The Banner Boy

I was thoroughly surprised this afternoon, riding my bike south on Franklin Blvd. at the intersection of Mack Rd., to find new home construction.

Yep. At the exact same corner that held this sign, the Villa Terraza compound:



I had mentioned before how I predicted this sign would shred in the winter winds, and it already did. After a few months of it being torn up and folded over, the banner boy took the banner down last Fall.

But the banner boy was employed this last weekend, yeah, coincident with the new $18,000 tax credits offered when buying new construction. The banner boy was busy putting up new banners that say "S360 New Construction." I have no idea what that means. But apparently, they wasted no time in trying to lure in new buyers into new construction, nevermind the fact that there must be 30,000 vacant foreclosed homes in the greater Sacramento region.

You get an $8,000 credit for first time buying, and a $10,000 credit for buying new. Think about this...this isn't just $18,000 off the top of a thirty year mortgage, it's $18,000 in today's dollars, in dollars now. That has so much more appeal to the tens of thousands of new homeowners because you're not talking about thirty years, you're talking about now. Ask any American about where they expect to be in thirty years, and you'll get a glazed, blank stare. They don't give a fuck about the future, and they never have. They only care about now, and now is King.

To give you a sense of what my America is like, let me tell you about a guy who called into the Hanson McClain weekend AM radio talk show this last weekend. After 14 months of failing to pay on his mortgage, the caller's now interested in working with his lender to stave off foreclosure. When queried, he indicated he has no savings at all, at all, with which to use as an additional down payment, to pay for any loan restructuring fees, he's got nothing.

Where, exactly, did all of his money go that would have been sent to pay his mortgage for the past 14 months? He's got no savings? And now he's expecting a personal bailout?

He's the reason why I hope this nation fails, falls straight on its ass. He represents a growing volume of entitlement-dependents, Americans who think and know they deserve more than they do. A perfect example of why I root for a game-changing depression. What we're doing, what we've been doing with all these bailouts, capital injections, loan modifications, is only exacerbating the same culture of unearned riches that got us into this fucking mess to begin with.