by hilzoy
"More Americans struggled to pay their mortgage bills in the fourth quarter of 2008. A record 5.4 million U.S. homeowners with a mortgage, or nearly 12%, were either behind on payments or in foreclosure at the end of last year, according to an industry survey.
The Mortgage Bankers Association said Thursday the percentage of loans at least a month overdue or in foreclosure was up from 10% in the July-September quarter and up from about 8% a year earlier.
The sharpest increases in loans 90-days past due were in Louisiana, New York, Georgia, Texas and Mississippi, reflecting a spreading recession and massive job losses nationwide.
The report also showed the delinquency rates for fixed-rate mortgages climbed in the fourth quarter, another sign that layoffs are taking a toll on homeowners.
The percentage of loans at least 30 days past due rose to a record 7.88%, up from 6.99% in the third quarter and 5.82% a year earlier — the biggest quarterly jump for delinquencies since the survey began in 1972."
"Patricia Greenberg's townhouse in Irvine, California, was losing about $10,000 a month in value when she received a letter in February 2008 that looked too good to be true: An investor was offering to cut her $472,000 mortgage by 26 percent and her monthly payment by a third.
"I didn't want to get involved in a scam," says Greenberg, a cosmetics saleswoman for Orlane Inc., who had bought the house with no money down eight months earlier.
It was no ruse. New York hedge fund manager Ralph DellaCamera Jr. says he’d purchased the mortgage for 60 cents on the dollar and forced the originator, MLSG Home Loans of Reno, Nevada, to eat the loss. Protecting his investment, DellaCamera lowered Greenberg's debt to keep her in the home. She now pays $2,400 a month instead of $3,800 and plows some of her savings into upgrading the Cape Cod-style residence."
Greenberg was making her payments on time, but she's in much better shape now. Any money she spends on home repairs, or on anything else for that matter, stimulates the economy. DellaCamera, who bought her mortgage for 60 cents on the dollar, has lowered the risk of foreclosure for the mortgages he bought, and is still making a lot more than he paid. The company he bought the mortgages from must have thought it was in their interest to sell them, so I assume they profited from the deal. And one more loan has been written down to something approximating the actual value of the home.
What's not to like? And why can't this happen more often?
Because there aren’t enough of those guys to go around. The same type of story was told on This American Life last week. There just aren’t enough of those people. I hope the people who get lucky that way realize how fortunate they are.
why can’t this happen more often?
It hasn’t happened more often because of this part:
People holding the mortgages don’t want to sell them for pennies on the dollar because they are trying to pretend they are still worth more than that.
Regulators need to be aggressive about making the banks be honest about what their assets are worth, and so far they haven’t done that. Yes, if they did that, most of the large banks would be bankrupt.
The fact that it was in their interest doesn’t mean they profited. It seems more likely that they took at loss that wasn’t as big as the one they feared taking if they held on. Or maybe they just needed the money.
“payed?”
[/Farber]
The one-in-eight figure truly is staggering, however. Also, this is a good example of why allowing bankruptcy judges to write down mortgages (as they do with any other secured debt) is a good idea for the economy. 60% of a mortgage is better than 0% of that mortgage (or the pennies on the dollar you’d get on the foreclosure in a down market…).
tgirsch: ack! fixt!
So what is the mortgage worth?
Is it worth the $472,000 the initiator lent?
Is it worth the $283,200 Della Camera paid for it?
Or is it worth the $349,280 that Greenberg now owes on it?
Is it’s value based on what Greenberg can afford to pay? Is it based on what she is willing to pay? Or is it based on the current home value?
If a judge writes a loan down where does he put it?
KC,
Let’s follow the money. Patricia Greenberg paid $472K for the townhouse. She paid it to somebody — prior owner, developer, who knows? That person (d’d’d’dave, maybe??) got the money and doesn’t have to give it back.
Ms. Greenberg didn’t have $472K, so she borrowed it from somebody. Nominally, she borrowed it from some mortgage company. But of course that company was not lending its own money. It was lending out other people’s money — stockholders, bondholders, depositors, who knows?
Let’s say it was your IRA money and my IRA money that actually went into that loan. Our fund managers got a cut for investing it; the mortgage broker got a cut for lending it; they don’t have to give that back either. Just for simplicity, let’s say you and I together put $500K into that townhouse. We were counting on eventually getting that $500K back, with interest, to retire on.
