicing that went on after the loans were made until they went defunct.

The vast majority of loans defaulted during the subprime bubble originated during the Clinton presidency when they started issuing undocumented loans as well as allowing social benefits to be counted as income on documented loans.

I remember back in the late 90's-early 2000's I was a teenager working in the north Texas residential housing construction, installing rain gutters on the sides of homes that had been completed and occupied.

I clearly remember the contractors talking about......

"Can't complain about the economy, business is so good!"

While working on these $250K+ homes and looking through the windows I noticed these people had lawn chairs in the living room and beds were usually just mattresses laying on the floor.

After completing work we hand the home owner the bill and the most popular question they asked was.....

"Do you take credit cards?"

 

[Altitude sickness]

Barney Frank was a big driver of that debacle. He pushed Clinton into doing it.

barney frank fighting for mortgage loans for people that could never pay them back - Google Search

 

[Tanks]

This is going from bad to worse. A major figure down ticket can pull down the top of the ticket as easily as the reverse.

...

Yeah, she alienated the cops in the State by calling her primary opponent a coward, so they endorsed her opponent. Hopefully, once she loses again, she'll be out of politics.

MSN

 

[Tanks]

I wonder how Harris is going to handle her alcoholism problem? Really curious if she can make it through a debate without a drink or if she will carefully consume just right amount to balance her out? Or will she be drinking all day beforehand?

I hadn't heard that she had a drinking problem, source?

 

[lwaters]

If anyone is short of money because of the food inflation you can have these. I couldn't even give them away. People must not be to hungry.