What is going to happen, economically?

Yeah, I've ridden out many a storm. This one's a bit bigger which is why I'm paying attention to where things are going from here.

The Chicago Tribune ran an article yesterday about the percentage of people who put more than 35% of their gross salary into their housing costs. Alarmingly, it was about 30% of the people in Chicagoland (35% in the city of Chicago). That's an awful lot of people who live beyond the standard calculations of affordable housing. I don't imagine many of them have much liquidity to fall back on. This situation had to implode at some point.

let's surprise each other and decide to hang on , how about it ?
perhaps we could decide to do it just to spite some others - wouldn't that be fun at our age ? <GRIN>
hbg

yeah, that's about the best "pay back" for those who continue to belittle what accomplishments we enjoyed in life.

for a number of years we have gone to myrtle beach in november or march to enjoy the (to us canadians) warm climate .
we were rather surprised to see miles and miles of beachfront - and now also the areas further from the ocean - lined with massive condo-buildings . many of the smaller motels have over the years given way to even more condos - some now reaching probably 15 stories .
first we thought it must be all american millionaires living there , soon we found out that most were owned by "ordinary folks " and that most folks only visited their 2nd home for a few weeks and perhaps weekends a year - most of the year the condos are sitting empty .
the few people that were visiting their condos in november or march told us about the "tremendous" investment potential , the deductibility of mortgage interest etc . - it was all "greek" to us canadians .
we usually paid no more than about $800-9oo a month for a two bed/two bath condo with the finest furnishings and fittings . it didn't seem financially prudent to us to pay around $200,00 and more for a place that we could rent for less than a thousand .
should go back next spring and check how things are down there - we sure love the southern style of living and hospitality .
hbg

With this bailout, I'm not sure how home prices will be impacted for the short-term or long-term, but one would assume demand would increase - slowly.

Those sub-prime loans are still on the books of those banks and finance companies, and that won't clear for another two years or so.

I'm glad we don't have that kind of decision to make at this point in our lives.
That would be too stressful; I'm sticking here until my demise - in hopefully over a decade from now. <smile>

holy christ.

35% of your salary is "a lot" to put into housing?

oh my god. ive been putting like 80% of my salary into housing. not including power, water, sewer and trash..

dear god.

i hate knowing stuff like this.

Onion, I am way over that number myself, and I rent.

(my landlord is gonna feel the crunch, guess what happens to me?)

back in the day my band used to play the Castaways every year for Can-Am week in March. Way good times.

jeezus christ. i knew something was wrong with that.

no wonder i put a car completely out of my mind.

ive always tried to save 20% of my income, i have a lil bit saved up..

man i tried opening an account at bank of america, then i read all the rules and stuff, i was like, maintenance fee? im letting u keep my money.

wtf u need a "fee" for?

u know what, **** banks.

**** the irs too.

**** society!!!

just kidding, but really, i cant see the point of using a bank anymore. its more like a money siphon. a labrynth of hidden fees, nickel and dime traps.

Onion, I will state publicly that Bank of America Sucks Ass...

(nuff said)

hmmm, i was with wamu, they upped their overdrafts to 8 a day, and to like 45 dollars per?

******* insane.


omg, the **** i went thru, one time, my check was randomly withheld for 3 days, just atfer i got out of a lil 300 dollar debt i was like ok no more of that.


usually deposit my check at night, the next day i take out 100 dollars cash, use my check card to make purchases to keep track of what im spending etc.


30 dollars times 5 overdrafts cuz my check didnt go thru? plus 100 taken out turned to 300 dollar i owe them?

**** that. 700 check goes thru, - 450. whee 250.00..

:/

im like um are you serious?called in and they were like sorry we cant do anything, its our policy blah blah.. i dont play that **** homies.
i got 1200 in bills to pay. needless to say, i took out all of my money, then withdrew 300 dollars and never paid it back. haha. i owe them like 700 dollars. Ooops.

they can keep the measly 200 ish dollars. bitches.

I'm not a banking fan, I will e-mail you my personal thoughts...

me either. looking around, i mean maybe its just common sense , or logic, but theres no point to store my money somewhere, when the idea is for it to grow, when they have fees, deductions, penalties, and they have my entire amount of money, already.

i have yet to find a bank i deem acceptable.

wamu was good but even without fees , maybe it was chance, but i mean.

no way, i need my money, thanks.

I carry cash, and don't have enough surplus to be worried 'bout...

the bear wrote :



hey , those were the good old days - definetely will try to go back . even in the early 90's , when the canadian dollar was worth only about 65 cents U.S. , we had a great holidays in MB .
how we miss the fresh fish !!!
ELLA'S in calabash was our favourite place for lunch (we'd usually split a "deluxe platter" - and had a hard time finishing it ) .
won't be able to go in november - we'll try for march 2009 .
hbg

I noticed the greed of the banks. It started at the end of the Clinton era when banks started a minimum balance to avoid maintenence fees. There are consultants giving lectures to medical health care personal how to increase their revenues by renaming their procedures and charging for those services. There are advertisements by consultants telling how to be a millionaire by investing in real estate and stuff like that. This is what is leading to the financial mess by playing on greed.

We had a different "experience" with wamu; they screwed up our auto pay on our equity loan; they now only credited the late payment fee, but returned the interest that they earned by not processing our payment. They have screwed up this equity loan so many times (went to the bank over six times now - in person), I'm ready to pay the penalty and find another bank to carry it.

See Chase--they now own WAMU. Both of these entities were engaged in redlining. You know what that is, don't you?

I like my credit union. They haven't been affected by the banking crisis going on right now. I'm going to ask them for a loan to consolidate my credit card balance, and finance my wedding in February.

citi is also taking over Wachovia. Whould we be worried about monopolies? LOL