Thursday

Thursday




Headline in the news this morning: "Home Foreclosures Jump to Highest Rate Since Crisis Began". Yes sir, Obama's plan to make it the summer of recovery is obviously working THERE, now ain't it? In the Phoenix area, there is a huge glut of empty, foreclosed homes. Almost 100,000 homes were repo'ed last month.



How many of those still had people living in them? Where did those people go? I know a lot of people leave before they are actually forced out - and where do those people go? Well, in almost all of those cases, they haven't been making payments on the home for at LEAST 6 months, if not twice or three times that length of time. If they have any smarts at all and at least one person is employed, they're saving money to go get another place to live once they have to leave the house.



I haven't seen anything like this in my short life span of 46 years and I haven't heard of any recession with this kind of impact on American lifestyle and society since the Great Depression. I am NOT saying it is as bad as the Great Depression (for those that like to come and give me heck about it), but this Recession is second ONLY to the Great Depression.



I see it at work, too. 2 months running the numbers are down - way down - for the Arizona region of our company. The numbers for the branch I am working out of are horrific. I do have the thought that if this continues to stay this way, the headcount will be reduced locally. I don't want that to happen, but if it does, the talk is that there are too many salesmen. There are only 4 full-time drivers serving the entire state of Arizona if you count the driver in Tucson, the 2 downtown and me.



September 16, 2010 5:58 AM

Anonymous said...

Whatever. I can't do anything about it, I just watch this stuff and marvel. Where is it going to end? IS it going to end? Are we going to go into double-dip recession? I still contend we never came out of it to begin with. Not with almost 10% unemployment. Not with millions of Americans being displaced from their homes. Not with people who are so desperate that they are standing in line at food banks and getting food stamps.



I'm just curious if this is going to get even worse, I guess.



Mark, one of the trailer tenants, was disclosing to me yesterday about his search for an apartment. One place had trailers older than the one I got for them to live in -that had broken out windows, evap cooling or no cooling, filthy, disgusting and the owners of that park want $250 a month for that s***. He was looking at an apartment for $450 a month, but didn't include electricity - run-down s***. He was talking with his homeless friends and they were asking him how much he pays a month to stay at my place - $25 per week. They were telling him to move out so they could move in!



I get, however, for more than that per week if you add the amount of work he does around the place into the mix. Weeding, shovelling dog crap, cleaning. Yesterday he helped me finish the painting project in the now-empty bedroom. Well, it's almost finished. I still have to deal with the corner where the water had been dripping for - 2 and a half years I guess. It's dry to the touch, but anything that has been soaked that long would be wet to the core, so I'm leaving it open until this weekend and then I will deal with fixing it up.



Point? I don't mind these people being around, they don't make a nuisance of themselves and they do whatever they can to help out around the house without my having to asking them - ever.



Well, life is as interesting as ever. I am driving all over the neighborhood where I know Drey lives - one of the thieves. Eventually I will find them. It's about a half mile area of homes so yes, I have spent no small amount of time driving up and down residential streets. However, Caleb may be a bit better at getting the info from the black kid down the street....



Speaking of that, an insurance company quoted my ex-wife the sum of almost $2,500 for SIX month of insurance for Caleb to drive! OUCH!! My insurance company quoted me $800 - I actually thought it was pretty good considering his age and the fact that he has no previous driving experience, it's $133 per month. IF he can make it through 6 months without an accident or a ticket, they say the rate will come down some. I'm afraid of what they might charge him to have his own car.



Well, anyway, work day is almost here, I have a head full of thoughts that I am churning around attempting to make heads and tails of stuff and decisions to make financially - though - most of my bills are caught up. I am only behind on the water bill right now and that's good for another month at least anyway.



G'day.



ben