Are you better off than you were 4 years ago? Even democrats admit the disaster

over a decade. that is more than 4 years. the bottom in asset values was right when obama took office. its getting better since then.
ground zero for the housing crash was florida,arizona, nevada, california. all have recovered nicely from the bottom 4 years ago. in fact parts of california home prices have eclipsed the highs before the crash.

 

Bullshit

That's why the majority of existing home sales are corporate, bought for the booming rental sector, even the banks are getting in the industry understanding that they can't recover their debt liabilities by selling the repo's on the open market and unable to take the loss on their books are keeping their repos and converting them into rentals.

The housing sector is dismal at best and is being artificially propped up to keep the dead cat from falling even further.

 

one more subject that you have no clue on.

http://www.youtube.com/user/JimtheRealtor?feature=watch

 

Really? You can put all the Shinola you want on the economy, but the vast majority of Americans are out-of work, under employed or if luckily enough to still have a job have probably taken pay cuts or forgone raises to keep it... that is unless you work for the Federal Government.

Wag that dog all you want but it smells like shit to the majority of us.

 

My home has gone down in value every year since 2006, from a high of 315,000 to it's current value of 220,000. This is based off my tax assessments, so it could be a little more or less. The point is the trend continues down. I live in St. John, IN., which is an upscale semi rural community in NW IN., about 30 miles S.E. of Chicago.
My brother lives in Lombard, IL., another upscale community west of Chicago. His condo is down from over 400K to about 250K. He also owns a home in Tuson, AZ. which price has stablized, but is still down.
I do not know a single person in the Chicago area who is telling me the value of their home has gone up during the last 6 years.

 

maybe people like you are but many people i know have money and are spending it. cash is trash so they are putting it in assets including houses.

 

US Debt to Hit $16 Trillion on Tuesday as DNC Begins
NewsMax

Just as Democrats are gaveling in their convention Tuesday, the federal government likely will announce another dubious milestone — $16 trillion in total federal debt.

In an election already focused on domestic issues of jobs, spending and deficits, the $16 trillion number is likely to underscore just how much is at stake in November for both parties, which are offering dramatically different ways to begin to eat away at the deep hole.

Gross federal debt has been flirting with $16 trillion for the past two weeks, and the government ended Thursday $15.991 trillion in debt.

With several debt auctions scheduled for the end of last week, budget analysts think the government probably broached the $16 trillion number on Friday, and it will be reported to the public Tuesday, which, thanks to the Labor Day holiday, is the next business day.

While $16 trillion isn’t a tipping point, it is a stark number that Republicans said will reflect poorly on Mr. Obama, who has overseen the biggest debt explosion in the country’s history.

“This is a grim landmark for the United States,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee. “Yet the president seems strangely unconcerned.”

The Obama campaign didn’t respond to a message seeking comment on the milestone, but, speaking on “Fox News Sunday,”David Axelrod, a top adviser to Mr. Obama, said the president has a “plausible plan” to stabilize the debt, but acknowledged the plan doesn’t actually begin to reduce it.

“You can’t balance the budget in the short term because to do that would be to ratchet down the economy,” he said.

That underscores both sides’ dilemma: Republicans object to tax increases, saying they will stunt a recovery, while Democrats say reducing spending would likewise hurt.

The Congressional Budget Office last month said raising taxes or cutting spending, or both, might indeed send the economy into a recession, though the alternative — putting off fiscal tightening — means things are worse in the long term.

Republicans believe the debt can be used against Mr. Obama. At their convention last week in Tampa, Fla., they posted a giant electronic board that steadily ticked off the debt they said accumulated every moment from the time they gaveled into session Monday afternoon until they ended the convention late Thursday.

But debt jumps — and occasionally falls — in much more sporadic fashion, as bonds are regularly being auctioned off and sold back.

The biggest one-day boost in history came on Aug. 2, 2011, just after Congress and the president agreed to raise the debt limit, unleashing months of pent-up borrowing.

Democrats argue that neither side has clean hands — though debt grew less under President Clinton than either Mr. Obama or President George W. Bush.

Gross debt stood at $4.188 trillion when Mr. Clinton took office in 1993 and grew to $5.728 trillion when he turned the White House over to Mr. Bush, who added $4.899 trillion in his eight years in office, to reach $10.627 trillion on Jan. 20, 2009, when Mr. Obama took over. The country has already notched another $5.364 trillion during his term.

 

Obama Campaign Flummoxed by 4-year Report Card Question
NewsMax

It's a question that aides to any president seeking re-election should be ready to handle: Are Americans better off now than before he took office?

This seemingly simple query, however, flummoxed President Barack Obama's team over the Labor Day weekend, throwing the campaign on the defensive just as the Democrats are about to open their national convention.

Republican Mitt Romney's campaign pounced. Running mate Paul Ryan, speaking Monday in another North Carolina town, amped-up his party's long-running efforts to persuade Americans, once and for all, that Obama's economic record disqualifies him for a second term.

Democrats acknowledged that Obama's team must get a better handle on the question, an updated version of the Ronald Reagan line that helped sink President Jimmy Carter in 1980.

The Obama aides' halting responses reflected the dilemma the president faces. If he emphasizes the economic crisis he inherited from President George W. Bush, then Obama looks as though he's shirking responsibility for current problems.

