In 2006, I was certain that the housing market would crash, spectacularly. So, I did what I thought was the prudent thing: I sold my house (I had taken a lower paying job), pocketed my gains, and decided that I would buy a house again in a few years when their prices fell to sane levels, as I was sure they would.
I invested my money in a money market account. Which is now earning a measly 2.75 percent interest — thanks to the Fed’s interest rate cuts (all done to save Wall Street, not Main Street).
And now the U.S. government is bailing out the speculative lenders and borrowers who created this mess — all in an attempt to shore up the “housing market,” as if bolstering a bubble was the responsibility of taxpayers. As if keeping people in houses they cannot afford is my responsibility as a taxpayer.
So, while I predicted this spectacular crash, I was the greater fool than those who bought ARMs and speculated that housing prices would keep rising and rising forever. I was the greater fool because I failed to realize that politicians would, OF COURSE, intervene — too late and in the worst way — in an attempt to mitigate the spectacular implosion of the bubble. I don’t know what effect that the government’s intervention will do for housing prices, but I’m sure of one thing: taxpayers like myself are now financing the speculators who fed this bubble. And I’m outraged.
