What’s Your Home Worth?

  With all of the home price declines and the other mortgage bullshit, I thought that it would be interesting to check out the latest Rasmussen Reports to see how you feel about your current home value. Is your home worth less than your mortgage payment? Worth more?

Fifty-four percent (54%) now say their house is valued for more than they owe, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Thirty percent (30%) say their houses are worth less than the rest of their mortgage payments, and 16% are not sure.

  54% may sound good, but when compared to December, it is a 7% drop.

In early December, 61% of homeowners said their houses were worth more than what they still owed on their mortgages.

  Oh but wait! There’s more!

Among those whose homes are no longer worth as much as the mortgage, expectations remain bleadk--36% expect the value of their home to fall even further over the next year. In fact, even looking out over the next five years, just 44% of those in this difficult situation believe their homes will gain any value at all.

Among those whose home value exceeds their mortgage, there is also a significant level of short-term concern--28% say the value of their home will decline over the coming year.

Overall, homeowners’ views on how long it will take the housing market to recover remain largely unchanged over the last four months. Fifty-five percent (55%) of homeowners say the value of their home is likely to go up over the next five years, but over the next year, just 16% say the value of their house is likely to go up.

Twenty-eight percent (28%) believe the value is more likely to go down in the next 12 months, while only 13% expect a decline in value over five years.

Upper income Americans are far more likely than others to believe that their home is worth more than the mortgage. Among homeowners who earn less than $40,000 a year, just 39% have that confidence.

Technorati Tags: Rasmussen Polls,Housing Market,Economy,Mortgages

President Obama And His Chat With Wall-Streeters…

  had to have been a pretty good one, unless you were one of the Wall Street idiots sitting at the table.

DKos

Smackdown: Big-Wig Bankers Reminded Who's In Charge

by IDrankWhat   Fri Apr 03, 2009

As POTUS and FLOTUS charm the Continent, new details emerge about the not so secret meeting between President Obama and the financial mavens whose incredible avarice plunged this nation's and the world's economy into the deepest pits of despair since the Great Depression.

Quick brown foxes, jump over lazy dogs for juicy details of big-wigs taken to the woodshed.

They may not have come hat-in-hand this time, but they tried to make their case none-the-less.  They soon realized that this was to be all business and no pomp and circumstance.

At each place around the table sat a single glass of water. No ice. For those who finished their glass, no refills were offered. There was no group photograph taken of the CEOs with the president...

Said one attendee: "The only way they could have sent a more Spartan message is if they had served bread along with the water.  The signal from Obama’s body language and demeanor was, I’m the president, and you’re not.

Thus, having only crow to eat and enlightened with the understanding of who actually runs the country, the gathered power-brokers, though cowed,  tried to explain the outrageous salaries, bonuses, perks and what not as a necessary costs of doing business.

These are complicated companies, one CEO said. Offered another: We’re competing for talent on an international market.

The big-dog wasn't buying that.  Seems the Prez. is a bit more in touch with the mood of us proles than them private-jet-ridin, I use summer as a verb, hot-shots who succeeded in driving our financial system to ruin.

The president spoke of public outrage over the high-flying executive lifestyle. “The anger gentlemen, is real,” Obama said. He urged pay reform and said rewards must be proportional, balanced, and tied to the health and success of the company.

President Barack Obama... offered a blunt reminder of the public’s reaction to such explanations.  Be careful how you make those statements, gentlemen. The public isn’t buying that.

Talk a guy with his finger on the pulse.  I guess those who live in glass houses shouldn't heave bricks about.  Especially when they are buying those bricks on our dime. 

I fully share the populist anger over the excess of the honchoes who thought they owned the world and President Obama's measured suggestion that those who get look to the opinions and options of those who lose strikes me as yet another instance of the brilliance our President possesses. 

What he is saying is what we all know:  You are welcome in our system to profit from you endeavors.  We have always rewarded hard work, sacrifice, education...  That is the world we live in.  However, the rules are changing and you have lost the faith and the trust of the public and thus you have to show through affirmative action that your interest are broader than yourselves - you have to give back.  The treasure you horde, comes with an obligation to respect the public upon whose back you made it.

As POTUS told the Wall-Street-Wizards:

My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.

Now that is Righteously Kick-Ass

  Now if only President Obama would do to those Wall Street bankers just as he did with the CEO of GM. Force them out of their positions. Then maybe we all would be just a little bit happier. Maybe not. These sorry fuckers need to be tried and convicted, and then sent to the prison of our choice. That would be at least a little bit of justice for you and I.

Technorati Tags: Wall Street,Bailout,President,Barack Obama,Economy,Finance,Bankers