THERE'S NO REASON FOR MORTGAGES! IT'S ECONOMIC TYRANNY!

[originalpckelly]

"But how could I buy a house without a mortgage? I can't save up $200,000 from paycheck!"

SOMEONE OUT THERE CAN BUY YOUR HOUSE OUTRIGHT! Where do you think they got the money from dumbass? YOU!

WAKE THE FUCK UP PEOPLE!

"I can't buy my car outright! I could never save aside $15,000 from my paycheck!"

SOMEONE OUT THERE BOUGHT YOUR CAR OUTRIGHT! Where do you think they got the money from? YOU! Yes, you!

"I could never buy all the stuff I buy with a credit card outright!" Yet, someone else did.

You see what the investor class does? They take money from your paycheck, then use that to buy some kind of asset backed security, which is what's used to give you money for your loan to go buy the house, car, or credit card purchase you rely on every day.

One person may not directly do that, but they have money at investment companies that do it for them. The company will take in money from its gains in stocks, sometimes direct compensation from the company in the form of a dividend, sometimes in the gains in stock prices based upon underlying valuations of company, valuations improved by earnings and cost cutting (aka canning people or paying them less) and then selling those stocks to buy these asset backed securities.

There is a second consumer of asset backed securities, those who have retirements at management companies, in this way investment acts like a retirement insurance system, albeit one with little real security. However, it's not any better for these people to do it, because they're squeezing the current workforce instead of saving up their money in a bank to use for themselves. And the thing is, these people wouldn't have to worry about investing if they could save away their work.

Our money is being handed out by the government, to the very same people who take money out of our paychecks each month and leave us no way to get ahead, and own most of the things in our daily life.

We need to not only own ourselves, but essential things like homes, cars and the stuff we'd buy with a credit card.

This system is like slavery, but instead of owning you, they own your work and everything that you can buy with it.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. I pay cash for my cars,

paid mostly cash for my land, which I bought direct from the owner and who traded off the rest in work. Ok, so my car is nearly 20 years old, and the land isn't valued very high--but it is mine, free and clear.

[originalpckelly]

7. Do you pay property taxes?

Ask seniors who lose their house, even if they own it outright, by tax foreclosure after having worked their whole lives to pay it off. Why does that even happen? Why should someone have worked all that time to have a house simply yanked out from them.

It happens because the rich do not pay their fair share of property taxes, there should be progressive property taxation, based upon how much land/value of land in an exponential scale.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

9. Yep. Have homestead exemption in my state

My property tax this year was lower than last year--went down to $8.00 from $9.00. (That's eight dollars, you read it right.)

[originalpckelly]

10. Lucky you, it's not like that in most cities.

:P

Luck you? Sorry about that, it sounds like fuck you! :rofl:

[TheBigotBasher]

13. Land / Property Value taxes are not progressive.

As you said, Ask seniors who lose their house, even if they own it outright, by tax foreclosure after having worked their whole lives to pay it off. Why should a pensioner who bought a house for a reasonable price back before hyper inflation was encouraged in real estate be made to suffer higher taxes when they probably do not have a pension to match it?

The only fair tax is a progressive income tax.

[originalpckelly]

14. I have to agree, but my proposal is just a way to help them out with property taxes.

I agree, any form of taxation aside from income taxation is profoundly wrong, because breaking up taxes allows people to tax you more. We need a system where people directly pay for most of their government services, except the ones that can't be process on a transaction basis.

[madville]

20. They love to tax us, and tax us, and tax us

Property taxes
School taxes
Sales taxes
Federal Income taxes
Social Security taxes
Medicare taxes
State Income taxes
Phone taxes
Cable TV taxes
Satellite TV taxes
Electricity taxes
Water taxes
Gas taxes
Cell Phone taxes
Car Registration taxes
Cigarette taxes
Liquor taxes
Rental Car taxes
Hotel Taxes
Boat Registration taxes
Vehicle Inspection taxes


That's just off the top of my head, what did I forget?

