Here’s a really, really bad idea: [Hat tip L!]
Famed bond fund manager Bill Gross said the White House should bail out the millions of American homeowners who face the dreaded prospect of foreclosure this year.
"If we can bail out Chrysler, why can’t we support the American homeowner?" Gross wrote in his monthly investment outlook on PIMCO’s Web site.
With nearly 2 million homeowners at risk of losing their homes this year and with housing prices rapidly receding, Gross said President Bush, not the Federal Reserve, is the best hope for "almost homeless homeowners."
"This rescue, which admittedly might bail out speculators who deserve much worse, would support millions of hard-working Americans whose recent hours have become ones of frantic desperation," said Gross, a founder of the fixed-income investment firm PIMCO and a columnist for Fortune.
"Write some checks, bail ‘em out, prevent a destructive housing deflation that (Fed Chairman) Ben Bernanke is unable to do. After all ‘W’, you’re ‘the Decider,’ aren’t you?" Gross wrote.
That "destructive housing deflation" Gross fears is in fact a return to reasonable prices for "hard-working Americans." I’m guessing Gross is more worried about Wall Street bonuses than the average American homeowner.
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I wrote the Fed today. I told them my house was paid for. I mentioned I would also deserve something if a housing bail out ensued. I asked for a Lincoln Navigator in the driveway. I also said if they favor GM, a Hummer would be acceptable but not preferred.
>>Gross said President Bush, not the Federal >>Reserve, is the best hope for “almost >>homeless homeowners.”
Oh, I wish this kind of nut would give us a break with that hogwash.
Nobody is going to be on the street because they were foreclosed on.
These people are making money, and will have absolutely no problems renting a place.
Why is this Bill Gross trying to make people believe otherwise? In my opinion, he just does not want to see the rich fatcats lose value on their realty investments.
Ignore Gross’ nonsense! Since when does it make sense that a person that could “almost” afford to make mortgage payments can suddenly not afford to make rent payments???
Ignore Gross nonsense!
I think you are not right that it is O.K. just to sit and look how the s$%& is falling on our heads.
It is time to do something and speak out. The effect may be doubtful but at least we tried.
But what ? I am not sure. I am pretty apolitic person and just guess – on-line petition, contacting media and reps, ads in media, demonstration in front of their offices ? Suggest something. Personally I am putting aside $100 to support this cause and if enough people would joing, the voice “Not at my cost !” would be heard…
MikeC-
So you don’t see the tragedy in someone losing their four bedroom, two bath stucco home, so they have to go rent a four bedroom, two bath stucco home for half the price?
Me neither.
gross, who is obviously a very bright guy, is a hard left wacko a la george soros- hence the snide remark at the end.
not only is it not the fed’s job to bail out the idiotic masses, it is clearly not the presidents job either. his left-wing i-am-here-to-save-you-from-yourself mentality makes me throw up in my mouth.
if bush or any republican, for that matter, entertains these anti-capitalistic populist harebrained ideas, i will quit the party and never vote again. in fact, im going to call the white house and mccain and kyle tomorrow.
Are people not admitting the truth on purpose bor because they lack the intelligence to figure it out?
Politicians, news anchors, realtors, lenders, “expert commentators”, rich big wigs, insane investment show hosts, FED members, etc etc. All the way down the chain, they’re convinced that foreclosures are the problem. News flash guys: foreclosures are the SYMPTOM of the problem. The problem is overpriced homes. Remember, housing bubble? Not only do they look foolish solving a symptom (something we’re taught to never do in engineering), ut they’re setting horrible precedents for the oncoming tidal wave.
By the way, firefox claims realtors is misspelled if not capitalized. My web browser actually drank kool aid!
Buyers should live with the consequenses of their decisions.
I think the President should step in and seize PIMCO’s assets and give it to the homeless.
That would at least achieve more good than stealing from the renters and responsible and accountable homeowners and giving them to the irreponsible folks who have gotten themselves in this mess.
Does anybody here actually know who Bill Gross is? Do you know that he is long bonds. 30 year bonds at that. Gross is about as much a social liberal as Rush. Read betwen the lines. THINK what he is saying (spinning). Call his bluff. You have one hour to come up with an answer or be banished to the MSN moneyblog.
PS Realtor is capitalized. Firefox is correct.
>>Realtor is capitalized.
Taking a quick look at dictionary.com, I see that it can be capitalized, but isn’t always. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, “This service mark often occurs in print in lowercase…as well”.
Seeing as how that gives me a choice, take a wild guess whether I’ll be capitalizing the word!
twist -
>>dont see the tragedy in someone losing >>their four bedroom, two bath stucco home, so >>they have to go rent a four bedroom, two >>bath stucco home for half the price?
Nope! But getting at the heart of who Gross is really trying to help, neither do I see the tragedy in the fatcats that are going to lose some money on their 2nd, 3rd, 4th investment homes as the prices come down. Why, if Bush doesn’t help soon they may have to wait an *entire year* before they upgrade to the newest Mercedes/Porsche!! Oh, the humanity!
daud: I agree that action must be taken, voices must be heard, from the innocent majority of renters/homeowners that stand to lose because of some really bad investment decisions by a minority of greedy people.