Then real estate prices dropped, and the economy slowed down, and there was real danger that Ms. Greenberg would be unable to service her debt to, ultimately, us. So the mortgage company sold her note to Ralph Della Camera for 60% of $472K — roughly $283K. The mortage company booked a loss; your IRA manager and mine booked a loss on their investment in the mortgage company; your IRA statement and mine, last month, showed that our $500K has now shrunk to $283K.
Mr. DellaCamera, to his credit, is willing to let Ms. Greenberg pay him a monthly payment corresponding to a $283K loan. It’s not purely out of the goodness of his heart, of course. He wants a stream of payments, not the townhouse. If he’s getting a reasonable interest rate on his $283K by virtue of Ms. Greenberg paying him $2400 per month, he’s happier than he would be if he had to endure the fuss and bother of foreclosure.
And guess what: if you and I offered him the $283K we now have left in our IRAs to buy the mortgage he just restructured, he might be perfectly willing to sell it to us. Chances are he’d hold out for at least a small profit, but let’s say he doesn’t.
So: our $500K worth of savings we began with has turned into $283K, invested in a loan to Ms. Greenberg that she’s paying back at $2400 a month. The previous owner of her townhouse has $472K of our original cash money; the middlemen have $28K of our original money; Ms. Greenberg has the townhouse — which has not physically shrunk by 40%; it’s still the same townhouse.
The net result of the entire brouhaha is that financial engineers collected $28K for turning over $472K of our money to a developer (d’d’d’dave, perhaps??) and allowing Ms. Greenberg to owe us just $283K.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t resent Ms. Greenberg. I don’t even resent the developer (even if it was d’d’d’dave) or whoever was the previous owner. And I certainly have no reproach to make against Mr. DellaCamera.
But I would cheerfully go find the car the middlemen bought with $28K of our money, and steal it back.
–TP
TP
In your story, why did you invest $472k in the loan? You could have put it somewhere safer like in treasuries. I’d be surprised if your IRA fund didn’t offer that option. Did you opt for something more risky in the hopes of a higher return? And after you carefully read the 80 page prospectus for the riskier fund why did you opt for it anyway?
Oops… you didn’t read the prospectus? Someone just told you it was good? Hmmm. Clearly you bear no responsibility.
Mommy: “Tony, I’ll give you this dollar. You can buy candy with it after school. But be careful with it. Don’t lose it. Put it in your pocket. You’ll be sad if you don’t have it when you want to buy candy.”
Tony: “Yes, mommy. I’ll be careful.”
” I would cheerfully go find the car the middlemen bought with $28K of our money”
Middlemen are bastards … except when they bring food to my town. I hate driving out to the farms every morning to buy my food. And I hate beating out papyrus reeds every time I need paper….But those other ones I don’t need, they’re bastards.
Well come to think of it the grocery middleman is a bastard sometimes too … once I bought more tomatoes than I needed and a couple of them rotted. I wasted money. He’s an expert. He should have known how many I could eat. He stole two tomatoes worth of money from me. I’m going to go find whatever he bought with that money and take it from him. It’s mine.
Mommy: “Tony, I’ll give you this dollar. You can buy candy with it after school. But be careful with it. Don’t lose it.
Well come to think of it the grocery middleman is a bastard sometimes too … once I bought more tomatoes than I needed and a couple of them rotted.
To compare folks who have lost 40%, 50%, or more of their investment in equities to little boys and girls who didn’t take care of their candy money is insulting and fatuous.
By far, most folks who’ve lost money have not done so because of personal failing or lack of reasonable due diligence. They have done so because the financial sector in this country behaved irresponsibly and recklessly.
Perhaps the typical equity investor should have, somehow, divined this. I think, however, that the responsibility for doing so more properly belonged to the regulatory agencies we have created for that purpose. They also failed.
So folks who have lost money did not do so because they didn’t button up their little pockets like good girls and boys. The did so because they were screwed, and that right royally.
And yes, middlemen who offer as “tomatoes” a hash of both fresh and rotten tomatoes, along with a heaping helping of the manure used to fertilize them, are in fact bastards.
Finally, I think if “Mommy” were actually here, her advice to you might be “Don’t be a dick”.
Thanks –
The United States Is In Deep Doodoo!
The following article was first written in 1998.
