Hi Everyone! It's amazing how time gets away for a person. Here it is going on the end of October and I realized that I haven't blogged here on Activerain for quite some time.
I really don't have a good reason. It started because I got really busy working on my house and with a few transactions, but that really wasn't the only reason. I guess that I just got burned out a bit on the whole blogging thing.
I know, it's a good thing to do for my business and I have truly enjoyed being able to express myself here and most of all, I feel like I've gotten to know a bunch of really nice people, but it just lost it's charm for me for a while.
Here recently, I've been getting the itch to write again and plan on sitting down at some point over the weekend and addressing some issues that have been in the news lately and really seem to need some addressing, but right now I've got to dash again.
So, to all of my activerain buddies out there....Please know that I've been thinking of you and that I'll be back really soon!
It's been kind of a crazy couple of weeks here in old St. Louis and I haven't been able to get on Activerain as much as I would like.
There are a bunch of different reasons that I haven't been on, including the best one...I've started getting busy again! YEAHH!!!!
I've also been out and about riding my bicycle at least 3 times a week and more if we get the chance. The bummer about this is that we try and ride in different locations as much as possible and that means that we're having to drive to where we are going to go for the ride at. Being as that Kathy doesn't get off until 5 and isn't home until 5:30 or so, this means that we don't get home until 9ish...tired and sweaty!
So, ususually it's a shower, a bite and then bedtime..
Also, I'm working on finishing the house....So, all things considered, something had to give and it's been my blogging.
One bit of exciting news on the blogging front however is that I just got my first, honest to God, direct from Activerain client! YEAH!!!! I know that some of you seem to have folks call you all the time from your blogs and I've had people call me before too..including several reporters who have in turn written about us, but as far as direct business, I haven't really gotten any. At least that I know of.
Yesterday, I got a call from a lady who said that she had read one of my posts and saw that I was the Number one agent in Missouri and that she wanted me to sell her house. ChaChing! Thanks Activerain!
Anyway, time to run upstairs and change for the ride...just wanted to stop by and say hi. Thanks to all of your who touched bases with me....things are going great! Now, out of the rain and into the sun!
Bob Mitchell
ValueList Real Estate Services, Inc.
Bob Mitchell is the president of ValueList Real Estate Services, Inc., St. Louis' largest discount/full-service real estate and mortgage company. To find out more about Bob, ValueList or our flat-fee listing program please feel free to visit our web page, valuelistre.com
I don't know how many of you are familiar with Andy Pausch. He was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University who was suffering from Pancreatic Cancer that had been determined to be terminal.
His "last lecture" to his students was recorded and became an internet phenomena. If you haven't seen it, please take the time. You won't regret it at all.
The way that he approached his illness and his life serves as a lesson to us all.
Bob Mitchell is the president of ValueList Real Estate Services, Inc., St. Louis' largest discount/full-service real estate and mortgage company. To find out more about Bob, ValueList or our flat-fee listing program please feel free to visit our web page, valuelistre.com
I've got a question for all of you, What would have happened if the government hadn't pussy footed around with the sub-prime mess and had addressed the issues in a forthright and substantial way early in the crises?
Would the housing crises have so deep and damaging?
Could some of the decline in property values have been averted?
Would there have been thousands of families less that wouldn't have been forced onto the streets?
I think the answers to these questions would have been;"No", the housing crises wouldn't have been so deep and so damaging. "Yes" declines in property values could have been averted. And "yes" there would have been far fewer families who would have lost their homes!
As I wrote about in, "Take Two Fed Cuts And Call Me In The Morning" the government went at this problem from the perspective of dealing with things from a macro economic point of view. Instead of worrying about Joe Blow and his family, the government was more concerned with the welfare of Bear Stearns and Citibank/JP Morgan.
They dealt with this issue by attempting to wave the magic interest rate wand and then praying that the whole thing would go away. Instead of dealing with the root cause of the problem, the fact that a large number of people were stuck in mortgages that were adjusting beyond their ability to pay, they said, "screw these guys, we're going to make it cheaper for big business to borrow".
