Net worth of Americans drops dramatically (pension, buy, interest, property)

[Boompa]

Originally Posted by slackjaw

Susan makes $30k/year, has a roommate to share her apartment, cooks at home, drives a 2003 Honda, so lives under her means and has managed to build up some savings.

Mike makes $50k/year, has his own place, eats out all the time, buys a new BMW every three years, so he seems to never have any money and is rushing off on Fridays to cash his paycheck to cover bills.

You propose we put more money in the hands of Mike?

Wow you really got that wrong. I propose increasing the minimum wage to $10 an hour and incresing the minimum payment any retiree on Social Security recieves to $1000 a month. Neither of your examples would be effected.

The only way out of this depression is to manufacture, who will buy the goods, Europe? Japan?

[andywire]

Originally Posted by Boompa

The only way out of this depression is to manufacture, who will buy the goods, Europe? Japan?

If we could rival their quality, we could very well export to these countries. Labor costs in this country happen to be quite favorable. But this is America, and we seem quite content with "good enough" and "LOL, OT?" You get what you pay for, and you get what you put in.

[Boompa]

Originally Posted by andywire

If we could rival their quality, we could very well export to these countries. Labor costs in this country happen to be quite favorable. But this is America, and we seem quite content with "good enough" and "LOL, OT?" You get what you pay for, and you get what you put in.

So many ""European"" cars are built in scab factories in the south that reliability problems have put european cars near the bottom. All it would take is for Americans to stop selling their country out and we could turn this around. Unfortunately most will sell out America for cheap chinese crap at WALMART.
My point is still that we need to put money into the hands of those who consume rather than those who spend billions buying politicians

[Boompa]

Originally Posted by andywire

If we could rival their quality, we could very well export to these countries. Labor costs in this country happen to be quite favorable. But this is America, and we seem quite content with "good enough" and "LOL, OT?" You get what you pay for, and you get what you put in.

I disagree, I traded two korean cars for two UAW Fords, the quality is every bit as good and I am helping America. People who need excuses not to buy American will always find them

[TuborgP]

Originally Posted by cdelena

Illusion? Tell that to all the people that bought real estate in 2005 - 2007 and are now underwater. That is not an illusion.

For those who purchased in that time period the value they paid was an illusion and not based on future sustainabilty. For those who sold at those prices it was a reality. The market was out of wack and folks did not pay attention to demand curves and the amount of income needed by buyers to buy all of the houses in a given community at what folks thought was the market price. It was impossible for those prices to be real if to many people wanted/slash needed to sell. Even Gold is like that. It may be $1600 an ounce valuation based on recent sales but if everyone wants to sell the last sellers are going to get far less as the number of folks wanting to buy at that price is limited. Price is determined by supply and demand and the more expensive something is demand tends to decrease. With so many financing gimmicks being sold then and with so many saying it was a bubble one might have had a hunch that something was an illusion.

[mee9mee9]

End the war and we would have money

[Ron.]

Who cares?


I'm only concerned about my own net worth, increasing.

[BeerGeek40]

Originally Posted by cpg35223

Oh, good God. Spare me the paranoid rant. The subject at hand is the net worth of Americans, not the entire teetering economic system. And anybody with a lick of sense knew that home values could not keep ratcheting up 10-15% a year and not have a reckoning. Sure this was driven by the availability of sloppy underwriting, cheap credit, and government programs that basically fueled home buying by people with no business actually borrowing the money (Not to mention Wall Street doing their voodoo). But had people simply bought their homes on a fix 30-year mortgage and didn't immediately squander what they thought was their equity, the crisis wouldn't be nearly as severe.

I knew there was a problem in 2002, when I listened to real estate agents start talking about all the stunt mortgages that were available. The Interest-Only loans, the ARMs, and the rest. And the mentality of the home buyer wasn't "How much is this home really worth?" Instead, it was, "I can pay $XXXX a month. How much home can I buy?" And when the home value increased by another 20-40% over the next couple of years, people by the boxcars were saying, "Yippee! Let's use our equity to pay for that trip to France!"

Joseph Kennedy had his a-ha moment when the shoe-shine boys started giving out stock tips on Wall Street and sold every share of stock he owned. Want to know when I knew the end was really coming? In early 2006. I was called in to consult for a large multi-state mortgage company. They had brought in a Latino marketing specialist who, over the course of a 45-minute PowerPoint presentation, showed us all how illegal immigrants were going to be the next great mortgage market. That's right. Illegal immigrants.

I looked around the table and looked at all these bankers nodding their heads in agreement and thought to myself, "Wait a minute. These guys are in the business of managing risk." The slideshow was over, the lights came up, and the presenter asked if there were any questions. I asked, "Do you mean to tell me that you'd lend $250,000 to someone who could get deported the day after the closing?" Judging by the reaction around the table, you would have thought that I had stood up and urinated on the conference room table. Yet, ultimately, I was the one who had pointed out that the emperor had no clothes. If you lend large sums of money to marginal credit risks then the whole edifice is shaky.

And that's the problem. The large majority of people simply ignored the obvious, namely that house prices could not keep increasing 8% or more a year. And whether they were stockbrokers, bankers or homeowners, they acted as if this would go on in perpetuity. Given the sheer number of people I saw who cashed in their home's equity for the stupidest, most frivolous reasons, small wonder their net worth has taken a dive.

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This is the best posting I've read on C/D in a while. Love the story about the brain dead bankers! Wake up people -- everyone is at fault for the collapse in housing --- the government (Barney Frank and his gang of criminals are at the top of the list), the greedy banks, Wall Street, and yes, the greedy home buyer who figured he would buy high and sell higher.

[andywire]

Originally Posted by Boompa

I disagree, I traded two korean cars for two UAW Fords, the quality is every bit as good and I am helping America. People who need excuses not to buy American will always find them

I don't think the Koreans have much standing in the realm of quality manufactured products, but I give you a big thumbs up for supporting America I have only driven American made cars in my life. I couldn't see myself driving anything made anywhere else. Certainly, parts and some work are done elsewhere, but I am always satisfied with the end result. I think the big three have moved mountains over the past 5 years to improve competitiveness.

[Escort Rider]

Originally Posted by andywire

I don't think the Koreans have much standing in the realm of quality manufactured products, but I give you a big thumbs up for supporting America I have only driven American made cars in my life. I couldn't see myself driving anything made anywhere else. Certainly, parts and some work are done elsewhere, but I am always satisfied with the end result. I think the big three have moved mountains over the past 5 years to improve competitiveness.

In late 1992 I bought a brand new Ford Escort station wagon from a local Ford dealer in the Los Angeles area. To my surprise, it turned out the car was manufactured at a Ford plant located in Mexico. It has been a good car, and I still have it. Ironic that my "American" car was not made here, but plenty of "foreign" cars are. (I know Honda and others have factories in the United States). Manufacuring is so globalized these days that's is hard to know what "American" made even means. The assembly plant may be here, but where were all the various parts manufactured? The answer is all over the place.