——————————————————————————–
Imagine for a moment that someone inherits a farm. Let’s say that the farm has good topsoil, a good well, good breeding stock, good seed, and excellent farm equipment in good repair. Prior to passing into the control of the present owner the farm did a good business selling vegetables, meat, and dairy products to the local market, and it made a small profit. But let us suppose for a moment that the present owner of the farm doesn’t understand farming, or isn’t even really interested in learning. The present owner has no objection to standing around looking good, so he stays at the farm, standing in front of it, looking good to passers by. Of course, the bills still come in, so our farmer puts them on his credit card. When that bill comes due he uses another credit card, Then another. Pretty soon the interest payments alone are higher than his bills and the banks get nervous and call him. No problem. Our farmer sells the tractor, takes the money around to the various credit cards, the food store, the utilities, and pays off all his bills. Then he stands around in front of the farm looking good to passers-by, the lord of his domain.
Well, the bills still come in. Again the credit cards get loaded up. So, this time our farmer sells the harvester. Then later on, the cattle, then the chickens, then the seeds, then he leases the well to his neighbor and finally sells the top soil from his farm to another farm down the road whose soil is getting tired. The cash is taken around to the various creditors, the food store, the utilities, etc.
Now at this point, our farmer thinks everything is okay. The bills are paid, he has a little cash in his pocket, and everything is fine.
Of course, you know better. The farm simply does not exist any more; it’s just an empty lot with a few buildings, and soon they will be gone as well. The path from the farmer’s present condition to seizure of the property for unpaid taxes is a foregone conclusion, even if the farmer doesn’t look far enough ahead to see it.
Poor, dumb, stupid farmer.
That farmer is our government, and our business leaders.
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/ARTICLE2/doodoo.html?q=ARTICLE2/doodoo.html
(I would state that we have finally found our Ruby Slippers, exposed the Wizards of Oz and are wisely getting off the Yellow Brick Road!)
Jason Kratz is correct. TAL interviewed some investors doing this in the New Jersey area. They were asked why more of these deals weren’t being done and they said there just aren’t enough investors like them to absorb the inventory.
Also, these types of mortgages (bank still holds the mortgage) are relatively simple to deal with. It’s way more complicated to buy mortgages that have been sliced up and resold to where you don’t even know who owns the mortgage anymore.
Also, some banks don’t want to sell at such a loss yet. 60 cents on the dollar is great for DellaCamera and Greenberg but not the bank.
the reason that it doesn’t happen more often is because relatively few mortgages are held by a single individual/entity — the securitization of mortgages, and the creation of derivatives based on those securities, create a host of competing interests, some of whom make out like bandits, and other who lose everything, when mortgages are modified.
_
So if you’re responsible for fulfilling the terms of a credit default swap that guarantees payment of 60 to 80% of equity of a mortgaged backed security, the last thing you want is for mortgages to be sold at 60 cents on the dollar — although you’re supportive if the mortgage is sold for 81 cents on the dollar, because that means that you don’t get hurt.
_
This piece, via Balloon Juice, makes the one in eight figure sounds good.
d’d’d’d: I find it fascinating that when I cite, with approval, a story of purely business transactions that do well for everyone, you find something to quarrel with.
This also doesn’t happen as frequently because it’s a dangerous investment. The investment groups that are buying these properties would be perfectly happy if they could find responsible people able & willing to make consistent monthly payments. This is analogous to a traditional real estate / renting investment. The problem is that in order to do this they are much more likely to be doing large numbers of real estate buys. For every homeowner that pays them in a timely manner there may be 10 homeowners who don’t want to have their house devalued, do not want to effectively rent what they currently own, or who will not be able to pay and will go into foreclosure even if the hosue was revalued at 50% of it’s previous value. At this point as an investor you’re left with some good properties & regular payments on one side (hoping for a recovery of the housing market that may or may not ever come) and on the other side you own empty houses in the worst home market ever.
It sounds great in an individual example, but this is much more difficult, complex, & risky to the investor than a single anecdote about a house being saved. I’m also confident that companies doing this have very strong tax advantages to take losses on the house purchases so much of their funcing is being subsidised by the government. Not exactly a charitable act.
Why would d’d’d’dave (or anybody else) have a problem with how the “real” value of the mortgage is determined? Granted I personally don’t know how it would be done. But since the process to write down the value is currently in place for every other kind of debt except mortgages on a primary residence, clearly the process is pretty standard — at least in the minds of the people who do it all the time.
