Real Estate Market / Inflation / Recession / Depression (Colorado Springs, Empire: credit, equity, insurance)

[Sockeye]

Yep-we spent the past four days in Taos at my cousin's, and the traffic around the old square was as hellacious as it ever was. They're paying 4.25/gallon in no. NM.

[Bob from down south]

An interesting article in today's New York Times about the effects of energy prices on life in the Colorado exurbs (Elizabeth CO, in particular)

Fuel Prices Shift Math for Life in Far Suburbs

$3000 for one winter's worth of propane heat...and that was last year.

[jazzlover]

Originally Posted by Bob from down south

An interesting article in today's New York Times about the effects of energy prices on life in the Colorado exurbs (Elizabeth CO, in particular)

Fuel Prices Shift Math for Life in Far Suburbs

$3000 for one winter's worth of propane heat...and that was last year.

And, the "fun" is just beginning. My prediction is that by summer 2009, the "exurban" and rural real estate markets will be in complete free-fall. The common myth is that all of those McMansions are owned outright by affluent retirees and prosperous and debt-free upper-middle or upper class folks. A cursory look at the real estate records will tell you that most of those houses have big mortgages against them--mortgages that are going to be more and more difficult for the homeowner to pay. Another winter of brutal heating costs, $4 or way more gasoline, and runaway inflation in other day-to-day living costs is going to send that housing market over the cliff. Some of that crap may not sell at any price, and there will be abandoned McMansions joining the abandoned farmsteads out on the plains.

I don't think most people have even the remotest conception of how ugly things could really get. We have made--and continue to make--nearly every mistake possible to insure that we have a major economic depression in both Colorado and the rest of the nation. We will be remembered--like those who said the boom would never end during the 1920's--as the most selfish, visionless, and financially reckless generation in US history.

[LBear]

Originally Posted by jazzlover

My prediction is that by summer 2009, the "exurban" and rural real estate markets will be in complete free-fall.

I don't think most people have even the remotest conception of how ugly things could really get. We have made--and continue to make--nearly every mistake possible to insure that we have a major economic depression in both Colorado and the rest of the nation. We will be remembered--like those who said the boom would never end during the 1920's--as the most selfish, visionless, and financially reckless generation in US history.

The more things change, the more they stay the same...



All we need is hippies, dirt worshipers & commies to gather and sing peace songs, then all will be well...

Will BFDS lead??

[Bideshi]

I can still manage "Kum Bay Ya" on my ole guitar. I think more appropriate, however, will be some of Woody Guthries depression era ballads. The hippies were possible only in an affluent society that could afford counter-culture parasites. There were no hippies in the Great Depression. Hoboes were different.

[Sockeye]

Now I'm a huge skeptic when it comes to this stuff. This guy's all fire and brimstone, but worth listening to. When it comes to the petroleum industry, there's a lot of illusion... Food for thought.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3340274697167011147

[jazzlover]

Originally Posted by LBear

All we need is hippies, dirt worshipers & commies to gather and sing peace songs, then all will be well...

I don't think the people who successfully survived the Great Depression and World War II were hippies, dirt worshipers, and commies. They were frugal people who worked hard and avoided debt, who understood that you couldn't get something for nothing (or by borrowing money you couldn't ever hope to pay back), who were strident conservationists of both natural and financial resources, who recognized the value of investment over speculation, and who recognized that the country could fail if individual sacrifice was not made for the common good. All values that are apparently lost on the "don't-tell-me-I-can't-have-everything" spoiled adult brat imbeciles that now are prolific in today's US.

[Shuffler]

Originally Posted by Sockeye

Now I'm a huge skeptic when it comes to this stuff. This guy's all fire and brimstone, but worth listening to. When it comes to the petroleum industry, there's a lot of illusion... Food for thought.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3340274697167011147

This is downright scary, and I haven't found much on the 'net that calls this guy a phony or a fraud...

[DOUBLE H]

Only watched the first 10 minutes as I have appt. soon, but it was a sobering 10 minutes. Very sobering!

[Mike from back east]

Originally Posted by LBear

All we need is hippies, dirt worshipers & commies to gather and sing peace songs, then all will be well...

If you add in wino's then I'll show up. Are nasal monotones welcome to sing?