Sunday, February 7, 2010

Default Chicken

As I review the Elk Grove Citizen this afternoon I list some the names of my neighbors newly added to the foreclosure roster:

Jacob M. Hurley, Quang Q. Huynh, Richard D. Warrick, Aleli Angeli M. Manuel, Matt Robertson, Sally A. Eversole, Richelle Callo, Selina C. Ang, Lisa Noyer, Phillip C. Lovell, Marlin L. Eagles, Bianchi Investments LLC, Mark A. Buzzard, Alonzo Arreola and Robin Dahl.

These are the people (remember, Bianchi Investments is a person, too) listed just on page 6 of 6 in my local paper.

What is highly interesting is that these names are substantially different from the names of people defaulting only 12 months ago -- these names are predominantly white. Twelve months ago they were predominantly brown. I am curious as to why. These defaulters signed their mortgages at roughly the same time, 2005 - 2007. Why did these white people decide to wait another 18-24 months to default compared to their brown brethren?

I may never know. Nonetheless, I still maintain that all of this economic horseshit was as much caused by consumer greed as it was by lack of financial regulation and the real estate machinery (real estate salesladies, mortgage brokers and housal unit builders). Each of the people listed above expected their housal units to appraise 20% more each year ad infinitum while every tranche of that real estate machinery received their own slice of that pie. They were all starry eyed, looking for their share of unearned riches.

Today many of the above named are likely locked into a game of default chicken -- if they stick it out in their housal unit and fail to pay the mortgage they might be able to stick around for 9-12 months (rent free!) because the bank likely will want to defer processing the foreclosure to prevent the mark to market of a loss. The longer the bank sits on it, the longer the "owner" can live payment-free. This is precisely why we are seeing more delinquencies on mortgages vs. delinquencies on credit cards.

Just wait until we enter, in my estimation, a future with escalating energy prices. Wait to see how Americans consumers prioritize their energy consumption activities. Wait to see how Americans consumers will prefer paying for gasoline to fill their cars before paying for their children's tutors, before recreational prescription drugs, before eye glasses. The game of energy chicken is coming.

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