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Hahahaha that’s great. More proof that the RE bears are going to be vindicated once this is all over. Of course many of us will probably be unemployed and wandering the streets of downtown San Diego after this Frankenstein economy completely implodes. Perhaps we can take comfort in the fact that we knew housing prices weren’t supported by fundamentals as we shiver beneath our blankets on the corner of Broadway and 9th.

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Ugggh. These Piggington posts are getting so boring. The answer to this “dilemma” is RENT. RENT AS IF YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT, BECAUSE IN THIS CASE IT PROBABLY DOES.

Now how about we re-phrase this question and make it a little more fun. “Would you rather — purchase a home in Lancaster, CA or [fill in the blank]?”

I’ll start with a couple of examples:

Would you rather — purchase a home in Lancaster, CA or drill a hole through your hand with a 1″ paddle bit?

Would you rather — purchase a home in Lancaster, CA or begin an exciting new career as a Port-A-Pottie cleaning technician?

Okay everyone, now it’s your turn! Would you rather — purchase a home in Lancaster, CA or…

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…resisting this “buy now” sentiment in 2003 was a disaster for bitter renters like myself who read the bubble talk and acted on it too early at 50% of current prices.

This was no more of a “disaster” than failing to buy overpriced Cisco stock in 1998 when there were still 2 more years to go in that speculative bubble. To capitalize on a speculative bubble, you have to time two events correctly, both the entry and the exit. Many people can get one right, it’s rare when someone gets both right, and even rarer still are those who are able to time it for maximum gain.

A real disaster is being underwater to the tune of $100K+, as I’m sure many of your Vegas “homeowner” neighbors will soon be.

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Much of the foreign work is pretty crappy (their schools are *way* behind ours and less folks can afford to buy their own tools to become self taught).

Ever heard of IIT? Probably the best engineering school on Earth, and IIT grads are some of the world’s biggest movers and shakers. IIT applicants who can’t quite make the cut frequently end up at MIT and Stanford. There are excellent engineering schools all over the world, not just in the US.

The reason Americans aren’t applying to engineering or CS programs like they used to isn’t because they are lazy or stupid. It’s because those jobs are perceived as being difficult, not lucrative and lacking in prestige and security. Again, there is no shortage of American medical school applicants, and everyone knows how tough medical school is. The reality is slightly different of course, engineering can be very lucrative, especially for those with a lot of experience. The problem is mainly one of perception. Almost every day in the media, there’s a story about engineering jobs being outsourced to India or China. Americans (despite their reputation) aren’t stupid and when they read these stories over and over again, when they see their parents getting laid off, they won’t choose that profession.

Keep on telling yourself that some jobs are safe from outsourcing. Pathology and radiology work are being outsourced. Legal work, actuarial work, pretty much any professional job can be outsourced now. Doing laundry? Picking strawberries? Mowing the grass? You might be safe.

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Believe me, corporations do not want to go through the h1b visa process, but the other choice is to leave those jobs vacant because there’s nobody else who can fill it.

Raise the salary and Americans will be lined up around the block for those jobs. We have good engineering programs here in the US, but kids don’t choose engineering as much as they used to because the pay is viewed as being not that great, layoffs are very likely, and yes, it is very difficult. Of course medical school is also very tough and yet there is never any shortage of applicants. What’s the difference? That’s right, it’s the salary and also, doctor’s jobs are viewed as being more secure (although that will probably change someday too).

This same argument is used to support illegal immigrant labor. Americans are too stupid|ignorant|lazy to pick strawberries, so we have to hire illegals. No, Americans simply refuse to do difficult manual labor under hazardous conditions for very little pay. As for engineering, Americans refuse to endure 4 years of a grueling undergraduate program so that, if they’re lucky, they can get an entry-level engineering position and then get axed in the first layoff.

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Agreed, it’s not all Bush’s fault. However, the H1-B thing is not as simple as it seems. It is harder to get H1-Bs here now for a variety of reasons, the most important of which is that there are a lot more jobs for these guys in India and China now. It used to be that we only outsourced drudge work, but now companies are doing advanced R&D, software, board, and chip design all offshore in India and China. Someday maybe American engineers will be applying for Indian visas so that they can work in Bangalore 🙂

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Oh I don’t disagree with you, but I see people of all ages consuming too much, purchasing too much, and taking on too much debt. I don’t think you can pin it on one group in particular. Gen Xers used to try to blame all of their troubles on the boomers, which I always thought was stupid. We’re all to blame at some level. I’ll confess — I bought an overpriced home in San Diego and sold it when it was even MORE overpriced. So I did my part to run the bubble up…

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We are returning, slowly, as a nation to a place where education, diligence, integrity, hard work and thrift are respected values.