By doing so, they weakened the already weak dollar and caused oil prices to surge which in turn has caused the the downturn to spread to other parts of the economy.
Even today, while it has become evident that housing is in a free fall and dragging the rest of the economy down with it, the government is still not directly addressing the foreclosure problem. While the new housing stimulus package does do some good things that will help, it doesn't go nearly far enough towards helping people stay in their homes.
Nor does it directly address any of the other issues such as the fact that the bond insurers and the PMI companies are so damaged from their exposure to the sub-prime mortgage market that they are making it more difficult than it should be for average people to be able to buy homes!
The end result is that people are still not convinced that the worst is over and therefore are simply standing on the side lines waiting for things to get better. Many potential home buyers couldn't partisipate even if they wanted to due to the fact that guild lines have been tightened to the point where they don't qualify to buy a home even though they have jobs and half way decent credit.
I realize that I'm a voice in the wilderness here, but I'll say it again. President Bush, Members of the House and Senate and anybody else who has the ability to influence our government, please stop pussy footing around with this! Address the problem directly....where it matters. That is, at the root of the problem!
Create a program that:
1) Buys up the mortgages of the folks who are in danger of default and renegotiate them to a point where families can afford to stay in their homes! (If done right, there is even a profit potential available that could possibly pay for the entire program and not end up costing the government a red cent!)
2) Either prop up the PMI companies and bond insurance companies or create some new ones so that Fannie and Freddie can do what they've done so well for the last 70 years! That is, provide liquidity to the mortgage markets.
I'm tired of hearing this crises referred to as "A Correction In The Housing Market". It's not! The problem isn't with the housing markets, it's with the credit markets! If this had been realized earlier on in the crises and the problems had been dealt with forthrightly and directly, we'd already be on our way out of this mess!
Bob Mitchell is the president of ValueList Real Estate Services, Inc., St. Louis' largest discount/full-service real estate and mortgage company. To find out more about Bob, ValueList or our flat-fee listing program please feel free to visit our web page, valuelistre.com
"Summer breeze, makes me feel fine....blowing through the jasmine in my mindddd" sang at the top of our lungs in a bad falsetto by three almost grown young men driving down the road in a 1964 Ford Fairlane with glass pack mufflers and 50's on the back. Oh, I almost forgot the, "Click Click" as the eight track changed to the next song.
No AC, but the windows were down and we had the cooler iced up. It was the summer after our high school graduation (1979) and before the start of college in the fall. Jeff Rideout, Kevin "You're barking up the wrong tree" Barks and myself were headed out of the city for one of the several camping trips that we took that summer.
The last summer that we would end up spending together before we took off on the wildly varying paths that all three of us eventually ended up taking. Of course, we didn't know that then. We were just some buds who wanted to get away from the prying eyes of the parents and any other authority figures that might want to intervene and stop us from smoking dope, drinking beer and otherwise enjoying life and one another's company.
The campsites varied, but we always picked one that was as far away as possible from the other campers and that had electricity. No, we didn't have a camper, but we did have a stereo! If my memory serves me it was an old Panasonic tuner with a Marrantz tape deck and two Electrovoice speakers (we left the Garrard turntable at home on the camping trips).
My life at that time revolved around that stereo system that I had purchased from the CMC Stereo store on Watson, out by the old KSHE studios. Finally purchased after 6 months in the lay-a-way, we lugged that stereo all over the place and didn't find it odd at all to lug it down to Meramec State Park where we would plug it in and rock out to bands ranging from Alice Cooper to Benny Goodman (can you imagine the looks on the old couple who were walking their dog around the campgrounds when they saw the source of those wicked horns?).
These were my "sounds of summer" at least for that period of my life. The windows down and the stereo cranked up. It's funny, to this day, there are certain songs where I still expect to hear that familiar "click click" at certain points in the song. Close your eyes and think back to listening to Styx and tell me that you don't remember, "Why must you be such an angry young man "click click" when your future looks so bright to me!"
