[Honclfibr]

This thread really has me wondering about the northeast. All I ever heard while living in VA was how cold and callous new englanders were, how we're all wrapped up in our own little world up here and couldn't give a damn about anyone else. At the time I didn't believe it, but I'm starting to wonder now...a tragedy like this happens and all we want to do is harangue on the southerners for how lazy and stupid we feel they are.

Problem is, anyone who's lived up here long enough and has the sense to look around them realizes that we're living high and powerful off the fat of the land. Whether it's the housing market or wall street, money flows in new england off the backs of the rest of America, and to a certain extent the world.

But sooner or later, probably sooner than later, it's going to turn around. I've been watching the stock markets, watching the way the government has kept interest rates low to keep alive a housing bubble in the northeast that's both unnatural and a shot to the arm of consumer spending. Speculation and refinancing has poured a lot of money into an economy lately that might otherwise not be that strong...but what happens when it can't be sustained further, and the tide of low-interest money turns itself back on us like it did in the late 80s, where corporate takeovers fueled by junk bonds blew the market out of proportion until reason took over and the whole thing collapsed inwards upon itself?

Only this time it won't be the corporate raiders getting spanked and taking the economy with them. This time the effect is much more direct, with all these people (and I see them every day on my way to work) who just picked up that brand new 750k house and the accompanying 7500/month mortgage...when they lose their DINK status and can't make the payments, and the mortgage company comes to foreclose...and the spin of foreclosures cause a rise in mortgage interest rates against a housing market that's getting glutted with houses that have been overvalued time and time again in the last ten years of straight-line appreciation.

What then? You think the rest of the country is going to give a fuck when we're drowning in the debt we've accumulated? When all the money that fueled this ridiculous spec-game came off the backs of the farmers and the factory workers in south and central America? Nah, they're gonna say fuck those yankees, sitting all high and mighty in their greed while the rest of the world eeked out a living. Fuck those who called us lazy for working whatever jobs we could find while they profitted from their stranglehold on the U.S. financial system.

Sure a recession will hurt everyone, but the rest of the country (with the possible exception of CA, which is just transplanted new englanders with nose jobs) is already used to working hard for what they've got and squeezing pennies when they've got it. Sure it'll be hard on everyone, but it's the northeast, where we've grown accustomed to our lifestyle, where the pain will be most strongly felt. And if I was the rest of the country, I probably wouldn't give a damn either. We laughed and called them lazy when they were in need, and they'll damn well do the same.

Do unto others carefully, for sooner or later it come right back on you.

[highsider]

Thus is the nature of the beast we call human.

[bentbryan]

Originally posted by Honclfibr
This thread really has me wondering about the northeast. All I ever heard while living in VA was how cold and callous new englanders were, how we're all wrapped up in our own little world up here and couldn't give a damn about anyone else. At the time I didn't believe it, but I'm starting to wonder now...a tragedy like this happens and all we want to do is harangue on the southerners for how lazy and stupid we feel they are.

Problem is, anyone who's lived up here long enough and has the sense to look around them realizes that we're living high and powerful off the fat of the land. Whether it's the housing market or wall street, money flows in new england off the backs of the rest of America, and to a certain extent the world.

But sooner or later, probably sooner than later, it's going to turn around. I've been watching the stock markets, watching the way the government has kept interest rates low to keep alive a housing bubble in the northeast that's both unnatural and a shot to the arm of consumer spending. Speculation and refinancing has poured a lot of money into an economy lately that might otherwise not be that strong...but what happens when it can't be sustained further, and the tide of low-interest money turns itself back on us like it did in the late 80s, where corporate takeovers fueled by junk bonds blew the market out of proportion until reason took over and the whole thing collapsed inwards upon itself?

Only this time it won't be the corporate raiders getting spanked and taking the economy with them. This time the effect is much more direct, with all these people (and I see them every day on my way to work) who just picked up that brand new 750k house and the accompanying 7500/month mortgage...when they lose their DINK status and can't make the payments, and the mortgage company comes to foreclose...and the spin of foreclosures cause a rise in mortgage interest rates against a housing market that's getting glutted with houses that have been overvalued time and time again in the last ten years of straight-line appreciation.

