I would offer this analysis.
First, the housing market and mortgages are in the pits. There are tens of thousands of empty houses in Florida, Arizona, Vegas and California....some now empty for three and four years. The banks are anchored down and screwed over this matter. Toss in the underwater mortgages, and you’ve millions across the US who would like to upgrade or move....but can’t, nor can they even get a better interest rate.
Second, if you read the Wall Street Journal...banks are still failing across the US. I realize that most newspapers and network news organizations aren’t mentioning it....but bank failures continue.
Third, it doesn’t matter if you go to a small town in Iowa or a big town in Florida....the economic situation in the US is believed to be negative.
Here’s the thing though....I don’t any of these will be fixed in four years or even ten years. Obama could have come in and done three or four things to at least make this negative period shorter, but instead....we’ve got a full decade ahead of us for recovery. As for voters...I think a majority of voters don’t see a bright economic future around the corner, with either candidate. But they’d like to at least see a glimmer of light, and with President Obama....that glimmer just isn’t there.
“I think a majority of voters don’t see a bright economic future around the corner, with either candidate. But they’d like to at least see a glimmer of light, and with President Obama....that glimmer just isn’t there.”
I agree with you there. One way the Republicans can hold out hope is income tax cuts, because that is a help to people on the individual level (Christie has won a lot of popular support here in NJ just by STABILIZING the property tax problem). People need to keep more of their income not to spur the economy with spending, but to deal with their debt (the credit card situation will make the mortgage problem look miniscule), and tax cuts will have at least a small impact on that.
The “housing crisis” itself is really just a symptom of a larger problem - the “jobs crisis”; with “normal” unemployment levels at decent jobs, there wouldn’t even be a housing crisis. The problem is that when you tell a mortgage lender that you have been at the same job for 20 years, that no longer means you have a future at that job (in fact, it probably means you’re being targeted for replacement with a younger, “cheaper” worker). We don’t have too many homes for people to live in (our population isn’t shrinking); we simply don’t have enough people who can afford to live in them because of the job situation. I will grant that there were criminal abuses that came to a head when the housing bubble was ready to burst; homes were over-valued and documentation overlooked to make a fast buck. The fact is that people who bought homes years before the housing bubble are also in trouble because of jobs/wages, and many have exacerbated that by borrowing against the homes to compensate for shortfalls in wages. Fix the jobs and you’ll fix the housing problem; there is currently no reason for someone with a McJob who can’t afford a family to even consider buying a home for the non-existent family to live in.
In trying yourself to find answers of the forest and the trees in the “Battleground States” are canceling themselves out. Zero and his campaign minnions decided to carpet bomb negative television ads. It’s going to cpmpletely zone out there message.
Well I agree and disagree. Baby Boomers are pretty inpatient. I think with Romney AND a republican congress there will be a rapid turn around as we saw with Reagan.
I’m in a small town South of Atlanta. Things are picking up here with businesses shunning the union labor market and coming here and into Alabama. People are very optimistic.
On the other hand, I have no idea how young single people can make it.
I didn’t know so many banks were failing. Do you have a relevant link? TIA.