It's funny, I can almost remember it all as if it were yesterday. That is until I remembered that the Fairlane got totaled on New Years Eve during our Junior year. I guess that it really doesn't matter because regardless of which car it was that we were driving, the emotions were the same. Three young men with their entire lives ahead of them, some fine Columbian and the ever present cooler full of beer on a hot summer day.
No, it really doesn't matter which car we drove to get there. I guess that in a sense, "The Song Remains The Same".
Bob Mitchell is president of ValueList Real Estate Services, St. Louis' largest discount/full-service real estate and mortgage company. If you would like to find out more about Bob, ValueList or our flat-fee listing program, please feel free to visit our web site at valuelistre.com
Last weekend I took my daughter up to Clinton Illinois to a public car auction. Some of the cars were ones that were owned by the Illinois State Police that they had obtained by seizing them. Others had been repossessed. While others were there on consignment.
My daughter, who just graduated from college (Ohio State) didn't have a lot of money to spend and to her credit didn't want to go into debt to get this car. She had toured the local car lots and had even gone to look at several that were being offered for sale by their owners. Of the ones that she would consider owning, none of them were within her budget.
That's when I suggested that we go to the car auction to see what we could find. Before we went, I made sure that she knew the good, the bad and the ugly about buying a car this way. That is that you really don't know too much about the history of the vehicle and that the sale was going to be "as is/where is" with no warranties what so ever.
I went on to explain to her that she had to take this into account when she bid on a car. She understood, so on Saturday morning, we loaded up the car and drove to Clinton.
When we got there, we toured the lot looking for the cars that we had seen on the internet that were of interest to her. We started the cars, drove them around the lot, checked their oil and transmission fluids and generally gave the cars a good looking over. We then went into the sale barn and waited for the ones that she was interested to make their way through the line.
We watched as the cars were driven or pushed through and I was amazed at how some of the cars were being bid up past even their retail value. Others were going for ridiculously low prices.
The first car that she was interested in came up and two people got into a bidding war over it and Whitney dropped out. She was disappointed, but she knew that she had to be disciplined.
Another car came up that was newer and looked great, but the auctioneer said that it had transmission problems, so she passed on it.
Then the one that her and her boyfriend wanted the most came up. I told Whit to hang back for a bit in order to see how things went.
The Auctioneer started the bidding at $5000.00 (almost the retail value of the vehicle), then went down. Finally, the bidding started in earnest at $500.00. It went up to $800.00 before their was a pause in the bidding. Whitney jumped in and bid $850.00. Another bidder (who I recognized as a car dealer) ran with her.
Again, the Auctioneer tried to get everyone excited and to run the bids up quickly...I whispered in her ear to back off....which was a good thing because the auctioneer was pulling some of these bids out of his axx. He backed down when nobody ran with him to the last true bid of $1,250.00 (from the pro).
Going once...
Going twice....
Whitney looked at me fearfully and I gave her the nod. She bid $1,300 and won the auction! YEAH!!!!
When we got home, I checked the value on the computer and in "fair" condition (which this car was technically in) the value was $4,300 or so. After we fix a few things, the value of the car should be about $6,000.00 or so (she's going to need to put about $1,000.00 into the car to get it there). To say the least, I was excited for her!
Then today I read a post by a lady named, Beth Anderson called, "Got A Great Car For You". Her post talked about how too many people were focused on just getting a bargain when buying a foreclosed home and discounting the positive attributes of a "normal" listing.
She makes some excellent points and I encourage you to read her post because not all home buyers are going to be willing to take the risk that my daughter did in buying her car at an auction!
For Whitney (who had me - who has done this sort of thing a few times in the past, as well as a mechanic who works on the cheap in her family) the risk was worth it. This might not be the case for your buyer.
If a bargain is what your client is looking for, then by all means show them the properties in your area that have been foreclosed upon. For the right person, they can be a true bargain. However, please make sure that they know the down side of buying this type of property too. If you buy a foreclosure, you have to go into the transaction with your eyes open!
