as a fellow lawyer I can only applaud him

http://assets0.ordienetworks.com/images/user_photos/1222462/ae9c3b466d929abfba184c3ab71cdbe7_width_640x.jpg

of course, it's a turnover not a pure profit. Many working hours of lawyers and support staff have to be paid by it plus most of the profit goes into the pockets of the partners of the firm

Ok, the housing bubble bullcrap.

Let's just get this out in the open for the moronically stupid that don't even work in the HOUSING INDUSTRY.  I do.  I got to see the housing bubble burst in every way shape and form.  All the way from the Ponzi scheme that started the crash, to the Contractors who defaulted on their loans, to the people that lost their homes through foreclosure.

Actually the whole housing bubble was just one big firework waiting for a match to light it off.

For some reason, Investors, Wall Street Speculators, and Banks, perpetuated the MYTH, that housing values NEVER go down.  Never.  Therefor, a house was like...a commodity.  Much like Gold.  Or Orange Juice.  Or Pork Bellies.  Houses were like a commodity to be traded on the stock market.  Except in actuality.  The deeds to these properties were held in lieu of Toxic Assets.  Do you know what a Toxic Asset is?  Why it's a derivitive.  Do you know what a derivitive is?  Well, it's the promisary note that is held by the bank.  Do you know what a Promisary Note is?  It's a business, financial, college student, or housing LOAN. 

Deeds = Toxic Asset = Derivitive = Promisary Note = Loan.

So, the deeds to all these houses, were being traded back and forth between different banks, because they were directly linked to everyone's Mortgage loans.  And those loans became "derivitives".  And those derivitives were traded from bank to bank to bank to bank to bank.  Because...housing values never go down.  Therefor they can only go up.

And then it turns out that the bank had vastly underestimated the amount of money being loaned out to every Tom, Dick and Harry Contractor.

Here's where it really gets nuts.  Since everyone was fooled into believing that housing values never go down, that houses were themselves items to be traded like Stocks on the Stock Market.  If you build it, they will come.  The Reality Agencies, and indipendant contractors got into the idea that they would either build, or hire builders to make more homes.  They would then quadruple the retail of the house and turn a profit.  Only one problem.  The only people buying the homes were in fact...other Reality Agencies and other contractors.  Who had taken out LARGE LOANS from the banks.  When finally we hit a heat resistant barrier, we learned that Main Street america...wasn't buying.  We had a glut of homes that were ...empty.  MILLIONS of newly built homes from east to west coast. sat totally empty.  In name only being owned by the Reality Agencies and Contractrs.

Only problem is...those Reality Agencies, and Contractors took out loans from banks.  And they had to make monthly payments on those loans, on houses, that were sitting empty.  They thought, if they built the home, and told people that a home is an "Investment", that the value would always go up, therefor the homeowner could earn a profit, and then move onto a bigger and better house with that extra profit from selling their homes.   So people were told, HEY, your home is an investment, you can make money off your home.

A home is not a commodity to be bought and sold, like items from the stock market.  You'd be a complete idiot, if you attempted to treat your home like Pork Bellies.  Or gold.  A home is a necessity, and most of you learned the hardway.  Sadly, I'm glad you learned the hardway, and i'm glad your families learned the hard way too.

What came next was a dozen or more different factors.  Maddof Ponzi Scheme, went viral.  That mofo had so many TOXIC assets, purposely purchased TOXIC assets, that when his deceit went public, everyone wanted their money back.  How do you get back a billion dollars of money, that was no longer there.  It was all tied up on property values.  The banks panicked.  They wanted not just a little of their money back from their loans.  They wanted ALL their money back.  The crash occured.  Nobody knew who owned what, when it came to the property loans.  Banks no longer held certain deeds to certain properties, because they had "Bundled" the deeds into Derivitives, which were sold off as Toxic Assets.  A home loan = Toxic Asset.  Now for those of you who work in the banking industry, or wall street, you'll call it something else, but a cigar is still a cigar, and it can still stink up a room like a bunch of bullcrap.