Now it may be that it’s a bad idea, rather than a good one. But to object because you don’t happen to be one of the folks who knows the current process is pretty silly.
the reason that it doesn’t happen more often is because relatively few mortgages are held by a single individual/entity — the securitization of mortgages, and the creation of derivatives based on those securities, create a host of competing interests, some of whom make out like bandits, and other who lose everything, when mortgages are modified.
paul is correct. This is also the answer to the don’t-cry-mommy-told-you-so parable which d’d’d’dave was so kind as to share with us.
The originate to distribute loan model and subsequent tranching of mortgages made the resulting securities so opaque that ordinary investors stood little or no chance of understanding what they were purchasing, and instead relied on the rating agencies to make sense out of them and to rate their risk. That was a very big mistake but an understandable one given how little we knew about the moral and intellectual rot inside the rating agencies and the investment banks at the time.
If we only get one thing in the way of banking reform, the old rating agencies should be the first metaphorical head in the guillotine. The conflicts of interest and malfeasance there are the worst of a bad bunch IMHO. They should be replaced with a public rating agency which is funded via fees like the FDIC and which rates securities as a public service rather than as a commercial operation. Any class of securities too complex to rate should be banned until they can make sense out of them, much the same as the way the FDA handles drug approvals. I’m sure there will be much yelling and hollering about how this is “stifling financial innovation”, but critics of reform need to understand that global depressions have consequences, and not allowing moral and intellectual children to play with what Warren Buffett called financial weapons of mass destruction is one of those consequences.
My two rules of thumb which I’d like to see used as a basis for FIRE sector reform are:
Too big to fail = too big to exist.
and
Too complex to rate = you can’t sell it.
That, and bring back Glass-Steagall. We need firewalls between the subsectors of the FIRE economy, to guard against systemic risk.
This piece, via Balloon Juice, makes the one in eight figure sounds good.
If you haven’t read John Cole’s take on this story, take the time to do so. He highlights one of the most appalling parts – the vandalized house that became so financially toxic that the bank refused to foreclose and foisted the title back on the hapless former owner.
Bonus fun: ObWings alumnus Brick Oven Bill has become a frequent commenter at Balloon-Juice (I take some pride in having suggested this to him prior to his *ahem* departure from these parts). The looser and more snarky environment over there has done wonders for him – some of his comments are becoming positively Thullen-esque in their surrealistic flavor. Or perhaps a David Lynch movie would be a better comparison – not to be missed, in either case.
// you find something to quarrel with.//
Yes. It is bad form. To be nit-picky, I didn’t actually quarrel with your post. I quarreled with KC’s comment about middlemen being primarily at fault.
The comment I had directly with your post was at 1:52a. It was just a question: what is the value for judges to use when they write loans down?
My apologies if this ends up being a duplicate comment, but the prior version was posted over 30 mins ago and still isn’t showing up – it appears to have gone into the kitty litter tray. I’ll try again with fewer links.
This piece, via Balloon Juice, makes the one in eight figure sounds good.
If you haven’t read John Cole’s take on this story, take the time to do so. He highlights the vandalized house that became so financially toxic that the bank refused to foreclose and foisted the title back on the hapless former owner.
Bonus fun: ObWings alumnus BOB has become a frequent commenter at B.J. (I take some pride in having suggested this to him prior to his *ahem* departure from these parts). The looser and more snarky environment over there has done wonders for him – some of his comments are becoming positively Thullen-esque in their surrealistic flavor. Or perhaps a David Lynch movie would be a better comparison – not to be missed, in either case.
// But to object because you don’t happen to be one of the folks who knows the current process is pretty silly.//
For the record, I did not object. I just asked a question. How the value is determined is important to me in evaluating whether I object or not.
Greenberg did not get the same 40% discount that DellaCamera did. She only got a 26% discount. In this case DellaCamera has found a value, the difference between 40% and 26% which is 14% x $472,000 = $164,860. (These are rough numbers which ignore the term of the mortgage which is critical information in determining the present value his gain).
With that in mind, which value would the judge have chosen? Said another way, who would’ve gotten the benefit of the $164,860? I haven’t formed an opinion yet about which value I think is appropriate.
I just know that my state is a single action state. The bank can choose to take the house or go after the person’s personal resources but not both. In this example, lets assume for a moment that DellaCamera bought the loan for what the house was worth, $283,200. But Greenberg’s personal finances enable her to make payments sufficient to warrant a $349,200 value. It seems that in either case the bank is no worse off to accept the cramdown.
TLTABQ
The Marvin Gaye singing the national anthem YouTube over at your ‘surrealistic flavor’ link is worth the trip.
