Monday, October 15, 2007
Mortgage meltdown will affect the Balkans
http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=178561&version=1&template_id=48&parent_id=28
Odds are it won't directly affect housing prices soon, here it's not easy to get a mortgage, not for locals and not for foreigners. One's credit rating has to be very good indeed. The0 prices of houses, flats and land suitable for building, as well as rents are a lot higher than when I was last here. You gag when you see a building with heavy war damage going for what amounts to $220,000! Because looking at the wreckage, you know you are going to pay something comparable to that in repair costs and assorted legal and financial documents, all of which must also have the high level services of a legal translator, uuuum, as my late mother was wont to say, 'No thank you Guadalajara!'
It's really quite bad enough renting here.
Still the immediate impact of the mortgage crisis in the U.S. is unlikely to be on housing prices here, where it is going to hurt is loans for bigger projects, and for the various governments themselves. Eventually, since the housing prices here are the result of a post-war bubble, they are likely to go down some.
The interest system as a basis for doing business is of itself unstable, nature itself throws quite enough monkey wrenches in the works. Everything that makes economy more stable either lowers interest rates and keeps them low, or otherwise cushions the blows of interest fluctuations.
It is a social good for economies to be stable. People whose lives are ruined by economic instability are far more willing to go to war, or to create social unrest.
Then again, I want to add to Ambrose Bierce's definition of war, from his famous 'Devil's Dictionary'
I paraphrase here, he probably said it better:
War: n. a means of getting Americans to learn Geography
My expanded definition War: n. 1 a means of getting Americans to learn Geography, 2. n. a prelude to urban renewal in the rest of the world. 3. n. a means of qualifying for international humanitarian aid for projects that the government was too cheap or broke to do. (does not apply in the U.S.A.)4. a means of getting Americans to willingly surrender cherished rights(may or may not apply elsewhere)5. an excuse for looting and rape.(applies pretty much worldwide)6. a means of getting rid of cumbersome paperwork.
I am sure I will think of other additions as I go along.
The mortgage meltdown has already been a problem for other places outside the U.S., for example England.
http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=178561&version=1&template_id=48&parent_id=28
Odds are it won't directly affect housing prices soon, here it's not easy to get a mortgage, not for locals and not for foreigners. One's credit rating has to be very good indeed. The0 prices of houses, flats and land suitable for building, as well as rents are a lot higher than when I was last here. You gag when you see a building with heavy war damage going for what amounts to $220,000! Because looking at the wreckage, you know you are going to pay something comparable to that in repair costs and assorted legal and financial documents, all of which must also have the high level services of a legal translator, uuuum, as my late mother was wont to say, 'No thank you Guadalajara!'
It's really quite bad enough renting here.
Still the immediate impact of the mortgage crisis in the U.S. is unlikely to be on housing prices here, where it is going to hurt is loans for bigger projects, and for the various governments themselves. Eventually, since the housing prices here are the result of a post-war bubble, they are likely to go down some.
The interest system as a basis for doing business is of itself unstable, nature itself throws quite enough monkey wrenches in the works. Everything that makes economy more stable either lowers interest rates and keeps them low, or otherwise cushions the blows of interest fluctuations.
It is a social good for economies to be stable. People whose lives are ruined by economic instability are far more willing to go to war, or to create social unrest.
Then again, I want to add to Ambrose Bierce's definition of war, from his famous 'Devil's Dictionary'
I paraphrase here, he probably said it better:
War: n. a means of getting Americans to learn Geography
My expanded definition War: n. 1 a means of getting Americans to learn Geography, 2. n. a prelude to urban renewal in the rest of the world. 3. n. a means of qualifying for international humanitarian aid for projects that the government was too cheap or broke to do. (does not apply in the U.S.A.)4. a means of getting Americans to willingly surrender cherished rights(may or may not apply elsewhere)5. an excuse for looting and rape.(applies pretty much worldwide)6. a means of getting rid of cumbersome paperwork.
I am sure I will think of other additions as I go along.
The mortgage meltdown has already been a problem for other places outside the U.S., for example England.
# posted by Katja R. @ 12:59 AM 
