it's a fine mess we've gotten ourselves into...

an article on the probable next phase of the housing meltdown resulted in a pretty long string of comments; lots of crass and ignorant pricks chimed in, but there's quite a few that ring true with personal experience and hit pretty close to my own heart, so although i never jump into these frays, i made an exception in this case to make a personal point about how this whole deal has made victims even of those who did their best to do everything right...like my daughter's family.

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there is no doubt that homeowners with good credit who purchased homes during the bubble will begin to walk away from mortgages that are not currently in default or even delinquent as short-fuse mortgages reach reset dates.

my daughter and her husband, who are fiercely protective of their credit rating and the honorable fulfilling of their obligations, purchased a modest home in new port richey, fl in july '05 for $171,000 with 100% financing arranged through e-loan that involved an 80% first mortgage and a second mortgage for the remaining amount...100% financing, interest only for five years, with the expectation that the increase in value would allow them to refinance into a new first mortgage for the full amount when the two notes come due 07/10. they have struggled but have maintained their payments in full and on-time because that is what they agreed to do.

in today's market, that home would probably sell for about half of the original purchase price...about $80-90,000. what are they to do? if the bank would give them a new fixed-rate mortgage for the full amount, they would no doubt accept it, continue to live in their home and make the payments on time -even though it would be a struggle- because they want to keep their commitment. but of course refinancing will require an appraisal, and the bank will no doubt want to finance just 80% of the current value, and they have no way to pay the huge difference, even if they were dumb enough to do so.

i have always advised them on their purchases and finances, and even helped them choose their current 80/20 mortgage which has a good rate and was within their ability to pay, so it is not as if they were irresponsible in buying more home or taking on more debt than they could afford. they are innocent victims of the boom and bust cycle that was orchestrated by a broken and corrupt system.

it breaks my heart to tell them they should do so, as they have done everything right, and it is so important to them, but i am advising them to place their home on the market as a short sale at the current value as an alternative to allowing the mortgages to fall into default and allowing a foreclosure. sadly, even a short sale that is accepted by the lenders will have a serious effect on their credit which is so important to them, could result in the banks asking them to pay the shortage, and no doubt will affect their ability to purchase another home in the future.

why on earth is it not possible for the banks to reduce the principle on their debt to the amount that the house would sell for today and have them continue to pay their obligation, keep their home, and retain their good credit rating? the banks would get the same amount they will get anyway in a short sale, and save the costs involved with selling and financing the home to someone else. this is a situation that is beyond any reason, and as this article points out, i'm afraid the effects of it are only beginning, as homeowners who have kept up their payments face the prospect of having no choice but to give up their homes and mortgages as the thousands of sales and mortgages done with five-year terms come home to roost.

jtc

behind the scenes...

it's easy enough to see who pulls the strings in moscow; the pretty puppet goes through the moves while the plotting puppeteer makes the real plans.

but who (or what)is behind the curtain (heh), pulling the levers for the bo-bot? he makes nice and speaks flawlessly about leading by example, but what is the true vision for our ultimate defense? (hint: his recent voiceover gig and similarities to neverland notwithstanding, it ain't disney...)

could those who call the shots for the former also be architects of the grand design (or the grand disarmament) for the latter?

one might look to history (or channel adolf and ask him) about the value of the firm handshakes and earnest promises of those who would (still) rule the world.

jtc

HAPPY B-DAY USA!

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YOU'RE STILL THE ONE!
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jtc

one down, two to go...

wifey and i drove up to north ga. monday to close the sale of my son's former house up here. the transaction went smoothly at the attorney's office tuesday morning, and the money is now in the bank. it was a losing proposition; we paid cash in aug. '05 (and moved son up here on katrina weekend; scary!) with some of the proceeds from the sale of our business and investment properties in fla. the plan was for eric and his fiance to buy the place from us and have us finance the sale. well, we financed it all right, but problems between his fiance and him kept the actual sale from ever happening, and eric moved back to fla. last year.


we put the place on the market then with an agent last june but that was just as the financing bust was busting big, and the people who were interested in a 170k house couldn't get a mortgage without perfect credit and a huge down. so a few months ago, i put it up fsbo, offering to finance the sale for a buyer with decent credit and a decent down, at a price that reflected my not having to pay 12k in realtor fees. almost immediately we got a call from an agent who was handling the sale of a widow's house in a town an hour away, and the widow wanted to be nearer to her daughter and son-in-law. she would pay cash (awesome!), but it was contingent on closing the sale of her former home which in the new world of real estate wasn't a done deal until this past friday when her first sale closed. the agent settled for a flat 4k commission and the buyer assumed all the closing costs.

