I can borrow as much as I ever could, on my credit cards, my house, whatever. I honestly don't see any signs of any of this talk of 'frozen credit' markets due to this weird spike in LIBOR over the past few days. Be honest. Do any of you? Have you had personal experience or knowledge of people not getting loans or credit, or having other such problems, which is the whole impetus behind this bullshit bailout they're shoving down our taxpaying throats?
I'll be curious to see if my heating oil co is going to extend credit this year. I always pay a few days after the fill up (probably $800 or so) if they don't I'll know they have the problem because I'm not the problem.
I made your point in a thread a couple of weeks ago and had people jumping down my throat for the next 10 pages. Sure there's visible signs-I see more and more retail vacancies-but there's been so much wage inflation the past decade it's apparent there's an almost untouchable consumer class still out there. While I THINK the economy has bigger risks than in past mini-recessions, I'm cognizant than many folks will breeze by. I know ET skews young but much of middle aged America owns assets pretty darn cheap.
It hasn't affected me, If I want something, TV, truck, furniture, vacation, I pay cash. I was recently talking to my banker about expanding my business and from what I gathered I could get the money if I needed it. It wasn't a formal loan app but I couldn't tell that anything was different than it was a few years ago when I did get a business loan.
From what I've read, most peeps sub 680 FICO get 3 to four hundred basis points tacked on to a 30 year mortgage. Home lending standards have tightened quite a bit. how much exactly? not sure. who publishes metrics on that?
I just called B of A regarding an issue I had with my credit card, and they offered to increase my credit by $5k without me even asking. I, personally, haven't experienced any problems getting credit; I still get 0% offers all the time.
I don't just start threads to start them (okay, sometimes I do). I've heard many claims from talking heads, Wall Street people, news anchors, etc. over the last several days that credit has 'frozen' and loans are unavailable, and I honestly don't know if it's true or not true because I don't see it (which doesn't mean it's not true). I'm watching Buffet on Charlie Rose right now and it's pretty interesting (what he has to say). Buffet says it's not so much that credit is 'very' frozen right now (although he claims that it is to some degree), but that it will definitely become very frozen if nothing is done soon. He also is saying that no bill will be perfect, this one is deeply flawed, but the longer that Congress waits to act, the worse things will get, at an accelerating clip. Maybe he's right. I'm not just accepting what he's saying as being gospel just because of his past record, though.
I'm watching Buffet on Charlie Rose right now and it's pretty interesting (what he has to say). No, it's not. How many times do I have to hear about his fucking secretary paying more in taxes than him? Just send more money to Washington than they ask for and your moral dilema is solved you stupid pretentious billionaire piece of shit.