Hmm.... Major indexes are all sharply off their highs, meaning Mr. & Mrs. Middle America are watching their retirement portfolios shrink, the value of average home, the safest and largest investment most families will ever make, is down, the central bank is taking extraordinary measures to avert a financial crisis and the White House thinks it

"is not a very interesting story."

Them's Bush Family Values for you....

Wait until the upper-middle-class gets caught up in the Bush Repubican credit crunch. These over extended exurbians have never had to pinch pennies much less go to a food pantry. I hope they think of it as a "growing up" experience.

The "moving sales" when Buffy and Scooter have to sell off their hollow, material-driven lifestyles should be a bonanza for those of us who actually lived on a show string and paid off our mortages. We will be literally be picking up the pieces of these Reagan Republians' failed dreams.

I'm so sorry for these country club folks. Maybe Mumsy and Poppy will cut back on their retirement or loosen up the strings on their trust funds to help their middle-age "kids" get back on their feet?

But seriously, who is going to help the working poor and the "real" middle class who were suckered into these risky loans and refinancing schemes while their jobs where being outsourced right under their noses?

Vote Republican and its everyman for themselves when a crisis occurs.

I noticed that the Feds floated low interest loans to several major lending institutions who were running out of money because of defaulted mortgages.
Why is the government giving the rich and infamous all this welfare, and won't lift a finger to help the families who are losing their homes?
Welfare should help POOR people not the freaking rich who've caused the whole problem in the first place.

Portfolios shrinking is because the people have invested into a stock or fund. The Fed is floating loans to major lenders, because the major lenders were so stupid at giving money to people that should have not gotten it in the first place.

The government is not giving it to the rigth and infamous. They are giving it to firms that stuck their necks out fo loan money to people for home loans that financially were not stable enough for those loans. The finacial institutes should not be helped out by the Fed government. Let the nature of the industry sort out whom is strong enough and whom is not. If that means setting a standard that people must meet and sticking to it so be it. This may mean someone may not ever own a home, but no sense others having to pay for it, whether it is an individual or a firm.

I do agree with the statement above in gray "This is not a very interesting story"

Hey butte, you need to read this again. Let me spell it out for you, the financial firm has already stuck their nect out for these people to assist them buying a home. Do you want them to give it to em now. I payed for mine, they can pay for theirs, or maybe they just got involved in a financial deal when they shouldn't have.

Give em everything hell, let some one else pay for it. Who cares.

If you don't like the portfolios they are in which ride on the market you should have em in CDs or trying to make interest, if you don't like your chances on stocks or funds. That is life on the stock market. If you don't want to loose put your portfolio in more conservative funds. It is actually quite simple, and designed for the aggressive or the conservative. If they are loosing their tail on this market, you can pull out and put in a interest only. So in short "STOP COMPLAINING". This is legalized gambling. If you can't afford to loose, don't play.

Posted by bugsbunny on August 24, 2007 at 02:44 AM
Go crawl back in your hole and chew on a carrot, that's something you can handle, posting here is beyond your intellectual capabilities......

I payed for mine, they can pay for theirs, or maybe they just got involved in a financial deal when they shouldn't have.
Give em everything hell, let some one else pay for it. Who cares.
Posted by bugsbunny on August 24, 2007

this is clearly not the way things have worked their way to this situation. "lending institutions" were selling loans (most with some hiddens costs) knowing that when these costs can around, the people wouldn't be able to pay. why would they do this? presidents/ceos are paid by what they made this quarter. five years down the road sell out and who cares except the guy who loses his house. i don't know if you have seen the lending ad wher the lady closes on her loan, then a monkey jumps on her back and starts going crazy. this is exactly how we got to this point. i have a friend that sells these kinds of homeloans, balloon payments, interest only, variable APR, second and third mortgages at closing... add on to this the price of gas tripling. these are not people who want a free house or are not trying to make payments.

The high rate of home foreclosures making the headlines tells us something about the state of the economy in America and of the financial conditions of working Americans. High unemployment and/or high job insecurity are existing everywhere in America since President Clinton left office in 2000. While the Bush Labor department trumps up monthly job creations, the reality is that there are not enough jobs for all Americans who are willing to work and who are capable to handle the job with confidence. Furthermore, the jobs created under the Bush Administration are substandard jobs which are mostly temporary jobs that don’t pay benefits.
So when you buy a typical house in California and take out a 30-year mortgage, you must work at least 3 jobs in order to afford that house. Usually, when your temporary job ends precipitously, you are left with no income to pay for the monthly mortgage and various house-related expenses. The result is FORECLOSURE!

Here's an interesting story from the NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/business/yourmoney/26country.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=all

For almost 6 months, the local and global effects have been described in the news: all these federal statistics and rumors about bankruptcies on Wall Street. These articles are pretty general and don't really tell the whole story. It is when you get closer and see how the loan machine worked that you get a sense how the entire nation drifted off its moorings.

Countrywide was considered a "respectable" organization due to its considerable size and influence. But, as with everything tied to great power, there is always the underbelly which smells much worse.