Instead, lets learn from our fellow humans and their experiences both good and bad, move on and help each other as best we can.

I lived in L.A. for over 20 years.
When we moved from Phila., in '62, my parents bought their little two-bdrm home, on a corner half lot, in the Fairfax Dist.
Purchase price:$22,000.
In 2000, I sold it for $360,000.
Today, it's value is around $900,000. (Try to get that today)
This is typical of Calif. home prices.
Talk about over inflation.
What's wrong with this picture?

But I must say, people have been taking short-cuts far too long.
Living beyond their means has been the American dream.
Buy champagn on a beer budget.

Cheap mortgage rates with variable term loans has made it way too easy, for UNqualified buyers.
But who can blame them?
I also blame the banks & mortgage companies, who took the money & ran.
Now, THEY are folding & falling into the B.of A.'s of the world.

Now, it's all coming to a head & biting people in the tuchas.
So much for the good old days.

Five years ago, I refinanced my home, after my wife of 23+ years, flew the coop.
I got a 5 & a third fixed, for 20 years. And I'm NOT straining to make my payment.

Sometimes I think the Lord should just wipe this earth clean & start all over, again.

I have a 5% 30 year fixed rate loan with an UNUSED 2nd Home Equity Line and I have 50% equity in my home. I drive a 5 year old car that is paid for and I'm sorry – I lived a frugal lifestyle and have no problem meeting my obligations. Why should I be made to pay for your greed and avarice? For all these people who are walking away from their homes rather than trying to do whatever they need to in order to save it (get a 2nd job – try to work out a new payment plan), I hope that you have a LONG cooling off period before you are eligible to buy again! I saw loans where people were 2 years out of BK and were able to buy a home. That was when getting a BK was easier – again...no accountability for their actions. Now they want to make BK's easier again. NO WAY!

Look people, we are living in a society where you give your kids whatever they want and rack up tremendous credit card debt with NO thoughts on how you're going to pay it back. Well, your home is not your source for free-spending and I think the answer is to have people like me teach the "real" economics lessons at our schools so that we have responsible, contributing adults entering our systems at the end of 4 years of high school...not the self-indulgent brats who think they are owed something because their parents gave them whatever they wanted. At some point, we have to pay for all of this...and we're there.

Instead of giving the 700 Billion to the Wall Street and Banking Exec's to buy more mansions and spend lavishly. Why not give this money to the people that are now in Foreclosure – Losing their home ! With the stipulation that the money given them MUST pay off their mortgage(s). Then what do you know, the banks have this money back in their hands again to loan out or do whatever with, but their is a decidedly different outcome to this approach – THE LITTLE GUY WINS BIG TIME – FINALLY !

It was announced that Citigroup was taking over Wachovia bank this morning. At first glance, this move struck me as odd, because it's my understanding that Citigroup is also hurting. So why would this takeover (or merger) occur??

I could only surmise that Citigroup is planning on being bailed out under the Paulson plan. The bad debt of both Citibank and Wachovia bank will be wiped out and Citigroup along with what was Wachovia bank will be stronger and also a larger company than before..

I'm wondering how others feel about this. Personally, I'm feeling used.

I lost almost everything I owned as an undergraduate/ research assistant in Hurricane Alicia in Houston in 1983. I still do not think I comprehend the effects this had on me. I had just begun to establish my own home got the first time. I did have Federal Flood Ibsurance and as the water was rising I was telling myself it would be ok because I was insured. No one ever told me the insurance was "current value" depreciated from replacement cost. I had saved for a long time and had bought a new vacuum cleaner 3 days before the hurricane. When the adjuster came I received $8 for it. I was incredulous . I remember yelling at him how could I get another vacuum cleaner for $8? (poor man!)

I was depressed I think in retrospect and STILL can get angry about certain aspects of that experience. I still look for things such as scrapbooks, or my stamp collection, or irreplacable photographs to this day .

I remember one realization that made me feel so unhinged and vunerable. You think your home, your refuge for other losses as you beautifully describe is somehow strong and has a dependable permanence. I remember being shocked when workers cut all the walls down to the wooden frame up to a few feet from the ceiling. The sheetrock had crumbled and almost melted away from the flood water. I came down the stairs and could see mud and debris thick on a floor of slab. My first home had no walls. I did not know "home" was so ephemeral and weak and vunerable to destruction. Later everything molded and mildewed. It was awful.

Now I get heartsick watching it happen to other people and to see places like New Orleans that ate left to their own devices to recover ( and bless all the volunteers who help)

Thank you for the story
Jaime Merrifield
Mesa, AZ

Thank you for posting this for all to read. We lost our house when I was small; I remember it vaguely but what I remember was that my own little space in my room where I kept my treasures and read my books – the place that I went to for peace and security and stability was gone and it did feel like a death. However you lose your home – by a storm, a financial crisis, a fire, etc. doesn't matter – you've still lost what should be your one safe haven in this world. Its not an experience I would wish on anyone.

Annie Kate
Birmingham AL