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NEW -> Contingent Buyer Assistance Program
In 1992, I watched the verdict come back on live television. I got a sinking feeling in my stomach, as it was very clear that something bad was going to happen. As the afternoon wore on, I kept whispering "stop, stop this" and by the time Reginald Denny was being pulled from his truck, I was screaming those same words at my television. I was powerless to stop the violence, but I never turned it off.

Reading the news these days gives me that same feeling. Watching events unfold so slowly, knowing it's going to end very badly, still as powerless to end the cycle...and yet I am still unable to turn it off.

The schadenfreude is losing it's appeal quickly.
 
Thanks for making your point more clear. You are right that there was quite the tension back then. This is not meant to be racial either but the crime rate in Santa Ana kept on increasing in the 90s. Unfortunately the same is happening now.

As Bradley Nowell sang: "April 26th 1992. There was a riot on the streets tell me where you? As you were sitting home watching your TV".

"Cause everybody in the hood has had it up to here, it's getting harder and harder and harder each and every year.

Some kids went in a store with their mother, I saw her when she came out she was getting some pampers.

They said it was for the black man, they said it was for the mexican, and not for the white man. But if you look at the streets it wasn't about rodney king, it's about this bleeped up situation".

The situation then was rough due to the employment and I can honestly say I hope that it doesn't get as bad. Growing up in that time the frustration was felt from the bottom on up. While the people on the up didn't riot on the streets they did turn to their own dark side.
 
The next bout of really hard times is not going to produce Grapes of Wrath II, that's for sure. It'll be something far more sinister.

...and with that pleasant thought, good night.
 
Yeah, Brad saw it first hand. It wasn't just South Central. Long Beach, Santa Ana, even Las Vegas saw their share of violence in the streets.

I was working some craptastic job off Crown Valley Parkway, repairing lawnmowers, after having just spent 14 months at a trade school in Phoenix. While I was gone, SoCal went from boom to bust. I thought I was coming back to a lucrative career, but after 3 consecutive layoffs in 8 weeks due to a drop in the motorcycle business (in Bellflower, Newport, and Huntington Beach) I was just desperate for anything that would keep a roof over my head. I guess it might have been the contrast provided by my absence, but in going to visit my friends in Long Beach, Santa Ana, Garden Grove, Fullerton, and even my home town of Costa Mesa made it pretty clear that people were trading hope for resentment. I don't think it was a coincidence that race started to become an issue; desperate people always seem to look for someone to blame.

That is what scares me the most about the potential fallout from a severe crash. We aren't the same country we were in 1929. We're more centralized in location and less conservative in our morals. How many foreclosures will sit as empty targets in a prolonged period of deflation and unemployment? How far would a desperate person go in times of stress? How many ticking time bombs are losing their jobs in the only industry they know as literally hundreds of real-estate related business downsize...or close completely. How many retirement accounts get zeroed out in a crash of the markets or a run on the banks? How long before the bank branches of 2007 become the Korean markets of 1992?

Right about now...a bailout isn't looking so bad.
 
According to Wikipedia, Chairman Bernanke's prime interest as an academic was "the economic and political causes of the Great Depression, on which he has written extensively." Per the same article, "[o]n Milton Friedman's ninetieth birthday, Nov. 8, 2002, he stated: 'Let me end my talk by abusing slightly my status as an official representative of the Federal Reserve. I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression. You're right, we did it. We're very sorry. But thanks to you, we won't do it again.' "

Hope so.

There was a time when the people who caused such a mess would also help fix it. I'm not optimistic on that score.
 
NAHB must be on the old measurement system. NAR revised their affordability metrics about a year ago and OC went from like 9% to 20+% affordability overnight... I forget the exact numbers. I'm sure LA would be higher if you asked the NAR.

Prime example of "moving the goal posts"
 
They went from 20% down with a 30yr fixed to 10% down with an adjustable. I think they may want to reconsider since 10% down only has a few lenders still doing that for a 1st time homebuyer.
 
FY 2007's third-quarter net income was $26.5 million, or $0.16 per share diluted, compared to FY 2006's third-quarter results of $174.6 million, or $1.07 per share diluted. In FY 2007, third-quarter net income was reduced by after-tax write-downs of $88.5 million ($147.3 million pre-tax), or $0.54 per share diluted. In FY 2006, third-quarter after-tax write-downs totaled $14.6 million ($23.9 million pre-tax), or $0.09 per share diluted. Excluding write-downs, FY 2007's third-quarter earnings were $0.70 per share diluted compared to $1.16 per share diluted in FY 2006's third quarter.

You know, if I came home and told my wife that my pay had been cut by ~85%, I think she'd tell me to find another line of work. I wonder what Robert's wife is telling him?
 
IndyMac Resumes Prime Jumbos.

The product offerings include 5/1 adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs), 7/1 ARMs, and 15- and 30-year fixed rate products. The following provides the minimum standards a borrower must meet to qualify for these products:

A borrower with a FICO score of 680 and above and a down payment, or equity, of 25 percent is eligible for a loan of up to $2 million;

A borrower with a FICO score of 680 and above and a down payment, or equity, of 20 percent is eligible for a loan of up to $1 million;

A borrower with a FICO score of 700 and above and a down payment, or equity, of 15 percent and mortgage insurance is eligible for a loan of up to $750,000.

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