so even though we lost about 20k all told, it beats having the place sit empty and paying upkeep, plus at this point what was investment capital is now needed to pay off credit lines, etc. that we have had to use in the past year to live and help set up a new business. and thank God the real estate market in this area has remained a hell of a lot more stable than in fla...losing ten percent of our investment is bad enough, but right now homes in central fla. are selling for one-half or less of what they sold for a few years ago at the height of the bubble.

so all in all, we're happy that it's done. now we have another house near this one to sell (it's under lease-option to the original agent for the first one; the plan is for them to complete that purchase next year), plus the home in sebring, fla. where we're back to living fulltime will be sold too when (if) the market there recovers somewhat (400k paper value during the boom is at best 250 now) so that we can buy a place around ocala or gainesville.

and we couldn't have had better timing for our trip up to no. ga...fla has been insufferably hot and humid for the past two months, and here they've had a lovely cool snap that has brought the 50's and 60's overnight and far less humidity. we decided to drive another half hour up to blue ridge and rent a cabin with a view for a few nights before heading back to hades...i mean florida. and right now i'm sitting on the porch overlooking miles of mountaintops and damn near chilly from the delightfully cool breeze. my sweetie and i will head into downtown in a little while for her to browse the antique shops here in blue ridge, and then come back to the cabin to grill a few steaks and enjoy the tranquility together over a couple glasses of wine.

life ain't perfect and never is, but it could sure be worse.

jtc

opportunity knocking...

annoying but effective teevee pitchman billy mays was found dead this morning...

he lives near here in the tampa area and was on a plane that blew its nose wheels on landing at tampa international yesterday roughing up a few folks including billy. he got a bump on his head and gave an interview on last night's local news, saying he was okay because "i have a hard head". not hard enough, i guess; his wife said he went to bed last night not feeling well and woke up dead this morning. man, you never know what's going to take you out.

sorry for him and his family, but on the up side, there's one more bad unreality show by the wayside. of course in this sick world, his "pitchmen" reruns will probably get huge viewership and his products will become collector's items...i can see the fleabay blurb now: "this is an actual unopened, nib container of the same oxyclean used by the famous billy mays before his tragic death...only $150!"

but from tragedy comes opportunity...a great idea for a new product; gel-cushion hat for those pesky crash landings. they'll have to get another pitchman, though. hey, is the sham-wow guy out of jail yet?

jtc

a father's day wish...

last year, on the fifteenth anniversary of my dad's passing at age sixty five, i wrote a bit about him, and it seems appropriate for today as well...


"he wasn't a perfect man -or a perfect father- and he would spend some of his talks with us (my two brothers, two sisters and me) as we took our nightly turns nursing him in the final year of his life, apologizing for what he thought were his failings...i'm glad i was able to tell him this: there was never a day in my life, and believe me when i say i was an imperfect son, that i had any shadow of doubt of his love for me, or that he would give up his very life for me in an instant. that to me is the perfect definition of success as a father, and i told him that if i can just leave my own three children with that knowledge, and the love and peace and security that it imbues, then i will consider myself a success as a father too."


happy father's day, dad...i love you and think of you often, and i know that we will see each other again...some day, some how.

jtc

rat rod on flea-bay...

i'd always liked the '54 chevy trucks...the sculpted and relatively homely design was the last before the straight streamline shapes that began for chevy in both trucks and cars in '55. plus, i was born the same year and i always felt a bit of ugly kinship with them.

so when i turned 50 about five years ago, i looked around for a hot rod driver that would be fun without being a show truck or trailer whore. this is what i found and it's been a blast to own and drive, but it spends most of its time in the garage, and i guess it's time to let somebody else drive and enjoy her.

i started an ebay auction last night, item number 250446134866 for anybody who wants to check it out. notice there's another similar but way more show-worthy truck that started on auction about a half hour after mine; it's worth checking out too, if you like this design.

jtc

update sat. 6/20: it's sold!

a fellow and his wife saw the truck on ebay and drove over this morning from their home near fort myers. after a thorough checkout (about two hours!) i let him beat me down a bit and drive the old girl home. i hated to see her go, but the guy had been looking for a hotrod truck for over a year and he promised to give her a good home, so i'm happy, he's happy, and my wife is especially happy to have the extra garage space back...so, win-win-win, just like a good transaction should be.

