I was heading back to LA from the Temecula Valley where my, soon-to-be F*&*#d Buyer, relative saddled himself with a fixed-mortgage PUD in a soon-to-be ghost town.
Some arsehats at CalTrans decided it was a good time to rack up some overtime in order to saddle us with more future unfunded pension obligations and close the 710 freeway. So I had to continue on to the 110 to go south from the 91 Riverside Freeway.
Low and behold some youths of the local population availed themselves of the opportunity to commence havoc on the highways.
(background)
Everyone and their lead-footed mother knows that the CHP lacks any funds for extra staffing for CalTrans related work. This means when you see a patrol car sitting inside some ramp closure, there are no patrol units on the roads nearby. You can forget about getting any fast help from the CHP if there is a CalTrans Closure within 5 miles of your location.
These kids knew that and decided to play cowboy on the highway. One girl plopped her arse on the window-sill and drove her POS car sidesaddle!!!!
The other underemployed friend in the passenger seat stuck her foot on the gas pedal. Then her friends in at least 6 other cars started to do their own CHP style "traffic break". Weaving side to side and scaring the bejesus out of all the law abiding folks in the rear. Pretty soon all of the sheeple slowed to a crawl watching the wasted youth of America prance around in front of them like self-appointed gods.
I wasn't going to have any of this and continued on at 65 mph. Everyone in my car screaming at me to back-off and submit. I ignored them because I know that real thugs just stand up in the sunroof, turn around and pop of caps in some "fools" hood. I held my ground and drove right through them. They all gave way. All of them met my stare and gave way. None of them were bad-ass enough to meet my challenge of their false authority. Each of them watched me pass on with firm resolve ignoring the banter of my passengers.
(truth be told none of them looked like they could afford to get their dated cars banged up in a TC, I had no qualms about that since I really do have insurance. And for all of you that think I am some jive arse fool, talking nonsense, know this, I drive through south central LA almost on a weekly basis and I don't mean on the freeways. I got out of my car and went about my business even during the riots)
anyway......
They closed in behind me and continued to terrorize those that did not stand up to them.
The chatter in my car fell off to stunned silence as I worked my way past the misguided youth.
All lot of you reading this will think my actions were reckless and a danger to my family. Your right, there was a better than even chance that those punks could have turned violent. I was aware of that possibility before I committed to my actions. I continued on in spite of my misgivings.
But what is more reckless, staying with the crowd and letting others heard you into subservience, or standing your ground and declaring that what is mine is mine and no one can take it away from me.
That my friends is the phuture of California. It is between those that hold their ground and the thugs and miscreants running ruff shod on the unfortunate majority that will be addled with all of the burdens of the recent and fleeting excesses.
Those thugs can take the form of disaffected youth or paper pushing creditors. Either way you are hapless if you don't hold onto what is yours and do your damnedest to keep it away from the takers.
Monday, May 28, 2007
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
A Phuture Reflection on the Collapse of the (Inland) Empire
DATELINE: Temecula, Summer 2008
Looking back now it seems so easy to slap your forehead and say "Of, course", but not so long ago it would have taken a real gut-check to open your eyes and ask "Why is all of this here?"
Look around out here in the IE, every boarded-up commercial space covers a storefronts dedicated to filling homes up with superfluous brick-a-brak to fill all that extra space and toys for all those spots in the multi-bay garage.
All those families that escaped the tight confines of rental units in Orange, LA and San Diego, burst upon the IE and into the spacious 3/2 homes with garages and yards needed to do something to keep from staring at all that extra drywall.
"Honey lets' toss out all that old furniture that we brought from Garbage Grove last year and take that 40 grand of equity and really do all the rooms right?"
"Wow, honey can we!!!!! YEAH!!!!!
"Honey, I'm bored"
"Well, No-Worries Lending called and said we can pull another $60K out of the guest bathroom, let's get matching jet skies for the whole family!!!!!!!!
"Honey, I'm bored"
"Hey, we just got a mailer from Grows on Trees Financial, the bede in the master bath get us another $45,000. What do you want to do?
"I don't know, let's be prudent this time."
"Start a college fund?"
"No silly, Phase 3 is opening behind us. We split that $45 as a down on two units and then we'll sell one when phase 4 finishes and drop the other one in two years so we can keep every dime of the $500,000 profit. Beatty next door told me that is what she and Frank are doing.
"That sounds like a great idea!"
It all made sense back then, life is good, I'm living the dream! I deserve the 7 piece mahogany bedroom set, 60" plasma, ATV, JetSki, and Jacuzzi tub.
And the housing industry obliged them. Making sure that everyone got a chance to live the good life and that was going to last forever. But everyone pushed it to far, and little by little, all of the little players who tried just a little bit harder to get their tiny percentage of the pie, pushed it just a little bit more. And that is why we are here today.
Everywhere along the line from the guy who owned that barren empty land to the loan originator who got that family to sign the papers for that tiny patch of former orange groves, only had to concern themselves with maxing out their random opportunities. "Everyone was getting rich, why can't I expect a little bit more." But all these little bits add up, and pretty soon you are going to run out of folks that can pay the monthly nut that finances all this good fortune.
Did you really think we were going to keep spending like crazy at the Lowes, Staples, B-B-Q City, Bob's Billards, ATV Town, Best Buy, Kohls and the like.
What happened when the big chain stores started seeing same store sales drop from the one year old stores sprinkled all over the IE like pixie dust. Those big shot CEO's started to shutter the under-performers. They have to prop up their falling stock values with big pronouncements on cut-backs and efficiencies. Wall Street wants answers, it doesn't matter if they are excuses.
