Question: Have You or Anyone You Personally Know Been Affected By This Credit Crisis?

Originally posted by ZuzusPetals
Credit cards are doing business much differently already. There was a time you could win a game of chicken with them. Just call and say you're canceling and they magically offer to lower rate, send you a check and a nice gift to stay. Now they say thank you.

Has this happened to you or someone you know?

Personally I think that the credit card companies being restrictive (or more restrictive) is a good thing. Extending credit to "at risk" clients is not sound business practice.

I live on the east coast about 30 miles outside of NYC. I just got a 25k loan approved to do some work on my house. No problem getting credit. Everyone I know is still employed.

The malls and stores are still packed with people buying goods. The restaurants are still crowded at lunch and dinner time. To me these are the real indicators of how the economy is doing. The MSM wants us to panic so we get behind this 700 billion bailout.

My father in law who has had credit cards forever recently received a letter that due to inactivity they was closing his account. He's not used that card though since 1980 something. So by them closing it now could be caused by the "credit crisis".

Let's see, Red. I think I received a couple of new credit offers last week and received an email one today, matter of fact. Makes you wonder, does it not?

reply to post by Erasurehead


Good point. #, you look around- where is the crisis?

My, although admittedly not very deep, understanding of the entire Wall Street mess is that banks are not willing to lend to each other, which in turn will result in banks holding on to their cash, which means they will not lend to us normal folks.

I'm just not seeing it. Reading through this thread there are several individuals who were able to get credit. Heck, I just got a pretty sizable car loan with a great interest rate to boot and a friend of mine was just approved for $320,000 home loan.

I would like to see some real examples of how this is affecting the 'normal folks'. Give me some examples. As it appears to me now, it's just a bailout for businesses that overextended themselves and are now threatening the people of the U.S. - "Hey, give us money so we don't go out of business or we won't loan you any more money".

I am getting affected by the situation that has been going on. I cannot seem to be able to enjoy any of the finer things in life, as I watch my fellow peers do. I actually get worried when I buy clothes. I make pretty decent money, however the cost of living compared to income is not what it used to be. I gotta be honest. I think the reason why we are in this situation is exactly that. Businesses are getting bigger, and financially exponentially increasing, while the workers pay is not even close to same in response. We are getting screwed by greedy corporations across the board. I think if you sit down and think about the cost of living. Food, insurance, mortgage, rent, etc... never mind the price of commodities. Heck everything costs money these days, but the pay is not remotely near that. So, I heard Ron Paul speak today on the bailout bill, and said we must let the economy adjust itself. I believe in that very much. Cuz nothing willl change unless it does. That means prices have to go down, or we must make more money. I am going to Boycott every single thing that I feel is shaking me down making me pay too much for there product. I hope everyone would do the same. Don't pay them, and they'll drop there price, I can promise that. These food companies that charge 4-5 dollars for a box of cereal for instance. It doesnt cost them more than 35-45 cents to get that stuff to the store to be sold! Screw THAT~! Peace

The only reason not to give people money/credit, is because you wouldn't want everybody to stop working and making things.

It's not like the banks or anybody else is losing blood over something that doesn't exist.

As long as there is the slightest promise that people will pay at least something back for getting something that didn't exist in the first place, it's makes sense to finance them.

People worry too much about what someboy else is getting.

Nothing is coming from you. Even the taxes we pay go to benefit ourselves. No single person pays enough taxes in an entire lifetime to pay for a single highway.

Nobody's working any harder than anybody else. Nobody's doing more than anybody else to maintain the economy.

One person may have worked but a single year for his whole life but he built things like hospitals, and schools etc, and he still would have contributed more than somebody who worked fifty years and did nothing but shuffle some papers around.

When people stop looking around worrying about what the nonexistant money is doing for somebody else, we might get some peace in this world.

The important thing is not that everybody work the same amount of hours or do the same amount of this or that, the important thing is that the job gets done and things don't stop getting made.

And if you have people out of work, that means that not only are things still being made, there too many things being made.

reply to post by tdogg1


tdogg, I appreciate your thoughts, but this was completely off topic. PLease don't derail the thread by veering off topic.

thank you

i have a friday client that i work for and he has a 103 year old business that is very well established, and his business brings in a good amount of monthly income.

he's having a very hard time right now getting a loan and refinancing. he has multiple stores in his business all profitable too.

Nope. Never had any problems with my credit becasue I never spent byond my income just because there is a 10k credit liine.

When you get people paying for a loaf of bread and gallon of milk and a pack of smokes every single day with a friggin credit card just because its convienient...its no wonder ppl are in such a credit mess. Multiply that by a few million times the number ot times they do that each day and yes you got a huge massive credit crunch..plus doing the "spending byond the means" is also the reason why ppl have problems.

Convienience isnt free.

No one to blame but yourselves. Fix it and cut those cards up into a few dozen pieces and start to learn to live within your income and create a budget and do not go byond that.