Bob Mitchell is president of ValueList Real Estate Services, St. Louis' largest discount/full-service real estate and mortgage company. If you would like to find out more about Bob, ValueList or our flat-fee listing program, please feel free to visit our web site at valuelistre.com
Here in Missouri there is a rails to trails project called the Katy Trail. It runs from north of St. Charles, Missouri to Clinton Missouri (about 260 miles) along the route of the old Missouri - Kansas - Texas railroad. It is one of the best known of the rails to trails projects and from what I've seen of it, it's a beautiful ride.
The problem is that I hate it! Since it's on an old railway right of way, it's basically flat the entire length (at least what I've ridden of it so far). The fact that it's flat means that you have to peddle the entire way; no coasting!
The other day we went for a ride where we started at the Katy Trail at Marthasville Missouri, but then took off on the road that went out the back of the town. As we rode out of town and started pumping up a long hill, I realized that riding a bicycle is a lot like selling real estate!
Say What? What You Talking About Willis?
Yeah, I know that it's a bit of a stretch, but run with me...or should I say, "ride with me"?
First of all, real estate is like bicycling in that you're going to get out of it what you put into it. It's going to take effort. If all you ever do is ride around the neighborhood, you're going to miss a lot of what you could see if you took off for the open roads. The same can be said if you always stay on the prescribed trail!
The Katy Trail is cool because of a number of different reasons, but probably the most obvious of which is that it was designed to be a biking/hiking trail. Along it's route you have bed and breakfast inns, repair facilities, bathroom facilities, even wineries. The trail is well maintained, level and easy to ride. Even youngsters can handle it and you end up seeing a lot of them out there.
All of this is cool, but yet I still prefer the open road. Why is that? Well, for one whereas the Katy trail is predictable, the open road isn't. To me, this is part of it's charm.
As Kathy and I pumped up that first hill out of town in the 95+plus heat, it really started to suck! I down shifted to the point where I was in 1st gear and yet my thighs were burning from the effort. Sweat was pumping out of my body and my heart was pounding. As we approached the top of the hill, the road curved out of sight behind the trees that were close enough to block the view, but not close enough to provide shade.
As we "topped" the hill we saw that it was really an illusion and that the hill continued on for at least another 1/4 of a mile (any of you out there getting my analogy now?). While at the time, that 1/4 of a mile seemed like it would go on for ever, it didn't.
We topped the hill (this time for real) and took a break. From the top of the hill we could look back and see the valley that we had just climbed out of and it was beautiful. The road snaked down the hill after disappearing in the trees for a bit and we could see Marthasville nestled amongst the fields that led all the way to the Missouri River. This was a view that those who stayed on the trail would never see and while it was indeed a lot of work, it was worth it.
After catching our breaths, drinking some water (it's amazing how good simple ice water with lemon in it can taste when you're doing something like this) and cooling down in the shade (again, a simple thing that is grossly under appreciated by those who never venture out) we hopped back on the bikes and started down the other side of the hill.
As our bikes picked up speed, I could feel the sweat evaporating off of my skin. While the view had been cool, this was what it really was all about! The scenery rushing past us as our bikes flew down the other side of the hill. We shifted up through the gears and pumped the pedals to the point where it didn't matter if we pumped them anymore. We felt the need for speed and the thrill that went with it! (Sound like one of those days when you have back to back closings and everything pops just like it's supposed to?)
All too quickly, we were at the bottom of that hill and while our momentum carried us a ways up the next hill, it was time to get back to work (seeing my point here now, aren't you?).
The next hill wasn't as bad as the first one. Nor was the next. The one following that was another big one though and we had to labor up it much as we had the first. When we got to the top of this one, we took another break and decided that it was time to head back home. Which we did.
Later that night, after having gotten home, I told my daughter about the ride and I bet that you can guess that the best part of the story wasn't about the flat parts or about the little hills that weren't all that hard. The best part of the story was about climbing the big hills and over-coming the challenges that they presented.
Bob Mitchell is president of ValueList Real Estate Services, St. Louis' largest discount/full-service real estate and mortgage company. If you would like to find out more about Bob, ValueList or our flat-fee listing program, please feel free to visit our web site at valuelistre.com
This morning I read a blog by Robert Swetz called, "Why Are You Overweight" and when I left a comment there, I realized that my perspective on this issue might be something that a lot of folks might find of interest.