That must explain why “American Idol” and “America’s Next Top Model” are so popular.

I think its the Gen’X’ers who have drifted from bubble to bubble, living high on the hog that are going to get slammed the worst when the credit faucet is shut off. Those that have never known hard times.

Oh, what a rich vein we have to mine here. This is just patently ridiculous. Xers saw their parents suffer through gas rationing, stagflation, the great market crash of 1987 and the housing bust of the early 90s; we graduated college just in time for the horrible employment market of the early 90s, saw our 401ks evaporate during the tech bubble crash and now many of us are priced out of homes due to this ridiculous housing bubble. Yeah, we’re to blame for “living high on the hog”.

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Anyone who thinks that lower interest rates will trigger another wave of buying isn’t paying attention. The ONLY reason the boom continued past 2003 (some would argue even earlier) was the complete and utter abandonment of lending standards combined with the widespread adoption of toxic waste mortgage products. The market was flooded with “homebuyers” who didn’t actually have any money, artificially inflating demand. As soon as lending standards and down payments return, most of these people will be restricted entry to the market and demand will take a big hit…

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If it isn’t…my girlfriend and I are moving to Switzerland.

Is she Swiss or are you? If not, are one or both of you very wealthy? They don’t take kindly to auslanders there, unless they bring lots of money with them.

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I just finished reading this presentation by a Russian expat comparing the differences between the collapse of the Soviet Union and the (in his opinion, anyway) inevitable collapse of the US. For such a grim subject, it’s actually pretty entertaining reading and quite funny at times. He compares both systems, side by side — my favorite bit is the political comparison. The Soviet Union had the Communist Party. We have the Capitalist Party and The Other Capitalist Party. Not sure if I agree that we’re setting up for a complete collapse, but I do think we’re in for a few lean years before things start to improve…

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JRex, take it easy on Dougie, he had some good points.

One thing that I’ll add to this is that everyone assumes that if the official story has holes or omissions, the US government is completely to blame for the whole thing. I don’t follow that line of reasoning at all.

The freefall, symmetrical collapse of the towers is suspicious. The freefall, symmetrical collapse of WTC7 is very suspicious. If you follow the most likely scenario, which is that explosives were used in addition to the jets during the attack, there are lots of possibilities:

* Al Qaeda had planted bombs in the buildings to ensure that they were destroyed. There were many government offices in WTC7. They did try to blow these buildings up once before, after all (back in 1993).

* Silverstein or someone working for him had advance knowledge of the attacks and had his own buildings rigged to fall down. The insurance settlement from the attacks was enormous and the old WTC buildings were not as attractive to tenants as new buildings would be.

* A foreign country supplied the equipment and expertise to handle the demolition. Several countries would benefit from the US entering a long-term war against radical groups: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Lebanon, and Israel to name just a few would all like a little help getting rid of certain radical elements.

* During the investigation, the US may have uncovered embarassing information about corrupt officials in this or other countries and rather than having it come out they just decided to close the whole matter without serious investigation.

My only point is that this was the biggest crime in history, and it needs to be investigated seriously. I just find it amazing that, within hours of the attacks, we knew exactly who did it and why the buildings fell down. There were no serious questions asked, and if anyone asks them, they are branded a nutjob or conspiracy freak.

I now return us to our regularly scheduled ranting and raving!

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Step 1 — get rid of that car payment, by hook or by crook. That’s $7200/year there and in your tax bracket that means you probably had to earn at least $10000 worth of salary just to make those payments. Take half of that amount, $5K and buy a used Honda. It will last you for years and you will have just given yourself a $10K/year raise.

Step 2 — start a home-based business for either yourself or your wife. What do you guys enjoy doing? Try to figure out some way to earn a little extra income out of it. It doesn’t have to be a lot, because the real reason for this is that you can deduct a portion of your rent as office space for your business. Phone bills, internet, water, electricity, etc… you can write a portion of all of them off. Don’t do anything illegal of course, but if you can come up with a legitimate business for yourself then by all means do it.

Step 3 — Look into tax-free medical and educational savings accounts.

Step 4 — are you maxxing out your 401K? If not that’s the fastest way to both improve saving for retirement and lowering your tax burden in one fell swoop.

Step 4 — save your money and wait for the inevitable collapse.

Please note that I am not a professional financial advisor — although I play one on TV. Caveat emptor. Your mileage may vary. I’m not responsible for any bad advice, etc…

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juice, NW Arkansas is really nice. Very pretty country and more employment opportunities than you might expect. Eureka Springs is beautiful but there probably aren’t many jobs there. Most people live in Bentonville or Fayetteville.

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Yeah, the hiking and biking are pretty good in Arkansas too. But it gets really hot in the summers, cold in the winters and it rains a lot more than it does here. Here in SD those are year-round activities.

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