What then? You think the rest of the country is going to give a fuck when we're drowning in the debt we've accumulated? When all the money that fueled this ridiculous spec-game came off the backs of the farmers and the factory workers in south and central America? Nah, they're gonna say fuck those yankees, sitting all high and mighty in their greed while the rest of the world eeked out a living. Fuck those who called us lazy for working whatever jobs we could find while they profitted from their stranglehold on the U.S. financial system.

Sure a recession will hurt everyone, but the rest of the country (with the possible exception of CA, which is just transplanted new englanders with nose jobs) is already used to working hard for what they've got and squeezing pennies when they've got it. Sure it'll be hard on everyone, but it's the northeast, where we've grown accustomed to our lifestyle, where the pain will be most strongly felt. And if I was the rest of the country, I probably wouldn't give a damn either. We laughed and called them lazy when they were in need, and they'll damn well do the same.

Do unto others carefully, for sooner or later it come right back on you.

Feeling guilty?

[odduc]

Whoa, guilt to the Nth degree!!!! The analysis is pretty good, nonetheless. However, I don't foresee the same doom and gloom as honcl-dude-whatever-your screen name is...uh, Darrell.

[Hardcore]

Who Gives A Fuck? I've worked hard + busted my balls for all I have which ain't much and I don't have to cry GIMME

[Honclfibr]

All I'm saying is, not all these people are welfare scourges living off the system. A lot of people in the southern states are hard-working people just trying to survive, and the flood wiped out all they had worked for in their lives.

Take a look at the average household incomes in the U.S.:

http://www.census.gov/hhes/income/in.../statemhi.html

Notice who's up top (CT, NH, MA) and who's at the bottom (AK, LA, MS). I know people down there who were affected by the flood, they're good people and they didn't spend their lives asking for handouts, they've spent their lives working hard and ended up behind the rest of us financially because of economic reality.

Money has always flowed from the southern states to the northeast, and it's not because we're better than they are up here, it's just because we have the benefit of historical financial advantage. Money is plentiful here, it's not so plentiful down there and when something like what happens in new orleans happens down there, it ruins lives.

[bentbryan]

Good points.

[Hardcore]

they'll recover--workin people always do + good people will find a way to move forward! as for all the shitbags that serve no good down there - let them all die + be less of a burden to others!

this isn't the 1st natural disaster the u.s. has faced and it won't be the last----we will survive!!!

remember the great san fran earthquake,or the cali wild fires,or the great missouri floods,or mega twisters of kansas,or the great florida sunami,or the new mexico oil fires,or the alamo,or the great hawaian volcano,or the blizzard of 78,or the great michegan whiteout,or the locusts of idaho,or the stupidity epidemic of maine,or the sinking of ohio,or the disappearance of utah,or the tragic stink of new jersey,and the list goes on but I think you get my point!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Honclfibr]

Originally posted by hardcore
the tragic stink of new jersey

Hehe, ok that is some funny shit right there. New Jersey is surely one of the great tragedies of our time.

[chr|s sedition]

Originally posted by hardcore
they'll recover--workin people always do + good people will find a way to move forward! as for all the shitbags that serve no good down there - let them all die + be less of a burden to others!

this isn't the 1st natural disaster the u.s. has faced and it won't be the last----we will survive!!!

remember the great san fran earthquake,or the cali wild fires,or the great missouri floods,or mega twisters of kansas,or the great florida sunami,or the new mexico oil fires,or the alamo,or the great hawaian volcano,or the blizzard of 78,or the great michegan whiteout,or the locusts of idaho,or the stupidity epidemic of maine,or the sinking of ohio,or the disappearance of utah,or the tragic stink of new jersey,and the list goes on but I think you get my point!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

wait, Jersey "recoverd"? I thought they just migrated to Brockton.