OK. I'll admit it. I avoid bad news like the plague. I just don't want to read or hear it. Not in the Washington Post or Wall Street Journal or CNBC. I even skip most of the bad news blogs here on Active Rain.
Yes, so I am a Pollyanna! I admit it!
Even so, I'm sorta kinda aware that the economy is going down the beautiful new water saving Toto toilet in my remodeled bathroom, and I know just enough to understand most of what I do read and hear. Still, I try not to let it interfere with my work of helping my clients to buy and sell homes.
Then yesterday I had a conversation with my favorite guy. He's an economist with not only street smarts, but also a string of degrees from several of the country's finest universities, and he's the smartest person I know. He gets paid really big bucks to explain the quirks of the economy, mostly to oil company folks. But he really understands the housing market as well, and I get the benefit of his knowledge for free.
And he pointed out something yesterday that stopped me in my tracks:
The total amount of the bailouts to our financial institutions now exceeds $1trillion dollars when you add it all up.
Then I started to wonder how much is out there in mortgage loans. If you added up every mortgage balance for every home in the US, how many trillions would that be? So I checked some web sites and finally called the National Association of Mortgage Brokers. When nobody there had a clue, I got a little nervous. If they don't know, who does?
Couldn't find it on any of the government web sites either. Hmmm. Troubling. Very troubling.
Anybody out there have the answer?
Last night on The Daily Show, there was a clip of one of the news channels many talking heads trying to explain the numbers to idiots could understand. As she put it, the bailout involves the amount of money that it would take to buy 2,000 McDonald's apple pies for each man, woman and child in the country. I got a little sick to my stomach thinking about eating just one of the things.
So there are all of these numbers being thrown out there. And I, for one, am finding them way too big to get my arms around.
Oh, yes, and then my very friend went a bit of a rant about how they are running the printing presses at the mint overtime to pay for it - and I got a very scary explanation of what is likely to happen to our currency as a result.
Ignorance was bliss - at least for a while.
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