Danfrphils

Obama's Housing Plan: Elegant and Costly

Huge mortgage companies write billions in mortgages for more than the value of the home to people who can't afford the payments.... Does this sound familiar? Well, that's what this so-called mortgage rescue act is. Only this time, it's tax money that's financing this government sponsored scheme.

Instead of citing catchy but meaningless mantra like "help main street, not Wall Street," we need to let the foreclosures and the people who can't afford mortgages to work their way out of the system. No one can prop up a failing housing market indefinitely. The market is far too large for that. All these ill-advised programs do will be to delay the inevitable... that people who can't afford mortgages need to give up those homes, and housing prices need to come back in line with incomes. Ill-advised populist schemes like this only put our country deeper into debt.

When did my country become an uber socialist state with subsidized housing for the people who can't make good financial decisions and government "loans" (not likely to be paid back) to keep afloat companies that make crappy cars that even its citizens don't want to buy. Welcome to 2009.

Admissions of Spin at the NAR

Go read the reviews on David Lereah's 2006 book "Why the Real Estate Boom Will Not Bust - And How You Can Profit from It" on Amazon. You see the irony in how many people's lives were hurt by Lereah, the NAR, and the real estate spin machine (which is still spinning through Lawrence Yun).

Everyone was appalled at Madoff's scam which caused up to $50 billion in losses. Most of those losses were to institutions and wealthy individuals. The real estate bubble was several orders of magnitude larger at $10 trillion (with a T)+, and David Lereah was one of the head cheerleaders. Its impact have been felt by pretty much everyone on this planet. I just wish for once... shills like this would be held accountable for their actions.

Should We Really Bail Out the Big Three Automakers with $73.20 Per Hour Labor?

Stop the bailouts! I had good reason to not pay for GM's overpriced, unreliable & understyled cars. I sure as heck don't want to indirectly now pay for and subsidize a company that makes crappy cars in the form of a bailout. The first rule of investing is to NOT throw good money after bad. GM is a bad company. Let them work it out in bankruptcy.

UAW probably did a lot of good early in the 20th century. Now they've outlived their usefulness, and the Big 3 will never truly be competitive so long as the big unions are calling the shots - by buying influence from the communists in Congress.

eBay Buyer Incentives Are Not a Good Bargain

Dinah, I also noticed another fault in your logic (among others pointed out by others). You said:

"No matter what the reason for the Paypal 60 day hold, it's wrong, doesn't benefit consumers, and Paypal still earns money on the float. Paypal can claim that they're worried about chargebacks but this is nonsense because chargebacks are actually charged back to the seller."

Not sure why you think this is wrong.

For the seller, they get their money right away (unless they have bad feedback, in which case they get the 21 days hold, but that's self induced... all merchant accounts have similar restrictions).

For the buyer, I need to wait 60 days to get 25% of my purchase price back. That seems pretty decent to me. All I have to do is: 1) not return the item (imagine that), 2) not commit fraud like using stolen credit card to make purchase, and 3) actually request the cash back. None of this actually sounds that bad. I've done a lot of rebates offline... and trust me, this is MUCH, MUCH more reliable and easier.

PayPal makes no float on these funds since it pays out almost all of it to the seller anyways, except for their fees, as pointed out above.

On balance, it DEFINITELY benefits me as the buyer (i.e. cash back on my purchase). For seller, you are no worse off since you don't even know if the buyer is using cash back or not. In fact, I think sellers are better off because I see my items selling quicker and at higher price. So tell me (with logic and hard evidence this time), why this is so wrong.

I have issues with the site too, just like everyone else. I agree that rules do change too often, many times without adequate communication. But I also take issue when someone rips on a generous program with no logic or basis for the criticism.

eBay Buyer Incentives Are Not a Good Bargain

Wow, I can't believe someone is actually criticizing the Microsoft Cashback program. When Microsoft told me they would give me 30% off on my purchase on eBay, I jumped on it. My first thought was that it was a generous deal. I've received hundreds of dollars cash back from the program and I've withdrawn it into my bank account via my PayPal account. In addition, I notice that my items sell faster with Buy-it-Now and at a higher price.

Dinah, maybe if instead of being a "hater," if you actually try it out, you'll know how it actually works and maybe (just maybe) realize it's a pretty good deal. I agree that It's not for everyone because there are a number of hoops and steps to jump through, as well as the wait. But they are not difficult things to do. Here's what I think: make me do a few things and wait a few weeks if it means higher discounts. Heck, I'll do it all and more if I can get 30% (or 25% right now) cash back.

I honestly don't know how MS & eBay pay for this given that my Powerseller fees to eBay and PP fees don't come anywhere close to the 25% or 30% of transaction price that I've gotten back.

Admissions of Spin at the NAR

At last LIAR-eah admits to his faults. But I think it's just another shill trying to restore some semblance of credibility after lying through his teeth for so many years.

By the way, his forecasts were not right. He wrote a book called: "Why the Real Estate Boom Will Not Bust - And How You Can Profit from It: How to Build Wealth in Today's Expanding Real Estate Market" published in February 2006. Oops! I guess that forecast didn't quite come in as planned. By the way, his book is still selling for $11.65 on Amazon if you want to get a good laugh.

Should We Really Bail Out the Big Three Automakers with $73.20 Per Hour Labor?