But if Obama claims positives flowing from his policies' effectiveness — even with endorsements from independent economists — he risks appearing tone-deaf and insensitive to millions of voters' fears in a climate of 8.3 percent unemployment, sharply lower home values and uncertain futures.

"You can understand the Obama campaign's ambiguity," said Ferrel Guillory, an expert on Southern politics at the University of North Carolina. Obama's stimulus and intervention policies clearly averted bigger problems in banking, auto-making and other sectors, he said, but harping on it "doesn't satisfy the concerns of people who don't feel better off."

Others are less sympathetic.

"The Obama team made a significant tactical error on Sunday with their stumble over the 'better off' question," said Republican pollster Steve Lombardo. "It is stunning that they were not prepared for this question."

Even Lombardo, however, conceded "the president is in a box."

Obama's top advisers struggled with the question, repeatedly posed on Sunday talk shows.

David Axelrod said: "I think the average American recognizes that it took years to create the crisis that erupted in 2008 and peaked in January of 2009. And it's going to take some time to work through it."

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley was blunter when CBS's Bob Schieffer asked if he could "honestly say that people are better off today than they were four years ago?"

"No," O'Malley said. "But that's not the question of this election. Without a doubt, we are not as well off as we were before George Bush brought us the Bush job losses, the Bush recessions, the Bush deficits."

With Republicans attacking from all sides, the campaign dispatched spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter early Monday with a new message. Americans are "absolutely" better off, she told NBC, highlighting the problems Obama inherited in January 2009.

"In the six months before the president was elected," Cutter said, "we lost 3.5 million jobs, wages had been going down for a decade," and the auto industry was "on the brink of failure."

Republicans vowed not to let Obama off the hook.

"People are not better off than they were four years ago," Ryan told a crowd in Greenville, N.C., 220 miles east of the convention site. "After another four years of this, who knows what it'll look like?"

What frustrates Democrats is that, in many ways, the nation's economy was in distress four years ago. The collapse of Lehman Brothers and other financial giants sent markets into swoons and created a sense of political and economic crisis.

On Sept. 29, 2008, when the U.S. House voted down Bush's proposed $700 billion financial bailout, the Dow Jones industrial average plunged 778 points, its largest one-day point drop ever. Congress later reversed course on that measure, but the near-meltdown was doing deep and continuing damage to Americans' savings, retirement funds and confidence.

One problem for Obama is that unemployment — the economic statistic that affects the average American most profoundly — is a "lagging indicator," taking several months to reflect a crisis' full impact.

U.S. unemployment stood at 6.1 percent four years ago, 6.8 percent when Obama was elected, 7.8 percent when he took office and 10 percent nine months later.

It never dropped below 9.4 percent in 2010, when Republicans won sweeping victories in midterm elections.

Economists say even more jobs would have vanished if Obama had not pushed the automobile bailout, a separate economic stimulus plan, a banking industry bailout and other measures.

Campaign strategists in both parties, however, say few voters will credit a president for what did NOT happen. Equally troubling for Obama, people's anxieties can determine their votes just as readily as economic figures, if not more so.

"Most people know President Obama inherited a mess from Bush, but at this stage of the game they're looking for answers, not excuses," said Democratic strategist Doug Hattaway.

He contended that more people would be jobless without the administration's actions, but he added, "You don't want to overstate the successes and come across as tone deaf."

Vice President Joe Biden tried to shore up the Democrats' position Monday, linking one of his favorite phrases to the suddenly urgent debate.

"You want to know whether we're better off?" he asked a crowd in Detroit. "I got a little bumper sticker for you: 'Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive.'"

National Republican Party Chairman Reince Priebus accused the Democrats of "desperate damage control." He said they cannot win an argument over "the facts."

But the rest of his comments to reporters in Charlotte focused on voters' perceptions and emotions.

"I can guarantee you that families back home, especially in places like my hometown of Kenosha, Wis., don't feel like things are better today after four years of Barack Obama," Priebus said.

That's the challenge facing Democrats when they kick off their three-day convention here Tuesday.

Obama can point to economists' analyses that he kept conditions from getting worse. But Americans vote on political convictions, gut feelings, kitchen-table concerns and hopes and fears for their children's future.

If Romney can convince a majority that things just don't feel right with Obama, he may get his chance to tackle the U.S. economy starting in January.

 

Cash is trash, lol......large institutions are paying interest to keep assets liquid and in cash.

Ive been in business for 22 years, this year is a tad up over the average but is weather related and not because of the economy. I live in Oklahoma a place that has been fared better than most other parts of the US, I live on a rural acreage and have have lost about 15% of my appraised value, while there are pockets of good NEW home sales around the OKC and Tulsa areas, the rest are lower over the past few years, and the list of repos and vacant homes keeps growing as the banks are unwilling to sell their foreclosed properties.

The good Lord has blessed my household, I just hear it from my customers, to earn their business I have to keep doing more for less.

 

well, who in their right mind would want to live in oklahoma? i guess its a good place for bible thumpers. other than that it has to be one of the most backward places in the us.

i challenge you to buy a home in one of the crash ground zero areas for the same price it was 4 years ago.