You see, I've been fat my entire life. I was a big baby, a big toddler and when I got to kindergarten I was still one of the biggest kids there. By the time I was in 4th grade, I could roll to first base quicker than I could run there!
This was about the time that my sister mailed a book on Yoga to my mother. I intercepted the book and started doing the exercises in it. I also was lucky enough to live in a neighborhood that sponsored a little league football team where my coach was a professional boxer.
Coach Cody (K.O.Cody) was of the belief that the team who was in better shape had an advantage over other teams. Plus, I guess that he enjoyed the company as he did his running when he was getting ready for a bout.
I remember one time getting our pictures in the paper as a couple of dozen 9 and 10 year olds were running behind this tough looking black man. The end result was that I discovered running as a way of getting in shape.
The funny thing about this is that while I ended up becoming pretty athletic in that I played little league football and baseball and lettered in both Football and Swimming in High School plus I also got to go through winter conditioning with the University of Missouri Tigers Football team and at one point was running 7 miles a day as I got ready to go to boot camp with the United States Marine Corp, I never got skinny. You would have thought that I would have, but I didn't.
Anyway, over the years I've tried a ton of diets. Low fat, low carb, grapefruit, vegetarian, 1000 calorie a day diets, etc. etc. etc. and none of them worked. Well, the Adkins diet worked in that I did lose 53 pounds in 12 months, but I plateaued there and as soon as I increased my daily carb intake to over 50 carbs a day (still a very restrictive diet) I started to gain it all back (which I did).
I also have managed to keep myself in pretty good physical shape and at 47, I'm proud of the fact that my blood pressure runs around 114 over 70 with my resting heart rate being in the low to mid 60's. I've had problems with cholesterol but only when I've been tested and have not been working out.
So, here I am 47 years old, in pretty damn good physical shape, yet I'm still fat....what gives?
Well, after all these years, I finally figured it out.....it doesn't matter how much you work out, if you still eat more calories than you burn, you'll put on weight. Sad but true, it really is a matter of calories in vs calories out.
You could eat all of your calories in the form of lard and if you burned more calories than you consumed, you'd lose weight. Where as, you could be running marathons and if you're appetite went up and you ate more calories than you burned....you guessed it!
Now, of course nothing is THAT simple. Especially when it comes to something as complex as the human body. For example, if all you looked at were the calories in vs. the calories out then simply cutting your calories should be enough to lose weight, but it's often not. Why?
Well, because your body is designed to attempt to maintain the status quo. That is, if you cut your calories too much, your body is going to realize this and it's going to think that you're starving (which in essence you are) and it's going to slow things down. You're going to get tired and lazy as your body moves to conserve the reserves that it has. You'll also lose muscle mass.
Also, there is something to be said for spacing your calories out throughout the day. By doing so, your body is less likely to place those calories in storage.
As mentioned above, the opposite is also true. If you start exercising on a regular basis and burning more calories than you're consuming, you're body is going to react to this too by increasing your appetite.
So, what's the answer?
The answer that I've found is to not be in a hurry. Moderation is the key. The other key is that you have to utilize a two prong approach. That is, you have to attack the problem by both keeping track of your caloric intake AND by burning more calories.
By keeping your daily caloric intake just slightly below your caloric expenditures, you can keep your body from thinking that it's starving. Also by increasing your daily caloric expenditures, you can eat more as long as you don't get carried away.
One other thing that I've found that is important is to give yourself regular days off from the calorie counting (within reason). This helps your body not think that it's starving, plus it gives you the psychological benefit of not feeling like you always have to be perfect. I give myself 2 days a week off.
Since I've been doing this approach (on a regular basis) I've only lost something like 8 pounds (over a period of 2.5 months). Which brings me to my last point. You Don't Need To Be In A Hurry!
At the pace that I'm on it will take me almost two years to reach my goal. Which is cool! Why do I need to be in a big hurry? I'm in good physical shape and last I checked, I'm not on the roster of any professional football teams.
