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Darlene - 55K for a condo is a very good deal. However, I'm not sure about your mortgage. I'm trying to refi at 4.5% right now and at that rate your payments on a 50K loan would be about 260/month. They require 25% down and excellent credit, as well as some points for that rate; but, even...

<blockquote>For the average person, The best time to buy is when you can afford to do so! Dont overthink or make things more complicated than that?</blockquote> This is true perhaps 85% of the time. But when we're coming off the biggest housing bubble of all history, by a factor of about...

I agree with the idea of expanding the blog's focus, particularly as a resident of Orange not particularly drawn to live in Irvine. There are very few potential or current Irvine residents who aren't at least *considering* nearby cities, so the constituency for an Irvine-only blog is pretty...

Depression is *not* a technical term. The only attempt I've seen at a formal definition is the 8 quarters definition, which turns up from time to time like <a href="http://www.oftwominds.com/blognov08/depression-spengler11-08.html">here</a>. I saw it once in a online reference-type publication...

I agree with all the posters who say this guy is full of it. But... We are in for a Depression. The premium for moderately risky business borrowing over safe borrowing has been 3 times what it was in the 1973-75 recession. That predicts that businesses will fail at three times the rate...

2012 is what this is all about. Palin is wildly popular among Republicans and wildly unpopular with everybody else. There are a lot of Republicans who don't want her to get nominated in 2012, either because she's almost certain to lose embarrassingly or because they are supporters of somebody...

John Cole tagged his post on this with "clown shoes" based on the white tails and top hat business. Having grown up in the South, I can testify that most of the violent racists are indeed clowns. I knew people in high school he advocated really outrageous stuff but never did anything. Most of it...

CA has revenue backwards. Taxes require a 2/3 majority in the Assembly and Senate, but bonds only need 50%+1 in a popular vote. Result: we're borrowing ourselves into the poorhouse but nobody's taking any heat for it. Very backwards. Taxes should be easier to pass than bonds because taxes have...

With phone numbers so you can contact them. I was very pleased that Representative Royce (R-40) opposed the bailout. Although I'm a very partisan Dem, this issue transcended politics and I will be voting for him this fall. I called his office to say exactly that. 40 Ed Royce No...

<p></p><i>to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed Declaration of Independence, 1775</i> <p></p><p></p> I've written before about why the bailout is a bad idea economically. But more significantly, to pass it...

The Fed can't use the printing press to the extent necessary to bail anything big out. We only have about 850 billion in M0, physical notes. If they printed even the 130 billion they had to give JPM when Lehman went under that would be a 15% drop in the value of the US dollar. You'd risk a mass...

My understanding is that the 28 day term auctions ARE being maxed out.

While I'm pushing for an amelioration approach, I think a *good* bailout could also be a good approach. Bebchuck's plan is certainly a good bailout. The only useful plan I've heard from a politician is, of all people, Hillary's buy-and-modify approach for mortgages. That wouldn't address...

I don't see a reason to move. JPMorgan has decent equity so it doesn't seem particularly risky. They have some kind of special relationship with the Feds, too - there have been three times this year that the Feds have effectively hired a bank to clean up a big mess (Bear merger, Lehman unwind...

This is just so depressing (the $25B bailout, not the cute PT Cruisers). And now Congress has threatened to stay in session until we get a bill, so who knows how many other duds will get passed while we're distracted.