The big chains retreated and forced everyone to travel farther to more established stores. This made traffic even worse in the IE. But the same store sales numbers looked better and Wall Street loves it when you lop off under-performing liabilities, take a one time $30 mil write down and promise better times ahead for your stock. Everyone should be really happy that they did this, right? Your Retirement depends on that 401 K ,don't it? It's bad enough that my home is not worth what I paid for it but now you tell me my retirement depends on Home Depot same store sales? Now my portfolio is racing my home to see which hits bottom first. Great! Dow 1400 in 07' and 8000 in 08'?
When the big anchors in the corner mall close, the little mom and pops and Quiznos next door will die a quick death. All of those folks in the service/retail market left out of work and not be able to pay the option ARM monster mortgage pushing foreclosures up even more.
Home prices sank and the commuters who were the only ones left with incomes ended up in a deeper funk. Driving in traffic longer, eating up that $6/gal gas. Getting home too late and too despondent to go out to the movies or the restaurant.
And "poof" even more places started closing down. No more Macaroni Grill in BFE Wildomar, you have to drive 8 miles into downtown Temecula for a meal or a movie.
To heck with that, they all said, and just got 50 .lbs frozen bags of stuff at Costco and went back home to watch on-demand movies.
And just like that, the service sector in the IE shrank back down to what it was in 1990's in terms of how many people were need to be employed to service a ghost town of commuters trapped in negative loan to value mortgages sprinkled in between all those empty homes.
How much longer will these poor souls languish in these ghost towns? How can they sleep at night wondering if tomorrow, another neighbors' driveway will have a U-haul truck parked and packed up for someplace else.
When will the good times come back to the Empire?
Looking back now it seems so easy to slap your forehead and say "Of, course", but not so long ago it would have taken a real gut-check to open your eyes and ask "Why is all of this here?"
Look around out here in the IE, every boarded-up commercial space covers a storefronts dedicated to filling homes up with superfluous brick-a-brak to fill all that extra space and toys for all those spots in the multi-bay garage.
All those families that escaped the tight confines of rental units in Orange, LA and San Diego, burst upon the IE and into the spacious 3/2 homes with garages and yards needed to do something to keep from staring at all that extra drywall.
"Honey lets' toss out all that old furniture that we brought from Garbage Grove last year and take that 40 grand of equity and really do all the rooms right?"
"Wow, honey can we!!!!! YEAH!!!!!
"Honey, I'm bored"
"Well, No-Worries Lending called and said we can pull another $60K out of the guest bathroom, let's get matching jet skies for the whole family!!!!!!!!
"Honey, I'm bored"
"Hey, we just got a mailer from Grows on Trees Financial, the bede in the master bath get us another $45,000. What do you want to do?
"I don't know, let's be prudent this time."
"Start a college fund?"
"No silly, Phase 3 is opening behind us. We split that $45 as a down on two units and then we'll sell one when phase 4 finishes and drop the other one in two years so we can keep every dime of the $500,000 profit. Beatty next door told me that is what she and Frank are doing.
"That sounds like a great idea!"
It all made sense back then, life is good, I'm living the dream! I deserve the 7 piece mahogany bedroom set, 60" plasma, ATV, JetSki, and Jacuzzi tub.
And the housing industry obliged them. Making sure that everyone got a chance to live the good life and that was going to last forever. But everyone pushed it to far, and little by little, all of the little players who tried just a little bit harder to get their tiny percentage of the pie, pushed it just a little bit more. And that is why we are here today.
Everywhere along the line from the guy who owned that barren empty land to the loan originator who got that family to sign the papers for that tiny patch of former orange groves, only had to concern themselves with maxing out their random opportunities. "Everyone was getting rich, why can't I expect a little bit more." But all these little bits add up, and pretty soon you are going to run out of folks that can pay the monthly nut that finances all this good fortune.
Did you really think we were going to keep spending like crazy at the Lowes, Staples, B-B-Q City, Bob's Billards, ATV Town, Best Buy, Kohls and the like.
What happened when the big chain stores started seeing same store sales drop from the one year old stores sprinkled all over the IE like pixie dust. Those big shot CEO's started to shutter the under-performers. They have to prop up their falling stock values with big pronouncements on cut-backs and efficiencies. Wall Street wants answers, it doesn't matter if they are excuses.
The big chains retreated and forced everyone to travel farther to more established stores. This made traffic even worse in the IE. But the same store sales numbers looked better and Wall Street loves it when you lop off under-performing liabilities, take a one time $30 mil write down and promise better times ahead for your stock. Everyone should be really happy that they did this, right? Your Retirement depends on that 401 K ,don't it? It's bad enough that my home is not worth what I paid for it but now you tell me my retirement depends on Home Depot same store sales? Now my portfolio is racing my home to see which hits bottom first. Great! Dow 1400 in 07' and 8000 in 08'?
When the big anchors in the corner mall close, the little mom and pops and Quiznos next door will die a quick death. All of those folks in the service/retail market left out of work and not be able to pay the option ARM monster mortgage pushing foreclosures up even more.
Home prices sank and the commuters who were the only ones left with incomes ended up in a deeper funk. Driving in traffic longer, eating up that $6/gal gas. Getting home too late and too despondent to go out to the movies or the restaurant.
And "poof" even more places started closing down. No more Macaroni Grill in BFE Wildomar, you have to drive 8 miles into downtown Temecula for a meal or a movie.
To heck with that, they all said, and just got 50 .lbs frozen bags of stuff at Costco and went back home to watch on-demand movies.
And just like that, the service sector in the IE shrank back down to what it was in 1990's in terms of how many people were need to be employed to service a ghost town of commuters trapped in negative loan to value mortgages sprinkled in between all those empty homes.
How much longer will these poor souls languish in these ghost towns? How can they sleep at night wondering if tomorrow, another neighbors' driveway will have a U-haul truck parked and packed up for someplace else.
When will the good times come back to the Empire?
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