The banks, called on the Realtors and the Contractors to begin paying back their loans.  The Realtors and Contractors...didn't have the money.  They couldn't sell their quarter of a million dollar homes.  They couldn't sell their half a million dollar homes.  Those a-holes couldn't sell their one million dollar homes.  Nobody was buying.  And that's when the housing market burst.  Realtors and Contractors who were unable to pay back the banks, for houses that no one could afford.  Worst of it was, many private americans bought into the whole scheme that their newly built homes would reap benefits and money.  That turned out otherwise we learned.  Private americans went and got new home loans in order to build their own homes, so THEY could sell them.  And then...they learned when no one bought the home, and the price they were asking for, that not paying back the loan, not only defaults on the home loan, but the bank will seize the property.  And even then...you still have to pay back the loan.  By federal and state law.  Federal and state law, which was originally written by bank lawyers.  Go figure.

Now if you think i'm ranting, I HAVN"T EVEN GOTTEN TO THE GOOD STUFF YET!

The banks foreclosed on the houses, and the Realtors and contractors had to scrimp and save the only way they knew how.  Jobs.  They started to lay people off.  Now, Corporate America was sold the idea in the past, like the rest of america that property values only go up.  Well they put a bunch of money into the home building sector, because it was a sure money getter.  All the sudden, they learned, that they had a bunch of houses that were no longer being finished, or built, because the banks had started to shutdown loans to certain large corporations, because they weren't paying off the loans.  They then had a bunch of UNFINISHED homes that were in danger of stalling.  In order to save expenditures, they too started to cut back hours on their workers.  And they also began to lay people off.

Now.  Take a small snowball at the top of a hill, and let it roll down the hill.  Each cutback, and layoff, meant less money being payed to a worker.  A worker, that used that money to buy new trucks.  New cellphones.  New brands of Levi Blue Jeans.  Or that Michael Jordean underwear.  All the sudden all those business' no longer had a lot of money coming in, because the workers who bought their products no longer had a job to earn money to pay for those products.  So those businesses need to make up for the loss in profits.  They in turn started to cut back hours on their workers, and began their own round of layoffs.  And of course, this began a new round of layoffs from the top...all the way down to the bottom.  In fact the only business that was not effected by this downturn, was the Alcohol business.  Whether you have the money, or don't have the money, everyone gets drunk.  And the alcohol business did a pretty BIG boom industry during the crash, and afterwards.

Sad really.  You all got your hours cut back, and/or lost your jobs, and you all turned to...alcohol.  Bunch of drunks. (rolls eyes).  Losers.

So.  I'm in an industry that will never fully recover.  Many americans, learned the hard way, that homes are necessity and not a commodity.  Many of you believe that your home value is directly tied to your finances.  They are not. A home is a place you go to rest.  It is the place you put food on your table.  It is a place that you put a bed to sleep upon.  It's not a piece of paper to be traded when the value is up or down.  You want to treat your home like it's on the Stock Market, be my guest, but the Stock Market is like a Casino, and the house always wins.  You lose.

The truelly sad thing is, many americans have not yet learned the harsh lesson of the Housing Bubble crash.  Many of you work for companies, still propogating the idea, that a Home will never lose value.  Even though the value on almost every single home has dropped.  Including homes in Beverly Hills.  Though it's not like a Class A movie actor is going to give a shit about forking over $5 million dollars for a piece of shit house with 20 rooms, and their the only mofo's that are going to be sleeping in it....They wouldn't know home value if it bit them in the ass.  Unless your Keven Bacon, then your ass has already been bit.

....so my point is this....

