“Recovery is taking a bit longer than it should, kind of like Mating Elephants…”
There is a joke says something like, “What do economic recovery and mating elephants have in common? The answer is , “It is done at a very high level, it is accomplished with a lot of kicking and screaming and it takes 18 months for anything to happen…”
That thought is eerily similar to our economy (unfortunately)….however there is light at the end of the tunnel, and this time, I don’t think it’s the NJ Transit Express about to run us over again…J It has taken longer than it should, and a sincere thanks to our awful media for making everything continually seem much worse than it was….may the fleas of a thousand camels inhabit your inkpens, and keyboards and other orifices all over you…
I mean, you’re sitting there reading this happy nonsense, and you should be thinking about the fact that in the last month, the government (thank you Hank and Ben! God, I’ll miss Hank Paulson…a brief shining moment of intelligence and capability in the history of the treasury…of course our new president is getting rid of him…makes a lot of sense…;(L ) has added several trillion dollars into our monetary system. Directly and indirectly, commercial banks have been directed to “Go forth and Sow your seeds…JJ…they have, and rates have come down over a full percentage point in the last month.
What does that mean?? If you are considering buying a $300,000 house with a $270,000 mortgage, but were worried about your payment being too high, it just dropped $170 a month. If your buyer couldn’t afford your house at $210,000, with a $190,000 mortgage, because the payment was $115 a month too high, she can now buy your home with the payment they need, and you still get all your money. Ahhh, the magic of playing with the interest rate…helps everyone in the food chain…JJJ
Interest rate drops effectively placed a floor ( a line in the sand, so to speak) in asset values…absolutely artificially low rates (0% - .25% federal funds target rate) cannot last forever while asset values are so low. Either rates or values, or both will definitely move upwards. Most probably in this environment we will see asset values increase slightly more quickly than interest rates in the 6-12 month term, but certainly there will be upward movement in both over the 12-24 month period.
Whatever. The point is to go do something positive. The time is great for it.
People say I talk too damn much and go off on tangents and I am thinking they might be correct…
Boys and girls, one thing is for certain – this artificial largesse from Guv’mint (from all of us actually – we are funding the bailout, and the stimulus) will not last forever…it’s just too good for all of us down here in the real world…so don’t wait too much longer to do whatever you are thinking of doing.
More on this in a few paragraphs, but in the meantime, some holiday (remember those?) and New Year ramblings…
"tis a New Year, and May it be Healthy and Happy and Prosperous for all...let us all remember that health is the most priceless possession, and its free (or at least the price of a gym membership…lol).
Fond wishes that the Obstructionists and Dooms Mongers who slurk and slither among us, develop itchy rashes and flu symptoms that keep them inside, so the rest of us can look up at the sun and think about how things are actually getting better out there…J
May the Naysayers and Negativitists (I made that word up, by the way…lol) stop being part of the %$*!!$%# problem, and start being part of the %$*!!$%# solution. (Thank you Bruce Willis in Die Hard).
Fortune Magazine has been hosting an excellent writer on their inside back cover for a while and his name is Stanley Bing. Bing is an actual Fortune 500 executive (somewhere), and his bi-weekly page is funny, satirical very accurate and deals with whatever issues most folks are pondering in their cornflakes.
Whether presciently or not, his column of 10/27/08, may mark very close to the depth of consumer confidence, general misery and probably a bunch of stocks, real estate portfolios and dwindled bank accounts. It is entitled “What will happen Next?” and speaks first about the 4 Prophets of Doom – Fear, Anger and Gloom and Panic. It is so good, that I will excerpt and paraphrase a few thoughts from this excellent article for your perusal. You can read the rest online at www.fortune.com. The name of his column is While You Were Out.
“And the land was overrun by Prophets of Doom, the riders of four horses, whose names were Fear and Anger and Gloom and Panic….and these gloomy, mostly pudgy and balding prophets shouted from the rooftops, predicting the end of happiness and the dollar, the onset of starvation, the collapse of markets globally and the hegemony of China. And those who prophesied the worst got the most airtime…
One Hundred Days made their way across the Mobius Strip of time…and some of the people came together and made a choice…to live with those who waited for the end in terror, or to strike out for the future along those who were brave enough, or simply too uninformed (or crazy, like me…VS), to have relinquished all hope for the future…and they chose life…and it is better than the alternative.
And it was the evening and the morning of the first day of the rest of our lives…May it come soon!”
Thank you Stanley Bing. The article was much, much better than my brief sentences. Go read it when you get a chance.
Then you should get out of your chair and get your own elephants birthed….it’s been long enough and the screaming is dying down out there… low interest rates, great prices, and a government who is actually on the ball (albeit a bit late to the dance) and encouraging intelligent, responsible real estate investment…? These conditions can’t last much longer…probably until everyone realizes just how good they are.
You don’t have to wait any longer though. It’s the first day of the rest of your life…make it count.
Regards,
V
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