It's amazing we have any money leftover

[originalpckelly]

22. And the problem is that it doesn't all go the actual people who do the work.

My idea is to directly pay government employees, where possible, for services. A lot of government service stuff like the DMV could be run by self-employed people.

[angstlessk]

17. my taxes are about 2,000 per year...

may be less, but we have not seen the homestead tax bill yet?

[angstlessk]

2. here's my story...i own my home outright...had to move to Detroit to do that

I could not afford my own home in VA...we had a $40,000 10 year balloon..we sold for 65,000....and moved to Detroit to pay cash for a home $5,000 and it is a great home...needs work, but shit, so did my home in VA!

on edit: we paid cash for a GMC truck..small one..2,800....a GREAT truck...owned it for about 3-4 years so far...no problems, bought new tires and had it tuned up after we sold our house....

on edit edit: those who purchased our home fixed it up and sold it for 120,000, like I said, I could not afford to purchase my own home!

[originalpckelly]

8. It's good to see you're smart...

but most people simply don't have enough money to do this. I think part of the reason this bubble got scary for the rich is that their hegemony over property investment started cracking.

[angstlessk]

18. we came very close to getting a loan on our home...we did all the paperwork..but did not submit it

to this day I thank GOD we did not submit it...would have given us a LOC...and we could have spent money like a drunken sailor!

[willing dwarf]

3. It's been this way in the capitalist system for a long long time

[grasswire]

4. it has been kind of surprising....

....to hear that no one can buy a car anymore (according to the wizards) because of the liquidity problem. There was a time when a person who needed a car would save and save and save and pay cash for it. Is that day gone forever?

[onethatcares]

5. only since the price of a car became what was the price of a house

mt/

[girl gone mad]

27. Which in part happened because of the easy credit.. n/t

[Johonny]

6. I've always bought my cars outright

But the cost of houses in LA... I might be able to buy one outright about the time I'm ready to retire. Seriously the price of housing here is impossibly high.

[Patchuli]

29. That is exactly why I can't ever come home to L.A.

:cry:

[slackmaster]

11. If I didn't have about 1/5 of my income going to taxes, I could have paid my house off years ago

:nuke:

[originalpckelly]

12. How much do your managers and investors tax you?

:shrug:

A lot worse than government.

I think we should have a simpler tax system. Do away with businesses, have every person have a business ID, a personal ID and a tax ID. Each ID would have it's own bank account. Personal accounts would be protected from business liability. Liability would be limited to funds in the business account. When funds are passed into the personal account from the business account, they would be taxed and deposited into a tax savings account. An insurance premium would be taken out of this account to pay for local/state/federal services that cannot be handled on a transactional basis.

All other services that are capable of being handled on a transactional basis would be paid for out of this account. Payment would go directly to the person performing the service.

If I went to the DMV, the entire amount of money required to pay someone to process my needs there would be taken out of my account, rather than charging a fee and then taxing someone, and have a legislature direct the funds to the DMV, the DMV would receive the entire amount of money it needs from the public.

The service providers (employees) would set a price for their labor, disclosed above their station. Just like any other market situation, if the price is too high, the DMV people would have to lower it or have new people come in. If the price is too low, no one will be able to make any money, and they'll leave. Each employee has a threshold at which they will leave a job and refuse to work for the amount paid for their labor. If there is too little supply, then that will cause the price to go higher. The classifieds would no longer be a place where people put job ads, but a continuous index of the price of labor at a government office. Instead of advertising a job, they would make an index of the workplace, if the price is too high, this will cause people to want to work there. If the price is too low, then people won't want to go work there.

By this way, we can transform most government services into a non-corporate free market. We all think employees should make a profit for providing their services to the people, even in government, so it's OK to privatize it.

The problem with the current system, and the DMV in most places is THE EXAMPLE of this, is a supply/demand imbalance caused by a state legislature planning the amount of money allocated to the DMV. The employees are being worked too hard, and aren't making as much as they would in a free market situation.

[slackmaster]

61. No, I paid about 13,000 in taxes (not including sales tax) and about $6,000 in interest on all debts

For 2008.