Don't go blaming a single United States President, for shit, that he had no control over.  When I see story's about foreclosures, and Republicans blaming a single person, when in fact the situtation was created by an Institution bent on telling americans that their houses were easily tradeable stock commodities, I get pissed.  I get more pissed when you people believe it.  I get even more pissed when each of you takes out a loan, KNOWING FULL DAMN WELL YOU DON'T HAVE THE MEANS TO REPAY THAT GOD DAMN LOAN!

...But I figure, you'll just learn the hard way.  Some of you deserve to learn the hard way.

The housing Bubble burst was not created by Barrack Obama.  I'll tear off your head, and spit down your neck in real life, if you even tried to pull that line in front of my face.  The housing bubble burst was created by an institutional thought process.  And in that regard, we are all to blame.  That includes you Einstein.

Oh, before I forget, after you all lost your jobs and lost your home to foreclosures, the only thing you could really afford with unemployment checks was rent and food.

Guess what prices went up in the last 4 years cince the housing bubble burst.  Food.  Rent.  All the sudden there was high demand for both, mostly because that's all anyone could afford.  Rent went up, because no one could no longer live in their own homes.  So they had to live in other peoples homes.  Rentals.    Food went up, because, well you all learned between the new cellphone and puting food on your table, you chose the food.  Wise choice.  Though since food demand began to grow...all the sudden prices shot up.  Supply and demand they say...so why did  Congress pass a $6 billion dollar payments to farmers subsidies to NOT grow any crops?  Seriously.  Six billion dollars payed out to farmers nation wide, and even to other nations to...not grow crops.  Seems rather odd that food prices would be so high.  Oh, that whole drought issue and crops being lost...actually wasn't fully accurate.  Only 1/4 of the crops were lost.  Not all of them.  And it was wheat and grain.  Go figure.  6 billion dollars, in oder to cause the total GDP food crop to be sold at over 15 billion dollars.  Wow.  That's a real cash crop.

Housing bubble burst = mass lay offs = high cost of food.

The snowball really grew kind of big.  And you were all looking at the small bit of ink, on a very LARGE canvas that we call our economy.  Cause and effect.

Sucks that the housing bubble also caused a huge increase in rent, food, gas....

go back to business orginizations/tax law/constitutional law classes key if you are confused about that farming issue if you are really an attorney

Right, but that does not mean there's an increase in food purchased.  If I go to the store and buy grocery store food because I have less income, that isn't food I would not have normally bought, because I inevitably need food to survive.  I don't suddenly need to buy more food just because I have less income.  In fact, if anything, a person will buy less food with less income, because they have to spread out their dollars.

Your story, only insofar as food is concerned, isn't just wrong.  It flies directly into the face of basic economics here.

> Key wrote:

> Zarf.  Were you buying more food at Quizno's, Subway, Mcdonalds before the economy crashed, compared to actually looking for deals and paying less at a grocery store.

Ok, McDonalds Dollar value meals.  Let's say you purchased a dollar item for breakfast, a dollar item for lunch, and a dollar item for dinner.  $3.00 bucks.  Do that for 30 days.  $90.00 a month for food.  Now you have two kids...$90x3=  you do the math.

Compare that to going to the grocery store and buying bulk in order to feed you and those two kids will probably be less than $270 within those 30 days.

This STILL doesn't change the fact that the primary determinant of food purchasing... is biological.

Yes, the average person was more often going out to eat before the recession, most likely.  And yes, there's much more buying in bulk today.  However, the #1 measuring system for determining how much you are going to buy does not change, because either way, my food purchasing is defined by my eating habits.

Really, your comparison written there is terribly off.
1: So when I'm in the happy world, living off the benefits of the housing bubble... I'm eating off the dollar menu?

2: If the primary motivator for me changing my buying habits is economic, why would I then convert to a supply chain which was more expensive?  This is an incredibly simple question.  If the story is as simple as you say it is, there should be some series of economic justifications as to why a person worried about money would then choose to spend MORE money on food.  Even if they did this in one or two months, it's more likely the person running that household will say "Wait... this is stupid" and go back to buying dollar sandwiches.