so long little truck, it's been fun; we may be the same age but i have a feeling you're going to be around long after i'm gone...and that pleases me. jtc

a visit from "the bureau"

wow. thirty years as an ffl and i had exactly three on-site inspections from atf. and while i had a couple of interactions with the fdle (florida dept. of law enforcement) related to gun transactions that would allow enhanced charges against defendants in ongoing cases, i sure as hell never had, or expected to have, a visit from the f.b.i. but that's just what happened to clint last week.

one thing is sure; being a firearms dealer is different now. i sold my pawn store to clint at the end of '05 but had already dropped my ffl a year before rather than renew for another three years. that would have been my first renewal since 9/11 and what had always been a process of just sending in the renewal form and notating any changes was going to be way more involved; an on-site interview and a much more in-depth inspection of inventory and logs. not that i had anything to hide...i stayed on top of the paperwork to avoid any difficulties and i always thought that the occasional atf trace request to which i responded quickly and accurately helped to avoid more in-person visits.

but the gun business for me, aside from my personal enjoyment, was more of a necessity to be able to accept firearms as loan collateral and buy collections as part of estate purchases rather than as a full-fledged gunshop. yes, i sold quite a few new guns because i liked to keep my cases and racks full and i was the only storefront ffl in town. but i operated on a pretty thin margin to be competitive with wallyworld (they were still full-line gun retailers for most of that time), and i did prepaid special orders at cost plus $50 for any gun. this helped me keep some nice older stuff in stock because of trade-ins, and it's the vintage guns that i enjoyed the most. but eventually the concern for liability helped me make the final decision to drop my licensed status.

but this f.b.i. stuff is a new twist...clint said two agents from miami spent ten minutes in a "get-acquainted" visit, and keyed on asking him to be vigilant and contact them when he suspected anyone or anything of being "unusual", with the implication that they were looing for terrorist profiles and expecting ffl's to do the profiling for them. that's a whole 'nother level of responsibility, liability, and judgement that i for one am glad not to be a part of. i don't know how widespread this f.b.i. contact is, and i'm wondering if it is a veiled scare tactic intended to further reduce the number of licensed dealers. i'd be interested in knowing other ffl's experiences and their sense of what it's really all about.

jtc

star wars!

apparently, the invasion from outer space has begun...

our little german friend may be exagerrating a bit, though...that pebble-sized meteorite "sent him flying"? unpossible, as any gunnie knows. of course reflex action might have caused him to send himself flying; i guess i'd be jumping around too, wondering who the hell was shooting at me! just a warning shot from the klingons maybe?

jtc

degradation of dialogue...

on that at least, huffin' po's michael rowe got it right.

so somehow, the octogenarian loonybird (whose weapon of choice to take up the fuhrer's cause of killing all the jews was a .22 rifle) was goaded and guided in his cause by coulter, o'reilly, limbaugh, and...palin? yeah, that's a fine and thoughtful dialogue you got goin' there, mikey.

and nbc's evening news just led its bit on the museum shooter by saying..."he might have been driven by an obsession with guns as well as bigotry..." well, an obsession with .22 rifles anyway...

jtc

happy happy birthday, baby...

my girl turns 55 today, two-and-a-half months ahead of me. and she still gets carded when buying wine at the grocery store...no kidding. we were both seventeen when we married, and if i do say so myself, i was a cute little feller back then. little did she (or i) know, that soon my hair would start streaking gray and be nearly all silver by the time we were in our thirties. and we won't mention that the cuteness seems to have, um...lessened over the years.


not her though. she is the most beautiful, young-looking, blue-eyed blonde around. and the beauty goes way more than skin deep. she and i had our differences over the years as you might expect being together since high school; we even separated for a time in our mid-twenties. but through thick and thin (and there was a fair amount of thin), not only did she stick with me, but her strength, love for her family, and awe-inspiring determination and capacity for hard work is what got us through the tough times. the morning after her birthday she headed to tampa to attend 7 year old granddaughter Grace's dance recital; that's them in the pic..how's that for resemblance, and how can that old girl be fifty five freakin' years old?

while i usually get my jollies every year for the few months that she is a year older than me by informing restaurant waiters, cashiers, and total strangers of the fact, and watching them look from me to her back to me with an expression of doubt and disbelief, i won't be doing that this year...because, you know, she's officially a senior citizen now and deserving of a little more respect;o)

happy birthday, my girl. you know and i know that i would be lost (maybe even dead) without you. i love you and i promise to do my best to be worthy of you, provide for you and take care of you in your -ahem- golden years.