[TheBigotBasher]

15. People became addicted to an

element of hyper inflation in the economy. No one saw it as hyper inflation as they were sold on property prices being equity. That equity was used to buy larger and larger cars, hdtvs, etc etc.

The fact that property prices were removed from inflation indexes in the US and UK meant that wages did not go up in line but it did not matter, people felt wealthier.

Lower interest rates meant houses could be sold on how much it cost a month. Forget the big price ticket. That further encouraged the hyper inflation, to such a point people had to lie to get a mortgage, otherwise the income multiples did not work.

Business profited. Banks profited. Government profited. God knows how many home refurbishing / moving programmes it generated on tv, both in the UK and US.

The real reason banks are being rescued - how much would a house cost if there was no mortgage market?

This crash shows that as far as the emperor economies go - the emperor has no clothes.

[OnionPatch]

16. And the worst part is, you really have to pay for it twice or more.

Just add up your payments for 30 years. I did. It comes out to more than twice the price of our home. So it turns out we buy a home for ourselves plus another one for the bank. (Or at least the cost of one.) I don't care what they call it, I call it 120% interest and it's wrong. It's just another way they suck the life out of us all.

[Peace_Sells]

19. car outright

My parents bought a car outright earlier this week but it was a used one with a dent in it. Took most their money to do it.

[Kitty Herder]

21. Hear, hear!

Sometimes the simplest truths are the hardest for most people to understand.

[originalpckelly]

24. Especially these days with asset back securities...

it used to be that banks used to make loans on deposits alone, but now they resell them to fannie and freddie, who then resell them to private investors. Unlike old fashioned bank loans made on deposits, these do not actually increase the money supply out of nowhere. One has to ask the question why a bank should be able to have that power in the first place.

In the old system, it was still unfair, because banks were loaning out our deposits. Now most people never had a clue about that, except when everyone wanted their money all at once, and the whole scheme came crumbling down.

It's all fucked up.

[Swede]

23. If people where taught finances in school,things would be better.

How to start saving at a young age,the power of compound interest,etc. I learned all that after digging a hole,now I am slowly getting out.

[originalpckelly]

25. Very true, but even the people who can add have to get a mortgage...

or buy a car with a loan.

[Swede]

28. Mortgage is a kind of forced saving.

You are getting a loan for something that appreciates in value,while a car loan is for something that depreciates.

[originalpckelly]

39. Except when the value of the asset decreases,

as it has for so many people.

[shireen]

31. i'm in the same situation

I made a lot of financial mistakes when i was younger, dug myself into a deep debt hole too.

Now that i'm older, i don't have the same kinds of savings and home equity as others my age ( i'm still renting). And it's still living paycheck to paycheck.

One of my co-workers is a really sharp kid, out of college for a year and getting ready to go to grad school in the fall. I guess he's old enough to be my kid, and sort of brings out my inner mother hen instincts. We were talking about money the other day, and i told him not to close his credit card accounts because it would affect his FICO score. He had never heard of a FICO score. I felt such a chill; if i had known about finances at his age, maybe i would not have screwed up so bad. Anyhow, i decided i was not going to let the kid make the same mistakes i did so i sent him some basic info and links about finances, and bought him a copy of Suze Orman's Money Book for the Young, Fabulous, and Broke. I told him to share i with his buddies.

If you know a kid who needs help getting on the right track financially, please do something to help ... the financial decisions they make at a young age will affect the rest of their lives.

[Fire1]

62. shireen, I'm willing to bet we all screwed up when we were

younger, one way or another. Even when I got older I refinanced TWICE back in the eighties, but was fortunate enough to find a buyer and I broke even. I've passed those expensive lessons on to my son. I had to learn the hard way because my parent's answer to everything was save, save, save. It worked for them and now I realize why. Because they always lived below their means. Try telling that to a 25 year old with all kinds of 'safety nets.' I'm glad my son and his friends have been able to witness this crisis first hand and hopefully won't make our mistakes.

