My bonds stay pretty steady. My money market interest has gone down. My balanced mutual fund seems to generally always suck except for getting dividends every quarter. My growth mutual fund, though, however, since the downturn has plummeted but then kind of revolved around the price I originally bought the mutual funds. I see the current situation as pretty much the housing bubble broke and the markets have to correct themselves and some people will get screwed over while other people will do well.
Remember, the housing bubble pretty much started bubbling as a remedy to the tech bubble, which formed after the '80s real estate bubble. Another bubble will happen. . ..
What an economy we live in, though. It pretty much does well when there's money moving around, invested and saved in a certain combination. When that combination doesn't work, it goes in an odd direction.
Personally, though, I'm not too worried. I just want to pay off the debt I've accrued from the wedding, and I got a raise a couple months ago. I'm doing fine. Sure, I'd like other people to do fine, too, but I think there's better ways to address that than having the economy moving. . .but then again, I'm partially a socialist.
So what's the relation between the tech bubble and the housing bubble?
I thought the housing bubble might have gotten a bit of a start when the tech bubble was happening, more people suddenly getting better salaries and sometimes investments.
Is that it? Or something else?
The housing bubble probably started with the tech bubble but it pretty much extended after the tech bubble burst for two reasons, the second one partially dependent on the first: (1) The Fed/Banks lowering interest rates because of the tech bubble crash, thus the need to create more demand (like now with doing this extra payout to taxpayers) then (2) Banks, Credit Unions, the Secondary Mortgage Market, etc. comes out with innovative mortgage products (balloon loans, interest-only loans, etc. etc.). And, as we all have seen, once the balloons and and people with interest-only loans start needing to pay the principal. . .the housing market bursts.
So, yeah, the tech bubble started the housing bubble because there was more non-loaned money in the market. . .but once the tech bubble burst, the housing market was stimulated by the lowered interest rates, and the innovative mortgage products further inflated the housing bubble and stimulated the housing market until nowadays.
So some Libertarian leaning folks I sometimes joust with on a different site think that this could still be the fault of Too Much Government by lenders being pressured to make home-enabling loans to the disadvantaged at risk of seeming like they discriminate. I suspect it's more classic bubble risk-deaf greed. Opinion on that?
I think I agree more with you, even if I can see the Libertarian point.
The only counterargument I would make to them is why at that certain point in time would the government have stepped over their bounds and not at some other time? Their argument is too ideology-based, in my opinion.
I think the argument that some kind of financial innovator just came up with a new idea and a great way to market it. . .especially with interest rates low and money not really going anywhere else. It was essentially the most efficient economic stimulus at the time, in my opinion.
well as you know by my firsthand struggles and whining and bitching and crying, and the fact I can't relax...
it capital S sucks, my darling.
Like a Hoover.