Monday, March 30, 2009

The drunk curses the distiller

The Sacramento Bee recently carried a seemingly sympathetic story about a 68-year old woman who is on the verge of losing her home to foreclosure. According to the paper, she refinanced in 2004 for $137,500, in 2005 for $172,000 and 2006 for $192,000 "to pay down credit cards and stay ahead of bills". That is $501,500 borrowed over three years to pay down bills.

Now hear this. Her house is in the Tahoe Park area of Sacramento, where median house prices were around $340,000 during the highest point of the housing bubble, according to this estimate.

Over-leveraged and irresponsible people, as much as over-leveraged and irresponsible firms, are at the heart of this Giant Correction, but the stories of their infamy barely make it to the newspapers or resonate in the US Capitol. While acknowledgment and anger at the "retail over-leveraging" seems to be more easily found at the level of the subaltern (see, for instance, the comments to the Sac Bee story), the prominent political narrative being presently constructed seems to miss (or avoid?) it by a wide margin.

Post 9/11, a wise and learned relative of mine sighed at how America was missing the opportunity to introspect by going on the offensive instead. Feels like deja vu. The AIG bonuses or the Detroit executive private jets seem as potent, if not as big, distractions as Afghanistan.

Update: Paradox is....everyone panicking over this morning's report about record drop in nationwide home prices in January 2009. Even if there is no agreement about who exactly was guilty of bad financial practices during the boom years - lenders, consumers, or politicians - there is certainly agreement that whatever was going on was not right. It also follows that high home prices seen during the boom were based on an unsound basis. So why all the breast-beating about home prices going back down?

Thursday, March 05, 2009

Freedom to die

For pro-deathers (yes, I made that up on the lines of pro-lifer) like myself, the past week brought some dampening news:
  • Italy is seeing a fierce backlash from social conservatives about doctors allowing a comatose woman to die (it was reportedly her wish not to be kept alive artificially).
  • Closer to home, a woman in the town of Lodi was charged with assisting her brother kill himself.
And these are supposed to be free societies...

But then all the news was not bad:
  • In the state of Washington, assisted-suicide became legal starting today, under a law aptly called 'Death of Dignity Act'.
  • Last night, an elderly British couple "passed away peacefully", and legally, at an euthanasia clinic in Switzerland.
Fantasy: A truly free society, where commercially-run death bars exist. When you are done with life, you walk into one, do your paperwork and let the professionals take care of you. They will put you to sleep, notify everyone on your list (much like a wedding list), and dispose off the remains per your wishes. (Of course, you will need a valid ID so they can be sure you are killing yourself, not someone else...haw haw haw)
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