I posted this as a comment at Steve's blog and decided I needed to capture it so..........

Wow if only things were that simple. Amazing as it sounds alot of the homes that have been forclosed on were never actually occupied. Remeber "Flip this House" and various other shows that tought you how to buy a house fix it up and then sell it within 30 days? Well guess what, when the prices started coming down those folks couldn't sell those houses. With loans being available for 0 money down, no financial disclosure, intrest only, and adjustable rates people were using houses as investment tools. Also don't forget new home construction. Contractors borrow money to build houses hoping someone will buy them. With more houses to sell then there are buyers the price can only come down. Now these folks are upside down on the loan and even if they can sell it they will lose their investment. With those prospects it was/is cheaper for them in the long run to just walk away or sell short (for less then what they owed) and leaving the banks to absorb the difference. That was the first shoe to drop we are still waiting for shoe number two. The adjustable rate mortages which people used to buy homes they couldn't afford, these are the ones people live in. Those are set to re-adjust in the first quarter of 2009. The tail spin we are currently in will just get faster and deeper.

Part 2. Can't we just take the bad loans and restructure them to help out the borrower? The answer is yes and no. The banks/mortage companies that made the loans packaged them together in bundles they sold as securities, investment instruments. These packages were sold to who ever wanted a piece of the action. In fact one package could have been sold to alot of investers. Everyone that bought in was guarranteed a percentage of the pie. These were bought and sold like stocks. Short term investments even though the notes were made for 30 years. So in order to re-structure one note the bank would have to buy back the entire package with interest from the investers who bought it. Then take out the note in question, re-structure it put it back into another package then re-sell it. Not too bad you might think. Well now the security (package of loans) can not be rated as risky and it's likely that no one will want to buy into it. Banks lose.

Lose-Lose all the way around. The bailout will prop up the banks but be bad for everybody in the long run. Printing 700 billion dollars in cash will be unbelievebly inflatonary. Prices will almost double over the next few years or less. The only real solution to this problem is to let it go. Our economy will re-value to some past value but it will be real and the economy will be able to again grow in a more reasonable fashion. It will be very painful as millions of people will lose ther jobs, homes, and everything else they own. But then the Goverment will have something to do. Feed and house those people.

Every one's been talking about this lately and this week is Global Warming week on the Eschatology Channel. You might know it better as the History Channel but since most of their programming, at least in the past few months, deals with the end of the world, I re-named it the Eschatology Channel. This week is death by Global Warming. Yea that picture is the cover of Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth rather ironic don't ya think.

Last night was there first viewing of a show entitled Global Warming?. Now I figured since the title had a question mark in it that they might had come to their collective senses and were going to present both sides of the issue, but alas it was not so. They were singing the same sad song of human induced global warming. Well in this piece I want to take a look at their three points of global warming.

Point #1: The climate across the world is changing.

Ok, I'm going to go out on a limb here and agree with Mr. Gore. Everybody get up off the floor and finish reading the piece. I think we can safely say that the climate is changing. At least in the show a few of the scientist they had gathered were calling it global climate change and not global warming. I can say from my own self-educated (I know we're the most dangerous kind) experience that things have changed from the 60's when I was a kid running around in the North Central Texas area. Back in the day by October things were already cooling down. By Halloween we were wearing jackets. The first week of November usually brought the first frosts and by Thanksgiving we might have even had our first ice storm. Anybody remember the Leon Lett fumble that cost the Dallas Cowboys the 1993 Thanksgiving Day game against the Miami Dolphins? In contrast, it's November the 12th and I am writing this with the doors and windows open, it's a very comfortable evening, temperature in the low 70's. The rest of the week is supposed to be in the 80's temperature wise.

But don't take my word for it let's read what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has to say about it. This is from their web site page about climate change:

The Earth's climate has changed throughout history. From glacial periods (or "ice ages") where ice covered significant portions of the Earth to interglacial periods where ice retreated to the poles or melted entirely - the climate has continuously changed.

Scientists have been able to piece together a picture of the Earth's climate dating back decades to millions of years ago by analyzing a number of surrogate, or "proxy," measures of climate such as ice cores, boreholes, tree rings, glacier lengths, pollen remains, and ocean sediments, and by studying changes in the Earth's orbit around the sun.

So even I can agree with the Gore-ites when they say that the times they are a changin'.

Point #2: Human actions on this planet have cause the climate change.

Well I think this is the point that causes all the trouble. We could line up a series of scientist on both sides of this argument and I guess the one who wins is the one who files the last scientist in. Once again let's turn to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Their web site is a perfect example of this argument. They actually have two pages to describe the reasons behind climate change. One they call the  "Past Climate Change" page and one called the "Recent Climate Change" page. Now if we look at the reasons here prior to 1750 they are all natural. The orbit of the Sun, changes in the Sun's intensity, and volcanic activity are reasons for climate change. After 1750 however, those issues are no longer a factor, it's has to be human input. I don't suppose it could be a combination of things could it.

Now I'm not against being a good steward. I think we should all be doing our part to help conserve our planets resources. However to state unequivocally that humans are solely responsible for the current climate change is just absurd. The hypocritical fashion in which the message is delivered is insulting. The reason this point is so important to the Marx-ocrats has been made perfectly clear. If they can get legislation established that we humans are responsible for the climate change then they can go about the process of nationalizing our public utilities, taking the profits from the oil companies, and leaving the people with nothing.

But I digress. This point, in my opinion, for all practical purposes doesn't matter. After you have established point number one, that climate change is taking place, why it's happening doesn't really matter. And if we look at past history there really is nothing we can do to stop it. Which leads us to our third point:

Point #3: What, if anything do we do about it.

This is the crucial point, the moment of truth so to speak. What do we do. Like I said previously, I am not against conserving where we can and doing our part to reduce our personal "footprint", but we need real world options not pie in the sky dreams that wont be available for decades and will cost far more than they will save. I will once again use personal experience here. I have been researching the use of solar panels, and wind power to offset my personal energy use in my home. Currently what is available is still expensive, approximately $15,000.00 to $20,000.00 to set up a system which will take about 10 plus years to show a return on my investment. And on top of that I would have to convert my all electric home to use natural gas for heating, cooking, and cloths drying. Also, in Texas during the spring they can be damaged and rendered useless by one thunderstorm, which based on current projections of climate change will be getting more frequent. No, taking the profits from the oil companies will not do, nor will federalizing the utilities fix the problem.

What we need is preparation. With the forecast models it should be possible to determine what regions will be most affected by the current and coming changes. We need to prepare to relocate the countries agriculture to more fertile areas. We need to educate the people that live in possible danger zones of what to do when things go bad. We need to be prepared to handle the number of people that will be displaced when a large scale storm strikes. This is what we as a people need. And we shouldn't wait for the government to rescue us after the fact. We should be actively making preparations to go for a few days with out power to our homes and businesses. We should be ready for what is ahead.

Based on everything I have read, I believe that the face of our planet has changed in the past and will continue to change in the future with or without us. The time for waiting for the government to protect us is past. The time for us to act is now.

(re-posted from http://www.out-world.net)