MikeC-
Here’s the history of the word Realtor:
The NAR is very protective of this term, and members sometimes get worked up about having it not only capitalized, but want the trademark symbol used as well. My personal opinion is that all kinds of professionals require licensing and belong to professional organizations, [i.e. doctors and lawyers] and yet their occupation is not capitalized. It seems silly to me to do it, personally. Consequently, the only time you’ll see me capitalize "realtor" is in the name of the National Association of Realtors, or at the beginning of a sentence. While this may not be deemed "proper" usage- hey, this is a BLOG not the Washington Post. : )
To make clear that I am serious, I have just registered a domain with a catchy phrase notatmycost.com but I have not the Twist’s blog experience or skills (and time) to fill it with content/activity.
Kid
So, it is okay to bail out Wall Street, It is okay to bail out hedgefunds, It is okay to give big tax breaks to the highest earners but we can do nothing for the middle-lower classes?
Spare me the left-right crap!! This has NOTHING to do with it and you know it. But, you just can’t help it can you? Just gotta spew those talking points eh?
I for one would be very much against any sort of bailout. I signed the papers on my mortgage knowing the conditions. I deserve no help and niether do the vast majority of homeonwers.
“Realtor is capitalized.”
I think that depends on how you feel about them at the moment =P
In all seriousness though, is a bailout any good for the standard middle class american already suffering from being over leveraged? Someone’s going to have to pay for that eventually.
And I quite enjoy my big rental! Twice the square footage, better neighborhood, and half the payment.
>>all kinds of professionals require licensing >>and belong to professional organizations, >>[i.e. doctors and lawyers] and yet their >>occupation is not capitalized
Now, now, in California a person might be straight out of highschool, and may have to spend an entire part of a day to take a single class that allows him/her to start selling properties.
Meanwhile, a doctor or lawyer may spend eight to ten entir years in post-secondary education.
Ergo, of course it makes sense for “realtor” to be capitalized, and not “doctor” and “lawyer” (?!?!) Okay, nobody will buy that, will they?
But seriously, I’ll bet most people would agree that the term “realtor” has become so generalized by the common population so as to refer to anybody that sells real estate.
Otherwise, wouldn’t a term like “licensed realtor” be redundant?
If that generalized meaning were not the case, we would also not be able to speak about “realtors” in other parts of the world where the NAR is not present. In those cases we’d have to think up more colorful names!
I see this as perhaps being similar to what happened with the word “xerox”, a word that started off as copyright but ended up so commonplace that it is now accepted (legally too!) for its general-meaning.
MG-
Exactly- with some notable exceptions, I don’t think most agents deserve a capital!
Daud:
I also have my hands on a domain name for a real-estate related site that I hope to unveil in several months (nothing that will ever compete with HousingDoom, of course!), but have not yet had the time to set up.
You could start by getting your feet wet with a free blog – there are many out there. With one of those blogs, the setup and useability is usually quite simple and straightforward (at least a lot more so than setting everything up on your own). You could even link the domain name that you bought to your free blog’s domain name, so that if you ever make a switch off the free blog, your users will still be able to reach you nicely.
I don’t know much about all this, but I think one of the only downsides might be that you have no control over the advertising on those free blogs.
Alternatively, if you know any tech-savvy people, ask them how hard it is to set up and host a WordPress or other kind of blog for you(I believe that is what HousingDoom uses).
You’d have to pay monthly fee for a company to “host” the sites related files/database, etc (~$10 a month, perhaps, on a place like godaddy.com?), apart from paying somebody to help you set things up (if you are not tech-savvy).
Daud-
I have one advantage that I’m afraid most bloggers don’t have- I had the good fortune to draft John early on, which has made all the difference. I’m afraid there aren’t a lot of Johns available, unfortunately. : )
WordPress though, is not rocket science, and you don’t have to update your site as often as John and I do to have a worthwhile site.
I like to think that blogging can make a difference. [John and I would be putting a lot of time in elsewhere if we didn't!]
Best of luck in your efforts, I’ll be cheering for you!
Daud (comments ##13,18,19) -
Good luck on your endeavors.
I would point out that while there aren’t many potential co-bloggers out there (thanks for the kind words, twist!) nothing stops you from being one yourself. I sort of fell into this gig through simply writing a long rambling comment here a bit over a year ago. I expect the story with Tanta at Calculated Risk is similar.
One huge advantage to co-blogging is you start right off with less than half the workload for a whole blog. Housing Doom is something of a special case, as twist has always had quiet backup support from Admin and others you don’t normally notice around here.
As you start up your blogging project, don’t forget that you might like to share content with other bloggers who share your interests (including us). If you’ve got an interesting article, why not suggest to a fellow blogger that they consider it for their platform? Doom certainly considers full-up posts any day, and often accepts more informal pieces on “Op-Ed Friday.” The edited versions of long comments by Doomers regina, Old Mike, and others have subsequently appeared as Doom posts in the past.
It’s not necessary to write every week to make a big difference to a blogger either. Piggington’s and MISH’s both have contributors who submit only once every three or four months.
Anyway, all the best on your new blogging adventure, and whatever happens, don’t forget to drop by The Castle every once in a while