Category: Consuming

Financial Crisis? What Financial Crisis?

My Suzuki SV650 and Megan’s Ducati Monster, now both for sale on Craigslist.

I can’t decide if I think that more people will be switching to motorcycles for the fuel savings – and to used bikes because they’re cheaper – or whether people will be less inclined to buy any kind of motorcycle at all….

I guess we’ll find out. Worst comes to worst, I get to keep my shiny toy til 2009. That’s not so bad.

Do One Thing, Do It Well

My pal Joel B tipped me off about Has The HLC Destroyed The Earth?, a site which tells you whether the world has ended yet. It’s not as useful as “Do I Need A Jacket?” (tells you whether it’s cold outside) or “Down For Everyone Or Just Me?” (tells you whether a missing website is your problem or someone else’s). But it does serve some kind of function.

I think it’s a crime in France

Calimocho, or jote, is a mixture of approximately equal amounts of red wine and Coca-Cola. Mixing a cheap, dry, tannic wine with Coke softens the harshness of the wine and balances out the sweetness of the soda. Of course, most cheap reds in the US are too sweet already, so it makes little to no sense to drink it in the US. Still, done properly, it’s actually quite good.

But, as I said, I think it’s a crime in France.

Send Jeff Jacoby To Somalia

Jeff Jacoby takes the seventh-grader’s approach to politics today by arguing that the “government which governs least, governs best.” I hope this means that he’s headed immediately for Somalia, where nongovernance has turned the nation into a libertarian paradise.

I’ve sent him a snippy letter, of course, and if it doesn’t make it into the Globe I’ll post it here later.

I understand that the WSJ has to appease the bloodthirsty maniacs who constitute its core audience, and that explains (but does not excuse) the publication of editorials denouncing civil rights and social security as the products of drunkenly irresponsible legislatures.

But is there any reason for Jacoby to get a podium in Boston? If the Globe is so hard up for cash, why not drop the waste of space and put the savings into articles on items of actual local interest by decent writers with worthwhile opinions, like Joel Brown?

Underwater: Two Quick Links

Good Advice: Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, and don’t get an adjustable-rate cash-out mortgage on a house that was given to you as an act of charity. Yeah, the Extreme Makeover house is now going up at auction. Thousands of people volunteered to help build and furnish that house for the deserving family, and they’ve squandered it. Now, I guess, it’s time to go on a TV show about how being on reality TV ruined their lives.

Meanwhile, the BBC has increasing numbers of anecdotes about people just walking away from their mortgages. I’d say it’s unethical, but it’s all in the contract. Maybe it’s a bit of bad faith, but that’s business. And I guess if banks didn’t bother to require down payments, they were willingly taking on the risk that their borrowers wouldn’t have any skin in the game when push came to shove.

So, just walk away. It beats being underwater.

Borrowing Too Much

The Housing Bubble Blog does these news summaries with lengthy excerpts that recount tale after tale of poor planning and bad luck. One of them, from a local paper from west east of SF, involves quite a tale of woe: Family income cut in half after a layoff, and the value of their home declining. And the kicker: “They took out a second mortgage last year to help with their son’s wedding.”

Uh, what? I know that the Times says the cool thing to do these days is pay for cosmetic surgery and botox for all your bridesmaids, but why the hell would you borrow money to throw a party?

I’m horrified on a grand scale. First, people going deeply into debt for weddings reminds me of things I’ve read about the cycle of poverty in rural India. Second, a bridezilla asked five of her friends to get boob jobs for the occasion?

Everything: You’re doing it wrong.

Too Little, Too Late

Boston’s Real Estate Cafe is having a coffee meetup to talk about projected ten percent decline in the price of single-family homes in the next year. I don’t know what to say except “woohoo?” Loss of population, price declines, and the MBTA aside, housing in these parts is still too scarce, too expensive, and too far from public transit. For as long as I’ve been paying attention, the problems have been obvious and the solutions have been simple, if unpopular (Dense mixed-income housing! In your colonial town!)

Meanwhile, The Times tells me that Bernanke is “clamping down on exotic and subprime mortgages,” something that’s been obviously necessary for at least four years. Keep this up, boys, and you just might get the barn door closed by the time the horse gets bored of romping around the farmyard and decides to come back out of the rain.

Who Knew Rabies Would Be Such A Hot Topic?

I found a bat in my home last week, and accidentally touched it. That was the biggest thing that happened on this blog ever: Nine comments so far, and only two from me! One guy has been encouraging me to seek medical attention in case the bat I touched had rabies, and it scratched me without me knowing it, and the scratch gave me rabies. Hey, MA residents are required to have insurance, so why not use it?

Yes, I have insurance. But to be honest, I’m so sick of dealing with them that I would rather die of rabies than fight with them over a hospital visit. I know that’s incredibly stupid, and that it’s giving in to the primary way insurance companies reduce costs. (They make it too much of a hassle to deal with the medical establishment, so people skip care they think might not be absolutely necessary. Some people die because they make uninformed decisions and defer necessary care, but in aggregate it saves a few bucks for the insurance companies. Sick and evil, but economically logical.)

I don’t want to go into my own medical problems because they’re pretty minor. And yes, I’m lucky to have insurance at all, and incredibly lucky to be able to afford the occasional surprise on the bill. Nonetheless, I’m really determined not to go to the doctor again this year, and I’ve spent all I care to on medicine this year, and if that means I get rabies and die, fine. At least then someone else will have to deal with the insurance paperwork.