Housing Doom

I don’t agree with everything Bernie Sanders (I-VT) espouses, but when he says that taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay for bailing out Wall Street, I’m ready to give him the floor:  [Thank you MB for the video]

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With all Bush’s faith-based initiatives, it’s too bad he didn’t send his top managers to Sunday School. They might have gotten the memo about Genesis 41:

"The king and his officials liked the plan Joseph gave them for storing the grain during the good years …"

Today’s NYT catches Doom’s favorite Chairperson being horribly disingenuous [1] about lost opportunities and the impact of The Splurge Mk II Mod 0’s new 150 percent deposit insurance hike.

When banks were flush, most of them paid nothing for a golden government guarantee. Bank failures were so rare that, for a decade, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation waived most of the premiums it normally would have collected to insure bank deposits.
…

“It’s unfortunate that we didn’t have more time [??!!] to build up the fund in the good times,” said Sheila C. Bair, the F.D.I.C. chairwoman, in an interview Wednesday. “It is what is, and we are dealing with the situation.”

Meanwhile, Bair has had to pile into the boost to stem growing depositor panic.[2] It is too bad she didn’t just pay attention to what her own people were telling her more than a year ago …

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So just how low can the value of a property drop?  On occasion, pretty darn low: [Hat tip to L and MR!]

SAGINAW, Mich. - With a winning bid of just $1.75, a Chicago woman has won an auction for an abandoned home in Saginaw. Joanne Smith, 30, recently was the top bidder for the home during an auction on eBay, The Saginaw News reported. Her bid was one of eight for the home.

"I am going to try and sell it," she told the newspaper. "I don’t have any plans to move to Saginaw."

Smith said she hasn’t seen the property or visited Saginaw, which has been hard-hit by economic troubles in recent years.

There’s a notice on the door of the home saying a foreclosure hearing is pending, the newspaper said. She must pay about $850 in back taxes and yard cleanup costs.

It doesn’t look like she got that good a deal to me.  Here’s what $1,400 will get you in Saginaw:

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