[Fire1]

63. edit:: sorry, I meant the 'nineties.'

[shireen]

66. thanks Fire1

most of my friends seem to be on solid financial footing, or at least appear that way. Some were smart about money from the start, some had parents who helped them financially, and most of them have two-income households. At 44 years old and single, i am financially way behind them all. It's frustrating.

You're right about young people witnessing this crisis and learning from it. Ravi Batra once talked about it on Thom Hartmann's show. We go through these cycles every 60 years or so. The generation coming out of a depression tend to be careful with money. The next one gets a bit more free-spending. The following one shops till they drop. That's what we're witnessing now. As long as there are market forces driven by greed, i think we're doomed to repeat the cycle over and over and over ...

[sendero]

26. I decided in 1982...

.. that I was not interested in paying rich people "interest" any more.

I did take out one more mortgage in 1985, paid it off in 1991 and have not borrowed a dime since.

Debt SUCKS. It makes you a SLAVE. You own NOTHING that you are still making payments on.

America is about to learn the value of borrowing only for the essentials, i.e. housing.

[lonestarnot]

30. And then there is the forced insurance on the shit you borrowed to buy.

:thumbsdown:

[No.23]

32. So true. I just like to say it another way:

using other people's money (AKA credit) to acquire your goods and services, places you in other people's servitude.

Thanks for saying what needs to be said.

[Usrename]

33. We need to cast out the userers.

I've heard that before somewhere...

[HamdenRice]

34. Take a deep breath, calm down and rent the movie, "It's a Wonderful Life"

It's probably the best primer for laymen about how a "good" banking system works. The money for a mortgage doesn't come from evil bankers. It comes from other families who are saving, families in different parts of the family life cycle. So elderly people with paid off houses who are putting money away in the bank, and very young families saving for a down payment who are also putting money away, are basically lending to mid-young families who are ready to buy a home. The banker is just a middle man.

IAWL shows how local savings banks used to work, and that's the system we need to return to.

In recent years, no one was saving. So who was depositing money in the middle man banks?

Frankly, it was Chinese peasants (who despite being dirt "poor" in lifestyle save a thousand or more dollars a year, and there are 800 million of them), and businesses across Asia.

They were the purchaser ultimately of much of the mortgage debt.

[originalpckelly]

37. Bullshit, that's how a credit union works, not a fractional reserve bank.

A fractional reserve bank makes the money out of thin air, they are lending out deposits, but the deposits are still on call, and so long as there are reserves, no one knows any difference. The money supply in the economy is increased by this method "the multiplier effect." Only when people go to a bank and ask for their deposits in statistically significant numbers, too large for the reserve to handle, does the whole system come crashing down.

Before the FDIC, I would have been out my money had the bank collapsed. The problem with the FDIC is that even it cannot handle the problem. The government does have a limit to how much it can borrow at .25%, and that limit is now being met. The FDIC has a very small amount (now less than 1%) of money on hand to cover its liabilities of $4 trillion. Even if that is covered, in a really statistically significant number of bank failures, they won't be able to pay people for any money they have in an account over the current insured amount of $250,000 because the government would have a problem with borrowing so much money at such low rates, even for the insured amount. If rates rise, however, the mortgages that are pegged to them will have a higher risk of default as mortgage payments go up. So we're left with a situation where the money supply would collapse or the Fed would have to buy up the government securities backing sold to pay for the FDIC's loan. So we'll either have deflation or inflation.

The slight upturn we're having is a very temporary one, caused by all the shit that's going out there to prop up the economy.

[HamdenRice]

40. How did I guess before this post that I was dealing with a Ron Paul anti Fed fanatic?

Once someone starts ranting about fractional banking, I know I'm in UFO territory.

[originalpckelly]

41. Yeah, and I should be cool with people lending my money out to others for their profit?

History is the best argument against fractional reserve banking.

So should I just ignore the historical examples of bank failures? Shouldn't we try to come up with better ideas?

