[patience]

And a lot of somebodies were dumb enough to buy into that crap.

Now, as a taxpayer, I'M supposed to PAY for this nonsense???

[dunewalker]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('patience', 'A')nd a lot of somebodies were dumb enough to buy into that crap.

[bodigami]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('seahorse', '(')...) Bush, Bernanke and the like scream fire, it behooves us to listen. If you smell smoke, run. I smell smoke.

[tmulk]

Seahorse, thank you for your insightful post. I'm wondering. What is happening to the amount that the borrowers cannot write off, or that amount that's left over between their loan and the sale of the property at auction? Are people going to be able to turn around and file bankruptcy on that amount? I see a whole lot of homes going up for auction around here, and I know from going to a few auctions, they are selling for way under what they are valued.

Good article, in my estimation, and hey, somebody has to warn folks.

[Eli]

Home loans are non-recourse the Bank holds the house as collateral.

Anyone you can no longer pay their mortgage can walk away and the bank eats the loss. Second mortgages are different and they can often be recourse loans where the lender can hound the debtor for payment.

Student loans are hard if not impossible to get out of paying.

[seahorse]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('tmulk', 'S')eahorse, thank you for your insightful post. I'm wondering. What is happening to the amount that the borrowers cannot write off, or that amount that's left over between their loan and the sale of the property at auction? Are people going to be able to turn around and file bankruptcy on that amount? I see a whole lot of homes going up for auction around here, and I know from going to a few auctions, they are selling for way under what they are valued. Good article, in my estimation, and hey, somebody has to warn folks.

[seahorse]

Jim Rogers says most US big banks are bankrupt.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]Jim Rogers calls most big US banks "bankrupt"
12 Dec 2008, 0100 hrs IST, REUTERS:
Rogers, one of the world's most prominent international investors, on Thursday called most of the largest US banks "totally bankrupt," and said government efforts to fix the sector are wrongheaded.

Speaking by teleconference at the Reuters Investment Outlook 2009 Summit, the co-founder with George Soros of the Quantum Fund, said the government's $700 billion rescue package for the sector doesn't address how banks manage their balance sheets, and instead rewards weaker lenders with new capital.

Dozens of banks have won infusions from the Troubled Asset Relief Program created in early October, just after the Sept 15 bankruptcy filing by Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. Some of the funds are being used for acquisitions.

"Without giving specific names, most of the significant American banks, the larger banks, are bankrupt, totally bankrupt," said Rogers, who is now a private investor.

"What is outrageous economically and is outrageous morally is that normally in times like this, people who are competent and who saw it coming and who kept their powder dry go and take over the assets from the incompetent," he said. "What's happening this time is that the government is taking the assets from the competent people and giving them to the incompetent people and saying, now you can compete with the competent people. It is horrible economics."

Rogers said he shorted shares of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac before the government nationalized the mortgage financiers in September, a week before Lehman failed.

Now a specialist in commodities, Rogers said he has used the recent rally in the U.S. dollar as an opportunity to exit dollar-denominated assets.

While not saying how long the U.S. economic recession will last, he said conditions could ultimately mirror those of Japan in the 1990s. "The way things are going, we're going to have a lost decade too, just like the 1970s," he said.

Goldman Sachs & Co analysts this week estimated that banks worldwide have suffered $850 billion of credit-related losses and writedowns since the global credit crisis began last year.

But Rogers said sound U.S. lenders remain. He said these could include banks that don't make or hold subprime mortgages, or which have high ratios of deposits to equity, "all the classic old ratios that most banks in America forgot or started ignoring because they were too old-fashioned."

[burn0gas]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ReverseEngineer', 'I') make the starting assumption the Dollar completely TANKS sometime around April. The USA drops off the map of international commerce at this time, as everyone else does actually. A month or two of complete panic before the Goobermint Nationalizes the entire food production and distribution networks. Agribusinesses will be required by the Goobermint to plant crops, nd the Goobermint will supply the gas for the tractors. Where will the gas come from? The Saudis. They are SOL if they don't get food imports from the US. They have NO CHOICE but to send tankers of oil this way so we can produce food. Besides, they can't SELL it to anyone at $30/barrell anyhow. Some bogus "loaning" arangement will be made here of the Oil for the food in return. Its survival, Terminator style. COME WITH ME IF YOU WANT TO LIVE!
Basically short term I see a Barter arrangement of Oil for Food between the US and the House of Saud. It will go off the grid of typical commerce, no Commodities market will function at all, the ships will all be commandeered and nationalized.
Simlar arrangements will be made between some Agricutural regions in China and with Iran, with Russia and the EU, etc. It won't be efficient and there will be shortages in many places, and weaker areas will start to experience starvation, but it won't be systemic in first world countries next year. Third world countries without their own food production apparatus will suffer almost immediate starvation scenarios in 2009 however.

[ReverseEngineer]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('burn0gas', 'R')evEng, any reason you didn't mention Canada? Turns out Canada has a good supply of resources and food producing capacity. Maybe a trade agreement isn't needed, the American Empire would just expand to include Canada (by force)... ? It would be a fairly cheap military operation as the land mass is connected.