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Now, one thing I will say is that if you are waiting for the government or the media to tell you to save your money, pay off your debts, stock up on food, cut back on extraneous expenses and get ready for some trouble, you are going to wait a long time.
I've been waiting for the first time I hear to buy solar panels and a pack of batteries for energy security, instead of the 'green' movement. $40K to make renewable energy with maybe a 30 year payback just doesn't make much sense when my electric bill is $40 a month. The interest payment alone would make me go upside down on the system.
The same amount of money to make sure that your heater will run in the winter and to have a freezer and access to satellite TV and cold beer and internet if everything hits the fan....that's insurance that's probably worth the price, and refrigeration would be a wonderful commodity to barter with if our power grid starts to resemble that of South Africa.
I see a strong US-Mexico economic & military connection coming into place bit by bit. More of a melding than an alliance of rigidly separate entities. US citizens encouraged to move to Mexico to follow manufacturing jobs, "homestead," tax credits, preferential kinds of dual citizenship for indivs and corps, etc. The logical thought is a US-Canada-Mexico partnership but I dont imagine Canada buying too far in to this sort of plan.
Great material for a novel, anyway! I like to imagine the economic sweeteners, the propaganda machines pushing our mindsets along properly, the problems and epiphanies "settlers" of both countries would encounter
Last edited by delusianne; 04-26-2008 at 12:18 PM..
People should buy houses to live in. Not as speculation or to flip. If you want to speculate, buy gold or stocks.
That depends. If you're counting on the value to increase "just because", you're going to have difficulties. Fixer-uppers can still be profitable. Granted not as profitable as 3 years ago but there's still money to be made flipping as long as you're careful. People are still buying houses, just not as insanely as before so the flipper needs to do their homework and actually have a clue as to what they're doing.
That depends. If you're counting on the value to increase "just because", you're going to have difficulties. Fixer-uppers can still be profitable. Granted not as profitable as 3 years ago but there's still money to be made flipping as long as you're careful. People are still buying houses, just not as insanely as before so the flipper needs to do their homework and actually have a clue as to what they're doing.
Flippers buying a fixer-upper is one thing, but these flippers were putting down money on unbuilt homes in new subdivisions. There were lines and fights to be able to get a deposit on a lot. Those people were flipping because of the bubble inflating the values.
Fixer-uppers, bought right and restored right are a good deal but I'll bet more than half the flippers of this housing bubble wouldn't have a clue on how to do that.
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