If anything, banks should be licensed to create money out of thin air, without basing it upon deposits. Deposits would be fully callable, and yet the banks could still make money, both off of interest on the loans and in the sense of actually making new money (in the money supply sense of the word.)

If people freak and pull all their money out of a bank, the bank wouldn't fail, as the reserve could fully cover the amount.

Banks already make money, so why not just cut to the chase and give them the power to do it without loaning out deposits while keeping the deposits on call?

I'd still have a problem with that system, but it would work out better for everyone. Banks can still make money off of loans, just as much as before, and the people can withdraw all of their money if they lose confidence in a bank.

No FDIC needed, no house of card needed.

[originalpckelly]

42. I hope you don't just ignore the post and read it...

I actually put forward a system of doing things that would completely eliminate fractional reserve banking, but cost a bank nothing, in fact it would help profits, as interbank lending wouldn't be necessary, and yet they could still have the same interest rates on their loans.

If a bank starts acting improperly, like lending out too much money in an irresponsible way, the license to print money would be taken away.

[HamdenRice]

44. And I have an idea for a car completely powered by hundreds of hamsters on treadmills

Oh wait.

There's a reason neither "my" idea, nor your idea, are taken seriously.

[originalpckelly]

46. Instead of a BS post, why don't you refute what I'm saying?

You're trying to write me off, but you know you cannot refute what I'm saying. It's the truth.

You have absolutely no credibility with the people of DU when you insinuate and insult rather than reply in a meaningful way.

[originalpckelly]

51. Come on you little banker troll, let's have it.

Explain to me why my system wouldn't work? Banks already have the power to make money, and do, why not?

They could still make money off of my plan, and the spread would be much better because interbank lending would be unnecessary.

It's a win/win scenario. Banks get to make loans, people get to withdraw their all of their money, banks don't have to worry about going under, and in the long run it works out. Banks already make money, so they can handle the authority.

[earth mom]

43. Considering you were a HUGE bailout cheerleader last fall, I'm not surprised at your posts.

Guess you're still "thanking god the bailout passed". :eyes: :puke:

Here, educate yourself on the massive con game and rip off the god damn feds, the god damn bankers and the god damn Wall Street bastards has been playing on us all for decades.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7065205277695921912&hl=en

All of these fucking financial scammers deserve to be shit canned to the trash which is ALL are-nothing but trash! :grr:

[HamdenRice]

45. Another Ron Paul/vast Jewish conspiracy fanatic

I'm supposed to take this seriously, why?

[originalpckelly]

47. WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?

When the fuck did I say shit about anyone being Jewish? Are you fucking high?

You said "Another Ron Paul/vast Jewish conspiracy fanatic" and I didn't say a single thing about anyone being Jewish.

You can't call someone an anti-Semite if they don't even say anything about Jews!

No, I won't wussy out, I'd rather debate you.

[HamdenRice]

53. When Zeitgeist says "international bankers" Rothschilde & Morgenthau took control of the world...

just what do you think they are getting at?

And that FDR "seizing the gold" -- did you know that Roosevelt was originally Rosenfeld?!?!

The New Deal was theft! Theft I tell you!

:sarcasm:

Oh yeah, we could solve all the problems of the economy by going back to the gold standard. All the factories, all the products, all the electronics, all the farms, all the food, all the skill, all the technology, all science -- all that should be equated to a few tons of heavy yellow metal.

If we went back to the gold standard who do you think would be better off and who do you think would be worse off? If you think international bankers control the world now, what do you think the world would be like if all value could be seized by owning the gold?

[originalpckelly]

54. I think the gold bugs are really a bunch of idiots.

I'm not opposed to fiat currency, not one bit at all. And you won't see me complain directly about it. Money is money, if people think it's of value, then it's just as good as gold.

If you paid any attention to my proposal, you would see that it's completely reliant on fiat currency. In fact, I would make all currency electronic, with paper bills manipulating electronic money.

If there is to be any set value for money, then it should be tied to energy, not something so arbitrary as gold.

[earth mom]

67. You obviously have NOT watch the entire film. Enlighten & educate yourself before

you continue with the poo flinging that has no basis in what the film is even about.