Cheers!!!!

[edit on 3-10-2008 by RFBurns]

Well I can tell you if you are OK with extra money to put down for a house you are good and it is a great time to buy... My real estate agent who I just purchased a home from in june, 2008 told me she has had a down turn in business which may be due more to the current economic climate than anything else. BUT THAT WAS BEFORE THIS CAME INTO EFFECT YESTERDAY...

www.ameridream.org...

I guess what gets me is that I used one of these programs to buy my home. Please understand in total I put about 8,900$ into my house which I bought for about 200K, however I was FAR short from the 20K needed for closing (FHA loan)! Without this I would not have been able to buy!

Yes I know the argument well if you put something down you have something vested and are less likely to just walk out or stop paying your mortgage however I disagree! If someone has good credit and pays thier bills then what is the problem?!?! People LYING on thier apps, house prices that have plumited and (now) a poor economy are what are the problems here!

My point is if we want to sell houses that bad then WHY stop this program? If you got 25% to put down so what there is still another 75% mortgage... With house prices falling the way they are espically in some areas of the country it may not even be 25% really in 6 months...

So basically it is an attack on the poor and lower middle class because you can still get a 40k "gift" from your parents lets say but for people whose parents don't have that kind of money a program like this was all we had!
YES REAL ESTATE SALES HAVE DECREASED BUT IT THAT BECAUSE OF CREDIT, NOT REALLY...

(Although there is some BS going on in the southeast of the country with gas and I feel it is in some way tied into the whole thing, but not completely sure how!)

[edit on 10/3/2008 by kupoliveson]

My small manufacturing business is struggling. Raw material prices has knocked all the profit out of my products. Sales to my clients are way down. I attribute it to the gas prices as most of my clients are in tourist areas and tourism in my particular area is flat. Many shops are closing. I have layed off all my employees and part timers and have gone back to doing all the processes with just myself and my GF.
I don't know how the credit crisis would affect me as I would rather just cut back rather than borrow to finance a business that at present looks like it might tank. Anyone need an award winning metalsmith?

Originally posted by RealitySetsIn
Nope I'm loving it, I've made $90,000 in pure profit so far this year from short selling stocks.

Everyone knew this economic crisis was coming, which is a no-brainer that stock prices are going to plummet. This is where short selling comes in handy!

Doesn't that make you part of the problem?

Originally posted by redhatty
reply to post by tdogg1

 

tdogg, I appreciate your thoughts, but this was completely off topic. PLease don't derail the thread by veering off topic.

thank you

My apologies, but I was I that far off topic? Especially considering the first ten or so posts.
Don't answer that. I'll respect your thread.

My wife and I still have our jobs.

We've been saving to build a vacation cabin. I don't want to take out a loan to build it.

We've stocked up on food and other essentials.

So, unless one of us looses our jobs, I haven't seen any effect.

My son just bought a house and had no trouble getting a loan. He had to put about 10% down. The house had dropped quite a bit from what some near it sold for at the peak of the market.

We still get about 20 credit card offers a week in the mail.

If house prices continue to drop, we might have to buy a house in town, for when we retire.

I live fairly close to Los Angeles International Airport, there are a lot of foreclosures in my neighborhood. It's actually a positive thing as it seems to be getting a lot of the riff-raff out. All the known "trouble" houses with 3-4 families and tons of annoying teens roaming around are being forced out. Of course they're trashing the houses before they leave. I've certainly noticed everything seems to cost more, gas of course, food, utilities all seem a lot higher. We've had no problems with credit, we actually refinanced to a better rate this summer, but can definitely feel the crunch.

Not only do I not know a single soul that's been affected by this "crisis"...but my own 51yr-old mother was just approved for a 100k+ home loan. What crisis? This is just a smoke screen!

Yes, one of my friends and his family have all their money tied up in the stock market, and I'm talking millions of dollars.

This friend of mine is a very money hungry and corporate individual, a sad state for someone of the age of 23.

Earlier this week he was fretting that he had lost everything, and now he is rejoicing that the US is going to help bail him out and he thinks now that he is going to actually make a profit.

I said to him "Don't count your chickens, there is no way to get out of nationwide debt, by purchasing more debt. This is a short term measure."

This is an individual who derides me for encouraging people to stock up on canned food and bottled water. Don't get me wrong, he is one of my best friends and it saddens me to see the corporate shill he has become, but he was always destined for that path. That doesn't mean that I don't still care about him and his family. I just don't agree with their economic or political principles.

When the crash continues, which it will, considering the economy is basically a house of cards that will continue to tumble no matter how much sticky tape you try and hold it together with, he will be one of the first lining up at my door saying "Can I please have a can of baked beans?"

But he will NEVER admit he was wrong, or that the system itself was wrong, and that's what angers me. I'll still share my beans with him though.