Did anyone notice that Greenberg probably has an approx $123,000 taxable gain from the debt relief? I wonder if she’s prepared to write an approx $18,000 check to uncle sam.
ObWings alumnus BOB has become a frequent commenter at B.J.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
The Marvin Gaye singing the national anthem YouTube over at your ‘surrealistic flavor’ link is worth the trip.
Marvin Gaye in any context is worth anyone’s attention.
There truly is comfort in the familiar: d’d’d’dave doing what d’d’d’dave does; russell setting him straight, and then some; ThatLeftTurnInABQ providing some bonus fun, citing BOB and Thullen.
Did some quick scrolling back and perusing and can hardly believe it’s been nearly a month since I last logged on or commented to the Kitty.
My loss, of course. But I’ve been overwhelmed by the personal — financial especially, then this stubborn broken foot added injury to insult (turns out I was walking on a stress fracture for three weeks, mistaking the pain for my cartilage-missing ankle).
I also have to admit, with all the real-life sh!t eating away at my innards, I was blogged-out and didn’t see the point in observing out loud that Timothy Geithner seems over his head, and too closely tied to Wall Street to help those of us needing it on Main Street. (I made it to Feb. 18 before I found Eric Martin as a front-pager to question the job the Secretary of the Treasury is doing).
I wonder if I am in the minority in thinking that the Obama Administration could be doing a better job on the economy by making it Issue No. 1 instead of mixing it in the cake with everything else: If he doesn’t get the economy straight, everything else won’t matter.
Anyhow, I was not one of the “record 5.4 million U.S. homeowners with a mortgage, or nearly 12%” who were “either behind on payments or in foreclosure at the end of last year.”
But check back with me in six weeks.
I called Wells Fargo first thing this morning and the pre-recorded voice read my mind, telling callers that they will soon be up to speed on the Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan.
Actually, Rita was as nice as she could be once a real person came on the line and told me it would be another week or two before Wells would be ready to take part in the Obama Plan. But I did find out that my loan is backed by Fannie Mae — a good thing, since that’s one of the plan’s requirements (Fannie or Freddie).
From everything I’ve read, I seem to qualify.
But the answer to that question is on hold until Wells Fargo and the Obama Administration get on the same page.
bedtime — nice to have a word from you. I’ve been wondering how you’re doing. If we get an open thread one of these days maybe you can bring us up to date on how the adventures with the immigration service are going. Okay, I hope.
somewhat OT…
a few days ago, i wondered aloud that, assuming Geihtner and Obama are not idiots, that there must be some good reason why they’ve been shoveling billions into AIG as quickly as they can.
i think this may be the reason.
I also have to admit, with all the real-life sh!t eating away at my innards, I was blogged-out and didn’t see the point in observing out loud that Timothy Geithner seems over his head, and too closely tied to Wall Street to help those of us needing it on Main Street. (I made it to Feb. 18 before I found Eric Martin as a front-pager to question the job the Secretary of the Treasury is doing).
I wonder if I am in the minority in thinking that the Obama Administration could be doing a better job on the economy by making it Issue No. 1 instead of mixing it in the cake with everything else: If he doesn’t get the economy straight, everything else won’t matter.
btfb,
Thank goodness you are still in one piece, I was beginning to get worried. I hope your situation improves as rapidly as possible; I’ve been thinking of you and wondering how you were doing. FYI, I was robo-polled by the US car industry last night as part of what seems to be a pretty wide ranging survey of consumer attitudes. Here’s hoping they figure out how to turn the corner and reconnect with what consumers want, need, and can afford.
Responding to your comments above, it looks to me like the economy is very much job # 1 in the Obama admin, but they are getting nowhere with the banks for precisely the reasons you outline above – Geithner either doesn’t get it, or they are lacking in the political willpower to demolish the rotten edifice on Wall St. and start rebuilding.
I’m waiting till the April G20 meeting to close the book on this – it could be that Geithner and Obama are working on building up the political consensus behind a more reformist solution than the TARP II – When Zombies Attack! solutions we are hearing about thus far, but I see no evidence of that, it is merely a hope as of now.
My other speculation is that this is a diplomatic as well as financial problem, given the exposure of other nations (e.g., via central banks, sovereign wealth funds and in a few cases well connected individuals) to losses stemming from US banks, so perhaps that is why we seem to be in slow motion on this issue. We may need plenty of coordination between the State Dept. and Treasury before we can slice thru this Gordian Knot.
bedtime, it’s great to see you back!