[HamdenRice]

68. Why not answer the question? When someone says "international bankers" Rothschilde and Morganthau

are the source of our problems, what do you think they are getting at?

And I'm not an anti-conspiracy theorist. I've spent lots of time looking into 9/11 and the assassinations. But there are plausible conspiracies and there are nut cases.

Zeitgeist is for anti-Semitic nutcases.

And I'm not even Jewish, and I can see that.

[earth mom]

70. Again, you did not watch the entire movie or you would not bring up all this crap.

I am agnostic, I don't give a damn about organized religion except to say that all of them are destructive and do not help people the way they pretend to.

I just watched the entire film again to try and figure out what you are talking about and I did not come to the same knee jerk conclusion you did.

But rather, I found excellent solutions to the problems that plague our society and planet.

There is a better way to live in this world than the way we are living and it's time to bring the ideas on how to do that into action.

Which is why I will continue to recommend the film.

[earth mom]

50. WTF?! Who said a fucking thing about Jewish people or Ron Paul?!

You are delirious or high! :wtf:

Or just trying to deflect the TRUTH about the bullshit you posted last fall around here.

[originalpckelly]

52. I really have no clue where the claims of anti-Semitism came from.

That's really pushing it in my book.

[earth mom]

55. Talk like that really muddies the waters and shuts discussion down cold doesn't it?

Not to mention it is insulting and outrageous as hell. :grr:

All I'm trying to say is that we need to stop the exploitation and rip off of the masses by those in power with the means to do it.

I don't care if Mickey Mouse or Winnie the Pooh is responsible for this mess. It has got to stop!!!

[originalpckelly]

57. It's easier to write someone of as an anti-Semite...

than to actually debate them.

I didn't look at your link, perhaps that's the reason the poster said something. But I do know that lumping me together with you, after only reading a tiny bit of what you and I wrote was wrong.

I don't know if we agree on anything, but such a broad brush statement of such a vile nature is very wrong.

[earth mom]

60. I'm just as surprised by the broad brush...

But I will say in my defense that I'm not a gold bug since I don't believe in the notion of investments, Wall Street and all that crap. I think it's all nothing more than a Vegas like scam that only serves to exploit people who have nothing. I posted that video because it explains how Wall Street and banking is based on nothing more than thin air. That's what that movie says to me.


That being said, I agree that we probably don't agree on everything...

But perhaps we can agree that this country can not continue to go on like it is with the continued exploitation of the majority by a minority of the rich and powerful.

I highly doubt that the founding fathers envisioned the people of this country living in this kind of class war when they drafted the Constitution over 200 + years ago.

[Skidmore]

35. The absurdity of how humans get and defend territory is

just mindboggling since, as rational beings, we can are able to be aware of both need and excess.

[Aragorn43]

36. Car Dealers Take Out Loans

for their inventory. I worked in this field for a while and did risk rate evaluations on dealerships seeking to purchase inventory. How the process generally works is as follows. The dealership works out an arrangement with a manufacturer and a bank the manufacturer deals with. When the dealership want inventory they request cars, lets say 10 cars, from the manufacturer. The dealership also submits a request to the bank for the money to pay the manufacture for the 10 cars. The bank approves the request, sends the money to the manufacturer who then sends the vehicles to the dealership. The dealership is required to make payments with interest at regular intervals (curtailment) until the vehicles are paid off. Any car sold while still being financed must be paid in total within a specified period of time after the sale. Credit is the basis for all businesses. Very few companies by inventory or materials out right.

[originalpckelly]

38. I know, that's the problem.

I'm talking about individual credit because it's the problem for normal people, but in business, this is a problem too.

We need to save first, then spend. Even if we don't eliminate the corporate model, eliminating the idea of credit altogether is the safeguard against another bubble.

Credit allows a decoupling of actual results in the economy from valuations. It allows a build up of corrective feedback, which is then released all at once.

Only if we have a system where feedback is continually correcting supply/demand can we have a shallow bubble economy.

