Venting

Everyone is losing their jobs. The economy is terrible, and good people are being punished for the sins of others. It all started here in Vegas with greed and stupidity. The houses here were going up like match sticks being bent up on a book. Furiously mortgage companies were determined to get anyone and everyone into homes, regardless of credit history, or ability to pay. Greed was the main component. Like leasing a car most people never read the fine print, or had the sense to use their critical thinking to figure out that if you are buying a 400,000 dollar home and your payment is $900 dollars, it may be to good to be true. That is where it began. Then is snowballed. More easy loans, more buyers. It attracts investors, more homes, prices go up, values go up, too many homes, not enough buyers, but values are still up, investor homes sitting empty, turn into rentals. Then it hits, that ARM mortgage that was signed for all of a sudden balloons. Now instead of a $900 payment, it starts to creep up, $1000.00, $2000.00, and now the real payment is being made. People foreclose, no one sells or buys homes. Real estate agents lose jobs, then the mortgage brokers, then the lenders, then the car dealers, then the construction industry, then the casinos, then the small businesses close, then the large businesses start the layoffs. Ladies and gentlemen, that is where we are at. As of today; my dad is out of work, my aunt is out of work, my dad's best friend is out of work, and my husbands best friend is out of work. These are the people who have been in their respective industries for years, they are the people with integrity. Who loved their work, who had purchased homes the right way, raised familes, and had already had to struggle. It isn't right. It just isn't right. I don't have any power to change any situation, and that is the worst part of all. I am angry, because of materialism, greed, and ignorance. In 2009 I am going to start on my progression away from consumption and materialism . After all, what is it that we all need?
Duane Elgin said, "we can describe voluntary simplicity as a manner of living that is outwardly more simple and inwardly more rich, a way of being in which our most authentic and alive self is brought into direct and conscious contact with living."