JanieM, count me in on any ObWi Boston gathering.
–TP
Regarding AIG’s stature as Too Big To Fail, cleek’s TPM link concludes “it does point us toward the larger political economy point: the self-reinforcing cycle in which financialization leads to vast sums of money concentrated in the hands of paper-jobbers, who then mobilize that money in Washington to rewrite the laws to privilege them for even greater profits.”
Picking up on cleek’s thought about the billions and billions of dollars Obama and Geithner have been shoveling into AIG: What happens when there are no more billions and billions of dollars to throw their way? And aren’t we close to that point already?
Home with the flu yesterday, when I wasn’t sleeping, I watched a good bit of CNBC and came away pretty quickly with the conclusion that Big Business has become more and more anti-Obama with every big and scary drop in the Dow.
I will say this: As someone who has a mere pitance in the market (roughly $1,500 via a 401K), it is nonetheless frightening to see the Dow Jones still trying to find a bottom — 5800 anybody? — while it wasn’t that long ago when it stood at 12,000.
After having a very good January in sales, I was hoping the car market — at least on the used side — was coming back. But then things died in February and have yet to pick up.
Then you look at the Dow and see that Citibank — despite being richly bailed out by Uncle Sam — is basically a penny stock. Same thing for GM.
When will it end?
And seeing how the bank bailout was a case of throwing good money after bad, I think both the Bush and Obama Administrations failed the American public by not focusing on homeowners much, much sooner.
P.S. Nice of you to ask about our immigration woes, JanieM: Thanks to the services of a good lawyer, our case seems to be headed in the right direction. Or at least the wife and I feel more secure in being represented by someone who fights INS red tape for a living.
Tony P — If you send me your email address at
janiemat at myfairpoint.net
…along with your permission to add it to the list (5 people as of now), I’ll send everyone an email over the weekend for the sake of deciding where/when to gather.
There are some suggestions on the table but I haven’t gotten around to sending everyone’s ideas to everyone else yet.
🙂
TLT: I like your phrase “slow motion” in describing how it seems the nation’s economic woes are being addressed.
Which seems to be part of the problem: While Obama and Geithner are taking a deliberate, cautious approach (which seems to be Obama’s nature, fwiw) — and, hopefully, Geithner is taking some approach at all — the Great Recession seems to be deepening at a breakneck pace.
Foreclosures. Lost jobs. Devastated retirement accounts. Masloff victims.
If the banking mess was not globally connected, I think Congress — or at least the American people — would rebel at the next penny put into a Citibank or Bank of America.
So, it seems, we’re stuck with the bad banks and the good. (Which ones are good, however? I always thought Wells Fargo was rock-solid, only to read it has troubles of its own).
I do think Obama was a little late in addressing the housing crisis — otherwise the Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan would be up and running already.
President Obama also needs to give us some of that Hope he sold during the general election, enough of the doom and gloom. (He might also look at giving us a better Secretary of the Treasury — or would axing Geithner already be too much of an embarrassment?)
P.S. JanieM: I don’t think I have the wherewithal to be taking any roadtrips, but you never know: My email address is “olga-gott@comcast.net”
Yo bedtime! Welcome back!
correction
164,860 s/b 66,080.
I have no idea what went wrong.
It doesn’t change the premise though.
Yo, hilzoy: Always good to be here!
When I left work yesterday, ruminating on some of the things I wrote — and knowing others have voiced the same concerns about the devastation of their 401k accounts, the instability of the economy in whatever line of work you are in, and the overall extreme pinch the middle class is feeling — I couldn’t help but feel selfish.
By that, I mean for every bedtimeforbonzo out there struggling to keep his home and working hard to keep his family enjoying a middle-class living there are thousands upon thousands (millions, I imagine) who have never made it to the middle class to even worry enough about staying there, destroyed by eight years of the ham-and-egg Bush Administration.
We look at the Dow Jones and wonder how low will it go.
I often hear that it is a leading economic indicator — telling us how things will look six months — but I wonder about that. It seems to me the Dow reacts to the day-to-day machinations of the economy as much as anything else.
But if you are living in poverty, I doubt where the Dow stands means squat.
If you are living in poverty, I imagine the only thing that matters is knowing where your next meal will come from and when that will be.
So, I’m hurting.
I’m worried.
I’m broke.
But there are plenty of folks — millions, I suspect — who are a lot worse than I. And I wonder if they are becoming the forgotten victims of the Great Recession.