Bob Mitchell is president of ValueList Real Estate Services, St. Louis' largest discount/full-service real estate and mortgage company. If you would like to find out more about Bob, ValueList or our flat-fee listing program, please feel free to visit our web site at valuelistre.com
Last Friday morning I turned on CNBC to watch the business news and the coverage was centered on the crisis at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. As I sat there listening to the talking heads discussing the possibility of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac going belly up, my own belly was doing back flips.
While I agreed with the commentators who expressed the opinion that Fannie and Freddie were too big to fail and that the government would have no choice but to step in and rescue them, I couldn't get over the fact that there was serious discussion going on about the possibilities of their demise!
I guess that over the years that I had drank the Kool-aid. To me, Fannie and Freddie were as solid as the US Government itself. While I didn't agree with everything that they did, they did seem like well run companies that had solid business models. While some others debated whether it was fair for Fannie and Freddie to have the privileged position that they did as Government Sponsored Enterprises, I believed in their existence and their purpose.
To me, the economic advantages that came with their GSE status was more than a fair trade off because Fannie and Freddie did a good job of providing liquidity to the housing markets. They were the bedrock that the entire real estate and mortgage industries were built upon.
Now here I was listening to some bald headed guy tell me how it would be better if the government agreed to let them fail if that's what it came to. To say the least, I was dumbfounded!
Had I been wrong about Fannie and Freddie? From everything that I had read it hadn't been the loans that were underwritten to Fannie/Freddie standards that were causing the problems (from my understanding the default rate on the "A" paper Fannie/Freddie mortgages was slightly higher than 1.7%).
Even the "Alt A" loans that Fannie and Freddie did (the level approvals) were performing well with a foreclosure rate of less than 2.4%.
So, what gives? Why are Fannie and Freddie in trouble?
I'll be honest, I spent a fair amount of time this morning attempting to research this question and I wasn't able to come up with a good answer.
From what I could tell, part of the problem at Fannie and Freddie is that they got into the business of guaranteeing mortgages that weren't underwritten to their own standards, including a fair amount of sub-prime mortgages. I also understand that they actually invested in sub-prime mortgages themselves, both as Mortgage Backed Securities and by purchasing Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDO's) as well as other mortgage investment vehicles.
The end result is that Fannie is going to lose something like 53 Billion dollars this year! This got me to thinking...how would Fannie and/or Freddie going belly up affect my business?
What I concluded wasn't very pleasant. If Fannie and/or Freddie goes belly up and the government doesn't come to their rescue, then I think that we're hosed! Not just those of us in the real estate and mortgage businesses, but rather WE'RE ALL HOSED!
The house of cards that is our economy right now won't be able to handle an impact this large. Housing values will drop (even further and faster than they already have) and while eventually somebody would step in to the niche that Fannie and/or Freddie now fills, this wouldn't be for years as the markets settle and without the advantages of being a GSE, their rates would be higher and terms less advantageous.
In the mean time, only the very strongest borrowers would be able to finance a home purchase and even these folks would probably be required to put at least 20% down in order to protect the lenders interests in the event that values do continue to fall. In short, the real estate market as we know it would cease to exist!
And it wouldn't only be the real estate and mortgage markets that would be affected. The rest of the economy would come crashing down with the real estate markets because people (who are already feeling economically pressured) would realize that they are indeed broke and broke people don't spend money!
I don't mean to be an alarmist, but with this kind of talk going around, we're looking straight into a very deep hole that we're in danger of falling into!
I hope that it doesn't come to this and my gut tells me that the government won't allow it to come to this. At least I hope not. I'm curious what you all think? Am I being too pessimistic here? What do you think will happen if the government were to allow Fannie and/or Freddie to go bankrupt? Let me know.
Bob Mitchell is president of ValueList Real Estate Services, St. Louis' largest discount/full-service real estate and mortgage company. If you would like to find out more about Bob, ValueList or our flat-fee listing program, please feel free to visit our web site at valuelistre.com
Democrats and Republicans....what does it matter? That was the tone of a comment that I just read on a post where the discussion was about the current low opinion ratings that both Congress and The President are currently receiving.
