[quote=temeculaguy]As an OG of this site I have dropped in every few months only to close the window in disgust to see what my once loved forum has become. I have different motives today than I did back then. I bought eleven years ago after the biggest bubble in my lifetime and I will always credit this place with how I managed to time the market. Now I’m curious as my children are now adults, college grads and in the workforce, I want to give them advice that is timely as far as purchases or renting goes.
But alas, the site is awash in liberal drivel, socialism, politics and trump derangement syndrome. What the hell happened? This place was the “red pill” to the main stream media circa 2006 and look at it now. To quote Bunk from the Wire “Makes me sick how far we done fell” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wmgghlEagA
So when does piggington become a forum for the economic punk rockers again, those who would never listen to the main stream media and want to beat the sheeple and the system. Or will it remain a place democratic socialists go when the Rachael Maddow show has a guest host?
I’ve also seen the treatment of some old friends by the rabid progressives and have been tempted to intervene, but wisdom prevents me from doing so because they need to age out of it. As the old saying goes, “if you are not a socialist by 20 you have no heart but if you are not a conservative by 40 you have no brain.” They need to age out of it and I will not convince them otherwise, however at some point someone has to declare “adult swim, everyone under 18, out of the pool.” Plus I hate politics and despise both sides and never put that much faith in another human.
BTW interesting history about that socialist quote, https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/02/24/heart-head/
there’s debate about who said it and what they said, but any of those credited and any of the versions still make the point.[/quote]
What made this site and others like it during the housing bubble fascinating to read was that it was not simply about economics and housing prices. It was really about group thinking and how so many people will behave irrationally when they are surrounded by the safety of others doing the same thing.
It is so ironic that temeculaguy has now revealed himself to be a stereotypical Trump follower. Trump and his followers are driven by the selfish but irrational psychology that created the real estate bubble.
People put blind faith in the idea that real estate would make them wealthy and that the price would always go up despite obvious evidence to the contrary. This site presented such contrary evidence clearly but the zealots refused to accept it. Those in the club that believed real estate would always go up were validated by the fact that it did go up in an unexpected way for many years. The cultists would point to the extreme price gains as “proof” that this time things are different and the old established rules of economics were wrong all along. It was a scam that worked for so many people that they refused to see it as a scam.
Trump’s victory in 2016 was a similar validation for people that believed in the scam that he was promoting. The polls said he would lose, but he won. His followers took that as proof that the mainstream institutions were no longer legitimate. It emboldened them to believe that they could challenge anything they did not like, regardless of actual evidence.
During the bubble, the charts and data Rich gave us represented the truth that so many refused to believe. Now in the phenomenon that is Trump the fact checkers that point out his constant and brazen lying provide the same service that this site did over a decade ago ago. But as before there are those that passionately refuse to believe plain evidence. It is more fun to believe the lie and bully the “naysayers” that speak the truth.