[Aragorn43]

72. Credit got me in trouble

several years back. Since I got everything caught up I canceled all but one of the cards and it is only for emergencies. I pay cash or use a debit card from everything. Burnt hand learns the fastest I guess. However, getting society as a whole to buy in to your concept will be a whole different matter. People are basically lazy and want immediate gratification (present company excepted)and they like going down to Best Buys and getting that large screen TV no matter how it effects them down the line.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

48. Indentured servitude

Lots more gadgets and the veneer has been gussied up a bit but all in all it's still feudalism.

[earth mom]

49. Al Gore wanted to do away with Income Tax and have a Carbon Tax instead.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MPWVJhD5Vo

I think it's an excellent idea but we've heard nothing from it from Obama. And I doubt we will because Obama is all about Status Quo. Edwards warned us over a year ago about what we would be facing right now and that nothing would change in this country. But few would listen and it's why Edwards was kicked to the curb and silenced by the powers that be.


And one more thing: If we all just decided to stop paying our taxes we could stop this bullshit from Wall Street, Congress and the Obama administration COLD.

In a NANO SECOND.

[EmilyAnne]

56. Actually, even the very wealthy have mortgages. Just really big, fat mortgages on really big,

fat homes.

[originalpckelly]

58. Right now, yes, but not normally.

We've seen a massive expansion of credit, and that includes the rich. These people are not billionaires, they're millionaires. They could live in a normal house and be free and clear, but they wanted something gaudy so they went and got a loan for a big house.

The credit habits of America have deteriorated, but in normal times, it's still wrong to do credit, as it always opens the door to this kind of a bubble.

[EmilyAnne]

59. When my father-in-law died suddenly, he left a big confusing mess of investments and accounts.

None of them were in my mother-in-law's name and it took months to start getting any money.
She immediately wanted to consolidate all of the cash and pay off her house.

Unfortunately, she met with a financial adviser who told her that the absolute worst thing she could do would be to pay off her mortgage. A mortgage, he claimed, was the best kind of debt to be in.
It is always far better to put excess cash into other kinds of investments.
Like AIG, for example, where 20% of her money was invested. That's wiped out.

She has lost 70% of everything that her husband painstakingly invested, moved around, obsessed about, refused to spend on a cinema ticket.
In my humble opinion, comparing to my parents situation, my in laws are rich.

I know what you mean about the real rich. The billionaires.
I still think its so strange that there is some kind of "common knowledge" that says its not a good idea to pay of your mortgage.
My parents, both early 60s and unable to retire now due to the wipe out of a pitiful 401K, went to some stupid financial seminar looking for answers.
One of the things the speaker had to emphasize is that mortgage debt is good debt. I suppose, compared to credit card debt, it is.
Still, its pretty hilarious considering that the kind of people who could just drop a bunch of cash to pay off a mortgage were probably not attending that seminar.

[Fire1]

64. Yeah, I remember back in the nineties the meme from

so-called experts was essentially your house should be viewed as a 'piggy bank.' Biggest piece of bullshit but imagine how many of us fell for that crap. Many of whom have since lost their homes. I learned my lesson and will never refinance again!

[LWolf]

65. So what, exactly,

is your plan to turn this system upside down and allow people to be able to own homes and cars without massive debt?

I'm curious, since this was just a topic of conversation at a family gathering last night.

We didn't have any solutions, just were talking about the need to not participate in the credit economy.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

69. What In The World Are You Even Talking About? There's Little Rationality That I Could Find In The

OP. Most of your declarations make no sense at all.

:crazy: :crazy: :crazy:

[Raskolnik]

71. How do you propose people buy a house?

I see a lot of ALL CAPS SHOUTING in your OP, but nothing resembling an alternative to using a mortgage to purchase a house.

Care to share?


edit typo

[mainer]

73. So people should rent and suffer the economic tyranny of landlords?

Very few people can pay cash for a house.

[wroberts189]

74. I wish I could borrow money from the fed at 1% like banks do. nt