me

modern priorities...

today is the 65th anniversary of the all-out allied invasion that turned the tide of ww11 and quite possibly won the war. so when the google artist who commemorates significant events with a creative redesign of their name put his talent to work for today, you'd expect what, landing craft, parachutes, a background filled with planes, and surf tinged in red?

well, no...see today is also the 25th anniversary of tetris, the iconic and addictive little time-waster that we all know and love/hate. so of course the google logo today is a conglomeration of little squares.

the priorities of the modern world...which probably would not exist as we know it had it not been for the awesome effort and sacrifices made on june 6, 1944. i for one will be thinking of a 65th anniversary today, and i may never play tetris again.

google is a powerful and amazingly useful tool, and its operators are business and creative genius...but they haven't got a clue.

jtc

the (new) china syndrome

are you just dying to drive the new chinese vehicles that are in our near future? good, 'cause you probably will.

jtc

jon stewart: not totally sucky (this time)

i'm not jon stewart's biggest fan to say the least. but last night's edition had an hilarious and spot-on mocking rant on the bobo administration's foray into the car and insurance industries...segueing into a not-totally negative and pretty damn funny bit with john gad on the relative investment virtues of ar-15's vs. ak-47's.

sadly, what i thought would be the highlight of the show (and the original reason i tuned in) was an interview with one of my favorite writer/humorists, p.j. orourke. but p.j. disappointed mightily, in a very lame promo of his new book. the book is about one of my other favorite subjects, classic American cars, and i haven't read it so i will assume (and hope) that it is up to p.j.'s normal excellent standard. but the interview was truly pathetic. oh well, you can't have everything.

jtc

sotomayor: good for gun biz!

gotta print up some more posters for the gun shop walls...we'll put hers, "salesman of the month"right under barry's, "salesman of the year".

keep it up, bobo!

jtc

i remember you...

and on a day that has become known more for heralding the beginning of summer than for honoring our ultimate heroes, i thank you.

because of you, my family and i live lives of peace, prosperity and freedom...and in spite of everything else that goes on in the world, your sacrifice has earned my undying gratitude.

may God keep your souls safe and warm forever.

jtc

quid pro quo

in recognition of and repayment for the fawning adoration bestowed upon obama by the late and shameless "journalist" tim russert, joe biden is dispatched to stand in for tim as commencement speaker at wake forest university and to extend the year-long eulogy of him.

they probably figured even biden couldn't screw this up. and i'm sure it reinforces in ol' joe's mind (and everyone else's) just what a critically important cog he is in the bobo machine.

jtc

the ceo of "the state" has spoken...

and just like that, your next new vehicle will require a stop every few hundred miles to drain off the excess fuel.

next up: comprehensive unlimited medical care for all, with those greedy medical researchers and pharmaceutical companies limited to a maximum annual charge of $100 per person.

then we'll address all this war stuff going on in the world; if we send them a few gazillion in bailouts and ask them nicely to be good, i'm sure all those bad guys with bad attitudes will love us and join in a nice round of kumbaya...

jtc

i just couldn't resist...

what can i say? i'm a sucker for a good deal, especially if it's a good deal on a good gun. the officer's enhanced colt that clint bought as part of a nice package from a collector (see the rest in my last post) just kept calling my name...i don't really know why, it won't be my carry gun and it's surely not the ideal target plinker with it's short grip and an appetite for dollar-a-shot ammo. still...it's purty ain't it? clint's 14-day hold period expires tomorrow, and it is a good deal; inner and outer boxes, both mags, all the papers including blank warranty, and it looks to have been used very little if at all. so i guess this one's coming home with me.

jtc

some days it was fun to be the pawnbroker...

after thirty years, most of the activity in the pawn shop had become routine, boring, and sometimes downright annoying...which is why i sold out to clint and semi-retired a few years ago.

but when clint called friday to ask if he could delay his regular weekly payment to me until next week because he needed all available funds for a gun collection he was buying, it reminded me that there could be some really fun days.

a middle-aged fellow from the small town south of us needed to liquidate his collection to help his daughter take advantage of a great buy on a house, but didn't have time to go the private-sale or gunbroker route, preferring the immediacy and liability waiver of selling to an ffl...so clint bought: a stainless colt officer's model .45, a model 21 s&w target pistol, an s&w mo. 60 .357, a glock 30, a ruger mo. 1 in .300 mag., a winchester 94 in .444, and a couple of ruger single-action big bores...i haven't seen them yet, but clint says most are lnib, and his total investment? $2600.

