Have you seen the "mansions" so many young couples are building/buying in the suburbs these days? Of course you have - 4 or more bedrooms, two or three floored Greco-Roman castles They're mostly bought through once-generous loans, with repayments originally considered affordable, by up-and-comers who just had to have everything all at once.
These are the people who need our sympathy now we're starting to feel the effects of the US financial crisis.
We can hope that the Reserve Bank and the retail banks here are flexible enough to give our PM's "Working Families" proper consideration, and that the many hard-selling loan company sales executives remember their share of blame for the problems.
Former Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, now looking quite good as newspaper commentator, tells us we're better governed, financially, than those in the US. He believes our political system, in which the people for whom we voted bear executive responsibility, serves us more fairly, too.
Coincidentally, I was shocked to see how devastating are the problems of the mortgage-belt homeowners in one Californian suburb. A 10 minute movie (from a link in Monday's Crikey.com.au web site showed newish suburban streets with more than half their homes empty and bank-owned. Contract teams were emptying furniture and personal items from up to 15 homes per day, where former "owners" had typically walked out with just what they could carry.
We should all hope Australia never gets like this!
But it's hard to feel sorry for those who gambled unwisely with other people's money in the share trading industry. there's plenty of room for improvement here.
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I realize this is an old post, but I thought you might find the following amusing. My son sent it to me.
Jack
Real Estate and Stock Markets Explained
Once upon a time in a village, a man appeared and announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10 each.
The villagers, seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest, and started catching them. The man bought hundreds at $10 and as supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their efforts.
At this point the man announced that he would now buy at $20 each. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again. Soon the supply diminished even further and people
started going back to their farms. The offer increased to $25 each and the supply of monkeys became so limited that it was an effort to even see a monkey, let alone catch it!
The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at $50 each! However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now buy on his behalf for him. In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers, "Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has collected. I will sell them to you at $35 each and when the man returns from the city, you can sell them to him for $50 each." The villagers rounded up with all their savings and bought all the monkeys.
They never saw the man nor his assistant again, only monkeys everywhere!
Now you have a better understanding of how the real estate and stock markets work.
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