CATEGORY 5 HURRICANE, ECONOMIC SURVIVAL

RIDING OUT THE CATEGORY 5 HURRICANE, the disaster over the past 3 years, has become an art, and is not a science. This massive disaster has been definitively described in the book by Barry Ritholtz, “Bailout Nation.” The Landman has studied the largest bank heist in the history of mankind in detail over the past 2 years, and read almost every recent book on the subject. Barry Ritholtz has detailed the causes and nailed down 22 culprits, all the way back to the Carter and Reagan administration. He is very rough on Alan Greenspan, the Judas Duck of finance. To understand why your real estate has dropped in half or more over the past 3 years, and the real estate industry has vanished in ski towns, read this book now. Once we understand something, we can deal with it. To financially survive this massive financial Hurricane, that crept in like a night burglar, that has stranded hundreds of millions of people in a financial mess, the following actions are worth contemplating. If you are married and have several children, some of the solutions wont apply and are more difficult. Here they are: 1) Sell all, I mean all of your real estate now, especially if it is underwater, worth less than the amount owed on a deed of trust. Real estate has dropped in every county in the U.S. approximately one-half, and in some areas like Las Vegas, California towns, and Florida, up to 85% in value. 2) If underwater homes and properties do not sell even at a discount, give the keys (the jingle factor) back to the bank, they want and deserve to own the Big Mess. Stop all payments to the bank, you may live free of the stress of payments to the bank and become a legal Willie Sutton. The banks are moving on foreclosures like a turtle on a beach. If your worried about credit, nobody cares, the banks are in some kind of a permanent lockdown anyway, and those with a credit score over 800 cannot get a personal loan, business loan and only the very rare and lucky are getting refinanced, and this is a temporary solution of payback in the future. If your worried about your conscience and morality of doing that, send a tithe to Goldman Sachs, care of Wall Street, they did not worry about you when they loaned everyone too much, get a life, survive, worry about your family. 3) If your income has dropped way below $40,000 per year, file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy now, it is the only legal bank robbery sanctioned by the U.S. Government, and it will set you free, a fresh, new start, like when you started your business life when you were 18, no debt, look up the word zero in the dictionary and howl like a wolf under a full moon. You will end up the only person on your block or in your village that does not have hundreds of thousands in debt on credit cards, and numerous other debts, that have been accumulated during the boom, high leverage decades. 4) Get a copy of David Ramsey’s book on eliminating all debt, get rid of the latte factor which is wasting money on lattes at Starbucks, buying cigarettes, driving aimlessly around in your car out of habit, drinking like a drunken sailor on leave in Nice France, and if it walks, crawls, stays put, and shelters your family, when in doubt rent it. 5) When the mess caused by Countrywide and other members of the den of thieves, when this mess finally clears up, and the man comes with the moving truck, rent something at a fifth of the cost of owning. Take the pressure off. This may take from 6 months to 3 years of free rent you can put into a Treasury Note, and use for the future purchase of a home or safety net if you lose your job. 6) Get out of ski towns and all resort towns now!!!!!!! The Gilded Age is over, bite the bullet, Scott Fitzgerald warned us about this age in The Great Gatsby. The cost of living in ski towns is beyond ridiculous unless you are worth over 10 million in Treasury Notes, even multi millionaires in Aspen are leaving in droves. There are towns and cities with good to excellent schools, and are close to outdoor adventure, great scenery, that are 20 cents on the dollar relative to a ski town, with 10 times the amenities. Its called Normal America. Leave, split, pack up, you will feel a fantastic liberation from high taxes, water/sewer bills that are on the upside, cable TV, gas, groceries, HOA dues, high heat and electric bills, latte bills, that are all triple to five times you will find in Normal America. The rush in your body and soul will be extraordinary. In 5 to 15 years, after you have regrouped, and the wind from the permanent Hurricane has subsided, you may be able to return and buy a home for 10 cents on the dollar. 6) Do not buy stocks and bonds, they are losers, no matter what the Judas Duck media financial guys, and stock brokers are selling, stay away from the Den of Thieves. Buy U.S. Treasury Notes, like $Bill advised, when he lost 48% of his stock value during Black Monday of 1987. The stock market is vulnerable to the next meltdown or Wall Street bank robbery. Live with the safe Treasury Notes, live with 1 to 3% rollovers. Do not buy real estate anytime soon, anywhere, and if you cave in to the largest addiction of the 21st century, offer 50 cents on the dollar, with the knowledge that it may drop 50% from there or more. Not one Judas Duck financial guru on Wall street or in Washington has anything close to a solution to the mess. 6) Sell all of your stuff at a series of garage sales, put the extra cash in Treasury Notes, or pay down some small debts. 7) If a brainwashed, Madison Avenue salesman uses the word “icon” to sell you something, call them a Judas Duck and exit the scene, or turn the channel. Get an auto that gets twice the gas mileage than your SUV, which stands for “Sure Victim.” Get closer to your family, friends and Mother Nature, it will make you happier than money. Mark Twain claimed the real religion in America was the worship of money. He said the Father, The Son, and The Holy Ghost, were really the Greenback, Gold, and Stocks. Old Twain filed chapter 7 a long time ago, after chasing gold in Virginia City Nevada. That religion is not, is not working now. 9) Take Norma Mailers advice in his last book, “The Big Empty”, and do like the Gods attempt to do, “The Best You Can.”