It would not bother me if 90% of car lots went under. I’ve never liked the basically dishonest way they do business. Never giving a straight answer with mind-numbing contracts that always take you back to the price they want no matter what they apparently took off. Or charging for delivery. Hey, for that kind of money, you could go get it myself if they’d let you.One of Fred’s customers is a real estate speculator, a guru. Reputedly worth “a lot of money” he was in the shop Friday. He says the market has tanked. He’s a nice guy, but my take is that all real estate people say that, whereas my gut feeling says things still have a ways to drop. He has “beautiful three and four bedrooms in posh communities” for sale at $45,000. Um, if it is such a good deal, why aren’t people flocking? Why are there still $700,000 houses on the market in “posh” places?
Look at Detroit. What is a house there going to be worth if even one auto builder caves? Which is almost certain. It will be another rust belt, with blocks of suburbia for $1,000 per house. The collapse, when it arrives here, will be at least as devastating. Anyone who owes any money anywhere right now, be it a mortgage, credit cards or the furniture store had better start sweating with the same intensity they used to brag. Tell you what, when I pick up a house in Lauderhill for $4,500 I’ll give it to Wallace for his birthday.
There will always be a traditional economy. Farming, plumbing, garbage collection, mechanical repair. My question is how is Joe Average, with his useless MBA and 30 years of kissing butt on the lecture circuit, going to fit into that picture? I notice the employment ads that specify “former civil servants need not apply”. What good is it to have a pension when you retire still owing most of it monthly payments? In the end, we shall see who made the truly wise decisions. I wonder how many people out there tied into those half-million dollar mortgages would love to dump their property and buy a $45,000 home. I say we haven’t seen the real trouble yet.
Congratulations, I stayed at home last night. The unhappy fact is that doing so has not yet become a habit despite my efforts in that direction. My mind was inventing reasons to go out for the evening. I even called the Hippie to see if he was playing anywhere. I found myself heading for the door several times. A movie. A coffee shop. A book store. A dance. It’s not as easy to stay in as it should be by now. On the other hand, I heard marriage works but forget that.
Time for a mini-lecture. Few things are equally distributed. When I was a kid, it seemed that everybody had some easy skill that guaranteed they would never go without. Except me, of course. I had to work hard for every meager scrap. Adult life teaches that this was not just my imagination, either. I have an example. My buddy, Arnel.
He played an afternoon gig on the beach y’day. The manager kept paying him to stay on afterward. He wound up playing for 12 consecutive hours. There is nothing I can do that compares to this. Not teaching or computers or music which amount to the only things anyone would ever say I had any “talent” for. (They must mean a very painstaking talent.) I hear little minds saying there are others worse off. If that is so, I have a question: why do they all make just as much money as I do? That is what we are talking about here, folks. The people I have to compete with. These “worse off” people watch TV sixty hours a week and I don’t ever see them at the library or evening classes. Get the point?
That was no isolated incident; other clubs were begging Arnel to play for them that same day. He can pack the joint in houses where a single round nets the bar three hundred dollars. We were talking Karaoke programming over at his place this afternoon and he’s got himself a cramp from all that guitar work. My elbow is also cramped. From carrying groceries a half block to my car. And before anyone carps I have a talent for writing, note that in my entire life, I have made $600 from writing. And that took a month. Talent, my eye. Arnel likely made that in tips.
End of lecture. I feel much better now. Your turn.