While I can understand that person's frustrations and I can even agree with him that in some ways all of the politicians, with the exception of Ron Paul and a few others, do seem to be alike. That is; money grubbing ideologs that are more concerned with lining their pockets and lining up political paybacks for as soon as they leave office.
But I do think that it does matter which political party that you support, if not belong to. If you don't believe me, can you imagine how different our world would have been if Al Gore had become President when he was elected back in 2000? While some of you may wince at this possibility, that is proof in and of itself that things would have been different.
Whomever took office after than election, be it from having gotten elected as Al Gore did or having been installed as Bush was, would have started from the same place. The dot.com bust would have had to have been dealt with. Iraq...well, if Gore had been selected Saddam Hussein would have probably still been alive and a thorn in our side, but he still wouldn't have been able to fly from one end of his country to the other without our permission.
My point is that Gore would have probably handled things differently than Bush did. Our energy policies would have been different, we wouldn't have had the tax cuts for the rich, while we may have ran some deficits, I doubt that our spending would have ran as out of control with Gore as President than it has with Bush. We'll never know, but I'm willing to bet that it would have been DIFFERENT!
So, while it's easy to shrug it off and declare that it doesn't matter which sides wins, the last 8 years have proven to me that it does matter. Bush and the neo-cons have had there way for 8 years now and look where it's gotten us?
Ronald Reagan asked the American public a simple question when he was running against Jimmy Carter. He asked, "Are you better off now than you were 4 years earlier? The public spoke and Reagan was elected.
Well now I'm asking you, are you better off than you were 4 or 8 years ago? How about the country as a whole? Is it better off than it was 4 or 8 years ago? Personally, I don't think so and I think that a lot of people agree with me. If you're one of these people, then get past the frustration. Recognize that we do have still have a voice.
Voting for a Democrat is a vote against the status quo. It's a vote against the policies of the last 8 years that have favored big business and the wealthy, not to mention the same policies that have driven our country to the point of bankruptcy. Is this next election going to wrestle our government back from the big corporations? I doubt it, but it's a step in the right direction!
The fact that it's a step away from the failed policies of the Bush administration is enough of a difference for me! Get out there and vote! Volunteer for a campaign. Do your best to get your voice heard
Bob Mitchell is president of ValueList Real Estate Services, St. Louis' largest discount/full-service real estate and mortgage company. If you would like to find out more about Bob, ValueList or our flat-fee listing program, please feel free to visit our web site at valuelistre.com
A blog about St. Louis real estate and about real estate in general from a guy who has been selling real estate and doing mortgages since 1984. I'm also the owner of ValueList Real Estate Services, Inc. a discount real estate company serving St. Louis since 1995!
Disclaimer: ActiveRain Corp. does not necessarily endorse the real estate agents, loan officers and brokers listed on this site. These real estate profiles, blogs and blog entries are provided here as a courtesy to our visitors to help them make an informed decision when buying or selling a house. ActiveRain Corp. takes no responsibility for the content in these profiles, that are written by the members of this community.
lungs in a bad falsetto by three almost grown young men driving down the road in a 1964 Ford Fairlane with glass pack mufflers and 50's on the back. Oh, I almost forgot the, "Click Click" as the eight track changed to the next song.
home on the camping trips).
at certain points in the song. Close your eyes and think back to listening to Styx and tell me that you don't remember, "Why must you be such an angry young man "click click" when your future looks so bright to me!"
to Clinton Missouri (about 260 miles) along the route of the old Missouri - Kansas - Texas railroad. It is one of the best known of the rails to trails projects and from what I've seen of it, it's a beautiful ride.
After catching our breaths, drinking some water (it's amazing how good simple ice water with lemon in it can taste when you're doing something like this) and cooling down in the shade (again, a simple thing that is grossly under appreciated by those who never venture out) we hopped back on the bikes and started down the other side of the hill.
side of the hill. We shifted up through the gears and pumped the pedals to the point where it didn't matter if we pumped them anymore. We felt the need for speed and the thrill that went with it! (Sound like one of those days when you have back to back closings and everything pops just like it's supposed to?)
;)
;)