Toyotas and Hondas being better quality than the Big 3 cars is NOT a myth. It's a fact still. It's proven out in all quality studies. Go to Jdpower.com and look at initial quality as well as used car quality ratings.

I agree that American cars have closed the gap some, but only because they were so poor a decade or so ago. But people flock to foreign brands for more than just quality & reliability. Japanese and Germans just make more desirable cars.

A foundation of free market economics is that uncompetitive companies should perish. So let them. Truth is, Ford & GM will survive in a bankruptcy although Chrysler is probably done. But those two will emerge with a leaner, more competitive cost structure as a result.

But UAW will get bloodied, which is why they are pouring millions into Pelosi, Schumer, and Frank's pockets to get a large additional gift (over the $25 billion already received) from the taxpayers.

NO MORE BAILOUTS!

On Nov 13 06:20 PM ted from nj wrote:

> Thank you Turi for your comments on the current build quality of
> US autos. (If anyone missed it go back and read it now). I've been
> amazed at the number of people posting here who voice the (uninformed)
> opinion that Detroit automakers are designing and producing crappy
> cars. The truth is they are at least as reliable and as high a quality,
> and in many cases superior to any foreign made vehicle sold in this
> country. Many years ago (in the early 70's), when the Japanese auto
> industry was just starting to expand it's exports to this country,
> Toyota and Honda took extra care to insure that their export vehicles
> had no detail defects or Q.A. issues by rigorous final off-line inspections
> for form & fit prior to shipment. This was not done for cars
> sold in their domestic market BTW, and Japans' automakers also received
> government subsidies for every vehicle they exported. They also paid
> their U.S. dealerships an additional fee to prep. all vehicles carefully
> prior to sales and encouraged their sales force to emphasize the
> need for frequent routine maintenance. U.S. automakers at the time,
> under pressure from high wage and benefit demands from the UAW, were
> much more concerned with productivity and cost reduction to remain
> competitive than quality, relying mostly on their dealerships to
> find and fix the detail defects that got by their on-line Q.A. inspections.
> Their final inspection amounted to no more than starting and driving
> the vehicle off the line. If it rolled it shipped. Since most customers
> balked at paying "dealer prep." fees, dealerships made very little
> effort to find or fix any but the most obvious defects in the cars
> they were selling (prepping a car usually consisted of just running
> it through a car wash). This lead to a lot of unhappy customers and
> the myth that Japanese manufactured cars were superior in reliability
> and quality to U.S. made cars. It appears that this myth persists
> to this day. The fact is, even back then the "superior quality" of
> Japanese cars was largely cosmetic. Given the same level of maintenance
> most US manufactured vehicles were equal or better than Japanese
> cars in reliability and frequency of repair. Unfortunately, first
> impressions stick and when the service engine soon light comes on
> as you drive off the dealer lot, or the headliner starts to sag the
> next day, or the hubcap falls off the on your first left turn, you
> tend to remember those things rather than the thousands of trouble
> free miles you've driven.
>
> The early 70's, as some may remember, was also the time of the oil
> embargo when the demand for smaller, more fuel efficient cars was
> high and Detroit was caught without a car that competed with the
> VWs, Civics or Corollas. Ford rushed the Pinto and GM the Vega to
> market and they were truthfully not as polished or as reliable for
> the first couple of model years as their foreign competition. Consumers'
> bad experiences with these cars also contributed to the general perception
> that Detroit makes inferior cars in many peoples minds.

Should We Really Bail Out the Big Three Automakers with $73.20 Per Hour Labor?

If you haven't noticed, Oil and Commodity prices are down (oil is in the 50's). Last I checked, the war is still going on. War spending hurt the economy, no doubt. But to put "nearly 100%" of the blame for financial markets collapse on the war is ignorance.

The mortgage mess that led to the financial markets collapse was precipitated by a misguided US government policy (pursued by both Republican and Democrat administrations) that pursued higher & higher levels of home ownership at any costs. In between 1990 to 2005, home ownership rates went up from 62% to 70%. But to get there, we lent a lot of money to a lot of people who had no business owning homes.

Now we are finding out what happens when you lend hundreds of thousands of dollars each to people who cannot possibly pay their mortgages.

On Nov 13 08:24 PM Chrysler Engineer wrote:

> To Et tu Brute!
>
> "This housing and auto and financial collapse has NOTHING to do with
> the "war". It was not "CAUSED" by the war. It IS, however, rotten
> timing."
>
> A lot of our problem, if not 100%, are due to the war. The war changed
> our economy in to war economy. OIl price went up, raw material price
> went up, military usage is one of the reason media did not talk about.

Mortgages: Loan Officers Slamming the Barn Door

Unfortunately, samo, it's not the banks that will suffer in the end. We the tax payers will have to pay for it thanks to our idiot senators in congress like Barney Frank & others who pushed through the "Mortgage Rescue" Bill which will put the bad loans squarely on the balance sheets of Joe Q. Taxpayer. Freddie & Fannie are, even at this moment, buying up junk mortgages (although not as much junk as before) which will add to our national debt. Think about it... many of those $720K conforming loans in CA will default in the future, since in my opinion, CA still has a ways to go in price decreases and job losses have still not fully materialized from the recession. I shiver to think the tax bomb that awaits my kids... it could make Scandanavian tax regimes look like tax havens.