Housing Doom Housing Bubble Blog

A big thank you to VERSUS, who give us a chance to laugh at the "Doom" and sent us this video:

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Ah, the empty calories that pass for breakfast anymore:

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The market is down, so what happened?  Here’s a lesson from a pig:  [No lipstick- sorry Tanta]

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I loved this from Andy Serwer, managing editor of Fortune: [Hat tip L!]

MEMO TO WALL STREET: SHUT UP! I really am sick and tired of all this sanctimonious b***ing on Wall Street. Puh-leeze! All these people saying that Bernanke isn’t tough enough, or aggressive enough and that he needs to move FAST to stave off bad times. You know what Wall Street? YOU screwed up! You guys got yourself in the soup. So swim! Bernanke is not in the business of bailing out a bunch of pinstriped lollipop suckers. His job is to watch over the entire economy, and yes I know you won’t like to hear this, but that includes such locales as Des Moines, Peoria, Oshkosh, and Apalachicola. That’s right. Places you make fun of! If you all would say ‘You know what, it’s our bad. We messed up. We need help. We know we need to share in the pain - and the government can share in the upside (a la Chrysler back in the day), but some moolah just to shore things up would be nice. How can we make this happen?’ That would be honest and okay. But you’re not doing that. You are whining and not ‘fessing up! And it drives me nuts! So hush up and go home to Greenwich tonight and drink a highball and think about taking some responsibility and stop pointing fingers. Do I make myself clear?!?

I would only like to add a couple of comments:

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I’ve thought for awhile now that  the comedy skit "George Parr on Subprime" was some of the best "reporting" I’ve seen on the credit market.  Now after reading any number of annoying  "Economic recovery in 2008" articles from the "experts", I’m glad to have found another nugget of wisdom- humor writer Dave Barry sums up 2007: [Hat tip to Doom’s sys admin]

On the economic front, the dollar continued to lose value against all major foreign currencies and most brands of bathroom tissue. There was a major collapse in the credit market, caused by the fact that for most of this decade, every other radio commercial has been some guy selling mortgages to people who clearly should not have mortgages. (”No credit? No job? On death row? No problem!”) It got so bad that you couldn’t let your dog run loose, because it would come home with a mortgage. The subprime-mortgage fiasco resulted in huge stock-market losses, and the executives responsible, under the harsh rules of Wall Street justice, were forced to accept lucrative retirement packages.

So they did OK. But for the rest of us, it was another bad year.

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Darn- the article was actually satire, but I liked the idea, anyway:

Just in time for the holiday season, the Parker Brothers company is announcing a major revamping of its flagship board game in a new release it is calling, “Subprime Monopoly”.

Whereas players in the original Monopoly earned money to buy and develop properties at fixed prices, in “Subprime Monopoly” players borrow obscene amounts of money to purchase overvalued properties with skyrocketing prices and borrowing costs.

“With the advent of the ongoing housing bubble and mortgage loan crisis, we thought the time was right to make some major changes to the rules of the game”, says Parker Bros. creative director Mitt Mason. Originally invented by Charles Darrow in 1935, Monopoly first became a huge hit in the middle of the great depression, and has since been played by over 750 million people. “It seemed somehow fitting that we change the rules now that property prices are falling nationwide, given that the game was first popularized the last time this happened in the 1930’s. And the way Americans buy and sell property has changed a lot since then. Who in America buys anything these days with money they have actually saved up, and who today buys property at a stable and reasonable price?”

"Subprime Monopoly" wasn’t the first name the creator had in mind:

“There’s nothing that says 21st century America quite like a night of living beyond one’s means, destroying your credit, and happily following an investment ponzi scheme that is doomed to failure”. Indeed, Mason planned to call the game, “Housing Doom Monopoly”, but changed the name at the last minute in order to not be confused with a popular U.S. housing bubble commentary website.

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I know this one has been kicking around the blogosphere for a couple of weeks, but I dig it out every couple of days and have a good laugh.

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It’s Op-Ed Friday, and for those who are tired of realtors sugar-coating their listings, you’ll appreciate the candidness of Michael Baden, who created the following virtual tour to market this little gem:

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I got a laugh out of the following ad from L’s daily spam collection:

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