S and P credit rating.! Are you kidding me.

Did the bickering over how to fleece Americans out of their hard earned money just lower our credit rating and now we have to pay even MORE interest on the debt?
Wow, so the politicians are not only scamming us and NOT concerned about us but they are actually hurting us!

I cannot wait to see what is ahead in America's future. Here is what everyone is either missing or not saying. Unemployment is really around 13-14% and growing.

Why?

The ATM, the auto checkout at the grocery store, the auto car wash, the robotics welder at the auto manufacturing,the automated answering service at your insurance company, the automated website for planning your vacation....well you get the idea. Technology is growing exponentially. All of these things are great but they all used to be jobs.

Now the other problem. Because of high taxes and low raises, the wife went out and started working. Nothing wrong with that except that when just the men worked there were basically half as many people looking for jobs.

So MORE people are working AND there are less positions available. The ATM doesn't pay taxes.The Travelocity.com website, the welding machine at the auto plant, none of them pay taxes.

More technology less taxes coming in. government raises taxes, more people go to work to sustain their standard of living. Which by the way, is acerbated by monthly rotating debt.

Cable bills, cell phone (I know it is no longer cellular but who calls them mobile communication devices?) and Internet services,even Insurance. My dad didn't have car insurance. We spend a lot more in monthly rotating debt. Our parents had one credit card. The greatest generation remembered the depression. We got ourselves collectively in this mess because we forgot.

The solution is to memorize anything Suzie Orman tells you and expect to live with less. I myself live in a very moderate home in the city and have a relatively safe income stream and after investing in my business still got into a financial bind. We need to collectively slow down our expectations. Live within our means plus some since we are currently upside down. So not only do we need to break even we need to put a little toward our national and personal debt.

The government needs to...gulp....tax more ( It kills me to even think that since I believe taxes are currently sooo wasteful) and cut ALL services. EVERYONE, even the really good lobbyist friends programs by 10% or more. Smaller government and larger income. By the way all of the larger income must be mandated for the debt. Period! No war, no emergency, nothing should break the mandated money for the debt. Because if there is a loophole. The lawyers in congress will find it.

Rotating debt. The secret family disease.

You know, our parents saved for a few months to get the $100.00 or so to buy a huge wodden console television for the living room. We sat around the TV at night and watched Roy Rodgers
and cigeratte commercials all for just the cost of the electricity.

somehow, someone who is really smart convinced us to PAY for what comes across the airwaves to us and we still have commercials we still sit in front of the TV and yet we pay for the TV AND the monthly cable bill. The cell phone bill. The internet access.The portable wifi, the downloaded app on the phone, Insurance for job loss equity in your home loss, life and health and everything inbetween. We don't save up and buy cars we make payments on cars that are built to last right up until that last payment. But not much further. We pay for homes that are falling apart and declining in value simultaneously.

Basically our parents paid bills on things that ended. Television to cars to homes that appreciated. The greatest generation had it all. As Hugh Hefner stated that generation won the big one. made a fortune. had the pill but didn't have aids. Our generation has debt for things are parents could not imagine at our age. cell phones, cable, insurance everything cost more and never ends. Our one main asset, our homes is now a diminishing liability instead of an asset. Wow what a difference a few decades makes HUH!

Well I did read the paper on my tablet this morning in the park for free so that was good for the environment and saved me from paying for a paper. Did it ever occur to the newspaper people that with each and every page of faces on the obituary section they have lost that many readers that day. With each page of the birth section are kids who will never purchase a hard copy newspaper or magazine in their lives?

Well it is not too bad

We are in soooo much trouble if housing is the answer.

In the next decade kids will want their parents to help them pay for college. That was often done by home equity loans. But with underwater homes and skyrocketing tuition it looks like the average joe the plumbers son will not be going to college but will be learning how to snake a toilet instead. Herein lies a huge problem. The days of everyone getting some college educations are over. Just when we need to to be competitive. Realty Trac has statistics that show that we are worse off than the depression already. (homes have dropped more in value but 33% unemployment without unemployment insurance is a lot different than 9.2% unemployment. Besides we have FDIC insurance as well)But when you are talking housing...it is bad. The depression was relatively saved by war production while we are not likely to enter into any war soon. So we have that going for us. The other problem is that we have about a million new homes ready to go into foreclosure not yet on the books. The average American will likely not think of a home as an investment anymore. The average Gen Y kid certainly will not after watching his parents home lose value for 15 years. The economy needs homes to be purchased to help build and grow the economy and it is now more likely that the housing market will decline rather than grow for the next decade or more. Is that sky is falling talk? I am a glass is half full guy I have to tell you but every indication is that people will start renting and leasing and few people will be able to purchase homes. When I hear the talking heads (MSNBC yesterday) say that housing needs to return to normal to spur the economy my blood runs cold. As a broker on the street I have to tell you. We don't think it's coming back.
At RED Diamond Realty we have homes for rent and lease to own properties and we are very busy. We don't work with buyers that are less than six figure incomes usually so these are top professionals who cannot get loans not just laid off factory workers.

Obama borrowed money for this!?

recently the city of Cleveland has been closing fire stations. as a result we were moved to a different station and have a completely different district. While on a run we had a call and it was for a dumpster fire in an area relatively far East because the next station over was closed.

Now, I have always been relatively supportive of Obama. I mean after all don't walk in while someone is cleaning up a mess and tell them how bad a job they are doing. As we went on this particular run we turned into a huge new beautiful development. for block after block as far as you could see were new homes, new recreation centers, landscaping trees and streets, new sidewalks and water parks. computer centers and day care. Was this some mysterious new development in Cleveland I wondered. I mean after all I do sell real estate and I live in the city so I should have known about a huge new miltio million dollar project. The other thing I noticed in this beehive of activity and contractors working feverishly everywhere was that there seemed to be no limit to cost. Iron fences, Water parks, the best construction and design. What fool, I wondered, would blow this kind of money on housing when the city has over 10,000 vacant homes.

It turns out I am the fool. It was and is, my money. Your money, Chinese money. Borrowed money. We are building new homes for the poor new child care centers and new libraries and transit station all for the poor. With money we don't have!

While the debt debate continues on the all of the cable stations and we owe close to $60,000 for every man woman and child in America we are building new homes for the poor. I suppose so that they never want to leave subsidized housing and compete with us working folks and further
exacerbating unemployment.

Our leaders, both parties are killing the American dream. While GE doesn't pay taxes and the "poor" drive Range Rovers to their free homes the middle class is getting crushed by politics, lobbyist and partisanship. NOT partisanship to their parties but partisanship to their lobbyist.

I know everyone hates the tea party but they are right in that they are not loyal to any party. It is just that the Derepublicans jumped on the bandwagon to get an edge while the Dumbocrats were left flatfooted. When you look at these photo's of homes for the poor do you ask yourself why you go to work. Why do you struggle? Better yet ask yourself this.
Why is my government taxing me to death AND borrowing money to for projects like this?!

Because a wealthy construction company made millions on the project and sent some back in the way of lobbying and the "poor people" who live in these homes? They will vote for Obama for ever and ever. wouldn't you? He simultaneously paid for lobbyist and voters in one sweet deal. All over the country. Look up a FEMA backed "emergency" in Chicago around February.I see nothing on the internet or the news but a freind of mine from FEMA was sent to spend money on homes after a supposed emergency. Washington is killing you and they need to be stopped!