i got over wanting to keep the cream from nice buys like this years ago, but i'd be sorely tempted to hang onto a few of these...clint's cashflow situation is such that most of them will go on gunbroker as soon as his two-week hold period expires; should be a turnover of around double for him.

i'm going to stop by his shop tomorrow and take a few pics, and i'll post some of them here...kind of dangerous, though; my son would like that glock mini .45 to go with his .40, and the colt will probably be calling my name. but...must...resist...

jtc





update: well, my son had to take a look at the g30, so he went to clint's to take the pics for me. the ruger 1 and the m94 .444 were not on display and clint was tied up with customers, so no pics of those, and the s&w mo.21 is presold and locked away, but here's the rest (not great pics, they're through the glass as clint has them in the showcase until they make their debut on gunbroker just in case a local buyer pops up.

r.i.p. jack kemp

regardless of your opinion of his politics, his is an amazing life story...

and speaking of amazing, am i the only one who is in awe of newmedia's ability to react to news? just as the legacies are reporting kemp's death as a breaking story, wiki already has his biography updated to his death today. no wonder oldmedia is so quickly waddling down the path of the dodo...

jtc

finally!

a chance for the "o" to inflict some lasting harm.

jtc

mayday, mayday, mayday...

that just seems so appropriate right about now.

jtc

consequences

presidential worshipper...i mean reporter, chuck todd says:

"...conservatives and liberals alike can agree on one thing after 100 days of President Barack Obama: This guy is going to be consequential."

roger that, chuck.

sadly, our kids and grandkids, probably our greatgrandkids, will be the ones who will have to pay those consequences.

jtc

short for vilem and tomas?

here's a sweet love story...

but why the heck did they name these czech twins bill and tom?

jtc

facing a whole herd of elephants...

i had read this story, but hadn't seen or heard from the guy himself.

wow. his business was similar to my son's and mine...thank God we're not in l.a.

jtc

via xavier

and atlas shrugs again...

yer preachin' to the choir there, pugs.

jtc

HE LIVES!

and that's all i need to know.

jtc

i have no words...

the ignorance and naivete demonstrated here just takes my breath away.

"Former ATF agent Gerald Nunziato pointed out that if Samaha had wanted to, he could have caused a lot of damage with the guns he purchased."

true enough. but i could do a lot more damage with my hemi 4x4 truck by plowing into a crowd...if i wanted to. man, how did the feds let that genius slip away?

h/t to say uncle

jtc

taking recycling to a whole 'nother level...

via jason in comments at the munchkin wrangler...

"As an aside to the sudaphed comment, we here in your former town of residence in the southeast learnt something last week! Evidently the body only processes about 40% of the meth that dopers ingest. The other 60% comes out in the urine stream. Dealers are now, literally, accepting PISS as a form of partial payment for meth. They then take this meth laden piss, and evidently, ala waterworld… distill the meth out of the piss, and resell it…"

and i thought smoking drano and rat poison was as bad as it gets. damn.

jtc

i've done some shooting at this range

but i'm glad as hell i wasn't there sunday to see this.

jtc

finally, a little culture...

man, i was so tired of being rep'ed to the royalty by bush, with his lack of deference and proper kowtowing to the bluehairs of the old world...

now for the refinement and smooooth manners of the One. a dvd collection for the prime minister, and an ipod loaded with show tunes for the queen...and the she-beast manhandles (heh) the old girl.

now that's the class that we've been yearning for...our standing in the world is restored.

jtc

welcome home again, discovery...

thirteen days and five million miles after blasting off, discovery and her crew glided back into fla today, with the usual giant thud of a sonic boom that always catches me by surprise even when i knew it was coming.

call it a flying greyhound bus, a garbage scow, or whatever...but it still amazes me that this thing can ride piggyback into space, function like a giant mobile workshop/travel trailer, and fly back home with pinpoint precision.

only a few more missions to come for these awesome machines, hard to believe they've been flying with almost no configuration changes for nearly three decades...i hope their retirement won't spell the end of our space program.

welcome home.

jtc

wow...

sham guy pinched for pummeling prostitute...

damn, dude; you gotta let the "makeup guy" do his thing before the "camera guy" does his.