Well Zarf, I did say, the smart person would probably buy more food.  A dumbass stupid idiotic moron would buy luxury items.  Tabaco. Alcohol.  Iphones.  Kindle Tablets.  A kindle tablet will not feed one's hunger, but many MORONS, will buy one, because they think it'll make them cool.  Because after all, all the cool people have iphones.  And tablets.

I don't see people eating iphones, and tablets, but for some stupid M.F. reason, people will still buy them, even though they can survive longer, and be less inclined towards stress, because their worrying WHERE they are going to get the EXTRA MONEY to buy food.  Pay rent.  Pay medical bills.

You mind telling me, those morons who need to feed themselves, and pay off their mortgages/rent, or pay for the cost of heating in their homes...why those idiots would take all that money to pay for a device that will not help them survive?  Are you more inclined to purchase food, and not worry about how your going to pay for it, AFTER you buy Windows 8?  Iphones? A kindle tablet?  Maybe a new Droid phone?  Your more apt to buy a new cellphone because it's the "New Wave, In thing, because everone else that's 'Cool' will have one."

Geeze.  I don't know.  Maybe some people can't be trusted with money, and deserve everything they get because they don't know what's important in life.  Like food.  A roof over their heads.  A bed to sleep in.  Heat during winter time.

I mean, some people learned a harrrrrrrrrrrrrrshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh lesssssssssssssssssssson, in surviving the aftermath of an economic collapse.  I can see clearly that very few people learned their lesson.  Considering all and all.

People NOW, who have learned their lesson are more apt to spend their money on actually paying their bills.  Their rent.  The food that they put on the dinner table.  And their more apt to spend money ONLY on that.  One of the main reasons, which is YET, beyond the ability of both corporate america, the United States Government, AND the people of the united states, to fully understand is....there will be no full recovery.  Not in the way that everyone believes.  People don't need kindles.  They don't need cellphones.  They don't need a tickle me elmo doll this christmas.  But they do need food, and housing.  So people are more apt to purchase more FOOD, which is a necessity to live. Compared to buying a cellphone...which is going to be a drain on their personal finances.  After all, I can't eat minutes now can I.

But if you think that you can feed yourself with a card full of phone minutes, or that you'll get by after your laptop is stolen on the tri-met bus on the way to work, be my guest.

Doesn't change the fact that eating food is biological, no scheista.  That's a given, unless your a cyborg eating data chips.

But it does come down to how you prioritize your expenditures.  For those that don't understand what expenditures means, it means what you have in your wallet, in order to pay for what you want.  What you want, and what you need is what's going to allow you to live on, or scrape by in poverty.  You can be well fed.  Or you can be "in touch at the push of the button".  Which is going to allow you to live longer?  Go figure.

So are you saying that, before the recession, people were starving themselves so they could buy iphones, or are you saying that they're now becoming more obese than ever because anything left from what would be iphone money now goes into more food?

Yah.  I'm saying most people were spending their money on frivolous items, not because they needed them, but because they wanted them, or had the idea that if they were the one's left out of the "crowd", then they felt that they were lagging behind the rest of the people that had the item in question.

So yah, I would say people were starving just to purchase the new Droid.  Or kindle.  Or the new technology of the week.

So those people were more likely to BORROW money for food.  Or borrow money to pay their rent.

"Hey Buddy, I'm a bit strapped for cash, can you LEND Me $20.00 bucks.  I promise i'll pay you back."

Zarf, you know exactly what i'm talking about.  Who here had to BORROW money, because they didn't have ENOUGH money, to pay for something.  Because of something they needed or wanted, due to their idiotic frivolous spending habits?

If you had to BORROW money during the economic crisis?  What was it for?  To pay for food?  Rent?  Bills?  And why didn't you have that extra money to pay for food, rent or bills?  Could it be you made a purchase of an item, that was not necessary, before, during, or after the economic crisis?