There is no place like forclosure

Rising gas prices are the least of my concern. Economic ruin does not make my head spin. Because I do not own a home or a car, I laugh like the wicked witch of the west on her bicycle, speeding past those who now find themselves in the same storm that has keep so many others trapped under the crush of western capitalism for generations.

Anticipated supplemental tax rebate checks are being sucked into the sky by a dark funnel cloud known as rising fuel costs. There goes all of America’s disposable income! We haven’t even landed in OZ yet. Just wait until home values crash even further, my pretties.

Don’t let the men behind the curtains of financial institutions like JP Morgan Chase and Bear Stearns lead you down the piss-stained yellow brick road we are all following right now. The real estate mess will get much worse before it gets better. One does not need a brain to figure out what is happening to the value of land in Kansas.

For so long, the Munchkins in middle-America believed that home ownership was the key to future financial success and platinum retirement accounts. Like Donald trumps with windswept hair, we believed in the figures from property assessments and home values—numbers that promised so many so much and offered promise of a comfortable retirement. Many home owners were so wealthy on paper that they bought more homes, just to turn a quick profit by either renting them to less fortunate or simply by selling them a few months down the road under the promise that property in America never loses its value.

America’s financial experts have assured the media that America’s mortgage mess is almost over because high-risk individuals who never should have been given loans in the first place have been weeded from their bottom lines. There is one major factor that those with Harvard degrees in business have failed to note:

Considering the substantial loss in home and property values over the past two years, it’s better for many, even those with impeccable credit, to simply permit their mortgages to default, thus ignoring payments for thirty years on loans on property that is now worth less than half the amount of money borrowed to purchase in the first place.

America’s second great depression is unavoidable, not even the power of red ruby slippers or another decrease in the prime lending rate will enable us to sidestep the shit we are in. The disaster is good news for many, who have never owned a home.

Don’t believe the hype—there is no place like home.