2011 The year of discontent in the Western world?

[CoderGuy]

Be With GN and no worrys what happens in the warld Warld is so big and dangerous GN is so little and comfortable.

Safe in the arms of GN... snus will save us all!

[Frosted]

And so it begins

[sgreger1]

It is for the reasons you have all mentioned that my wife and I have decided to just rent rather than buy. Sure, renting is not an investment of any sort, and all of the money goes to the landlord, but I would rebuttal that it is a completely bad choice to buy a house right now when everything is deflating so rapidly. I track the value of houses I may want to purchase on the various real eastate websites and over the course of 6 months - 1 year I see the price slowly going down. I think to myself, what if I had bought that last year, I would already be underwater...

Plus, (at least in CA), they are only offering ARM loans, you can't get a fixed rate mortgage unless you have 20% cash down. The cheapest most ghetto house in my area with gunshots every night and crack dealers openly selling drugs on your corner goes for $300-400k, (and that's an hour drivefrom my job), to get something closer or in a nice area, expect to pay ABSOLUTELY NO LESS than $500k. This means you gotta have $250k down in cash (for a 3 bedroom house!), or on the low end you have to have at least over $120k down in cash for a completely run down home requiring lots of renovation. Aside from the fact that no middle class, first time home-buyer family has that sort of cash on hand, if I DID just so happen to have $250k sitting around I would not put that down on a house, since the house is likely to depreciate within the first year and $100k of that will be lost in the wind. It's like giving away free money to the banks.


I'm staying liquid right now; no debt, low overhead, saving cash, not buying any new cars or houses and not acquiring any new debt of any sort. I recommend all of you do the same (to the extent possible given whatever your current situation is). Once you're liquid, have an emergency fund of at least $1,000 cash that you keep at the house, then start stocking up on food and basic emergency supplies, because when things go weird it tends to happen overnight, you wake up one morning and the riots have already started. This may be from my own paranoia having been a white person living in the ghettto during the LA/Rodney King Riots, but in my experience a nice firearm can go a long way in protecting your assets if people start burning this mother-f|_|cker down like they have in the past.

Be prepared for when things go bad, or even if they don't, that way you are prepared for any possible situation. Eat what you store and store what you eat. Learn basic preparedness tips, like the fact that your best source of water in an emergency (where the water stops flowing to your faucet) is the water heater. Go turn off the heat and once it cools down you have a giant drum of potable water available for drinking/baithing, etc etc. Have at least one water purification device in the house, be it a Burkey filtered water bottle that lets you drink swamp water if you had to, or even a UV light cleaner. These are all very cheap (the cost of two meals) and will leave you always prepared.



Greece is coming here. The middle east violence is coming here. It will happen soon, I think we are past the tipping point (the youth unemployment rate is over 30%), I don't see things fixing themselves, I see them getting worse before they get better. Be prepared, or else you will have to go fight the rioting masses over basic supplies. It costs you almost nothing to just do it now and be prepared.

This is not paranoia, there is no guarantee that things will go bad, but if they do than you are ****ed if you have not prepared, whereas preparing now costs you almost nothing and leaves you on top in case of disaster.


Wisdom for those who care to hear it:

www.thesurvivalpodcast.com

[truthwolf1]

My old prediction in Real Estate still stands that everything will fall to pre-1998 prices.

My new prediction is that when it hits those prices it is going to stay that way for a long time.

the last decade was a fluke and we will be paying for it for about a decade.

[devilock76]

So far I have been lucky, yes our house depreciated but it has managed to stay over 30% than our original purchase price.

Ken

[RobsanX]

Nah... Wall Street is just putting the screws to our president because he wants the rich to pay their share of the debt. They lost enough value in the last recession, and they don't want another one. They'll pull a "magic rabbit" out of the hat if things start looking bad again.

Believe me, bankers aren't going to let themselves become poor. Then they would have to live like you and me.

[AtreyuKun]

That's the one thing about living in the city. My wife and I live in a home that cost us 90K. It has 3 bedrooms, a garage, and a sizable back yard. My mother-in-law lives in the house behind us, and we have a neighbor to the left of us. On the right of us is cotton as far as the eye can see. We live in a town of less than 1,000, and the evenings are a quiet as can be.
I'm free to revel in my non-belief in god, and support of gay rights. Assuming we have our jobs, we're doing fine.
Now I don't expect to unaffected when the shit hits the proverbial fan, but we have no crack dealers here, and the only gunshots are from the rednecks hunting birds.
The value of our home dropped about 3K this year, and will probably drop another 3 next year. I have a daughter on the way, and I'm scared shitless for her. Could be worse though. I could live in downtown LA.

[Bigblue1]

Nah... Wall Street is just putting the screws to our president because he wants the rich to pay their share of the debt. They lost enough value in the last recession, and they don't want another one. They'll pull a "magic rabbit" out of the hat if things start looking bad again.

Believe me, bankers aren't going to let themselves become poor. Then they would have to live like you and me.

Are you serious, Obama wants the rich to pay their share of the debt? Are you ****in serious? This Doosh bag has not stood up toone of his supposed Ideals, Just like many behind him. **** Both Parties;;;;;; Vote Ron Paul!

[RobsanX]

Are you serious, Obama wants the rich to pay their share of the debt? Are you ****in serious? This Doosh bag has not stood up toone of his supposed Ideals, Just like many behind him. **** Both Parties;;;;;; Vote Ron Paul!

The president is not a dictator. There was a record number of filibusters in the Senate his first two years which kept him from doing a lot of what he wanted to do. Now the Republicans have the House, and Democrats have a slight majority in the Senate. Normally a balanced government is a good thing, it's what got rid of our deficit at the end of Clinton's term before Bush ****ed that up. Now it seems we have a bipolar government that is incapable doing anything worthy, at least not until the last minute.

[truthwolf1]

Nah... Wall Street is just putting the screws to our president because he wants the rich to pay their share of the debt. They lost enough value in the last recession, and they don't want another one. They'll pull a "magic rabbit" out of the hat if things start looking bad again.

Believe me, bankers aren't going to let themselves become poor. Then they would have to live like you and me.

Obama's entire administration is WALL STREET!!!

Lawrence Summers, lol... you cannot defend that in any shape or form.

[Frosted]

Rioting all over London. Shops in London closed this afternoon in anticipation.

[lxskllr]

I heard a bit about London on the radio. What's your take on it?

[Frosted]

Kids mainly with no particular agenda or philosophy on what they're doing apart from getting a pair of free Nike trainers and a mobile phone.
A lot of it is arson which is extremely serious - they're burning out shops where families live above. This arson is widespread and if I see someone doing it round my area where families live - they're dead.

[sgreger1]

Tottenham Riots - Fires over London in timelapse


http://i.imgur.com/jrlxq.png - Reporter is saying that they had to flee the scene in this picture because there were no police on site and no fire services in attendance.
* same place 4 mins later: http://i.imgur.com/T0EtV.png
* fire services are there now, looks like they need more though! http://i.imgur.com/Dk6Gs.png
* http://i.imgur.com/Ut9aX.png - although fire is spreading, there are now 3 or more fire appliances on the scene
* news helicopter no longer following the above incident. http://i.imgur.com/ISuSR.png is a picture from earlier of a business on fire with residential rooms above.

[Frosted]

It's been a bad night and still is. Luckily no problems where I live - yet.