House flipping was in vogue during the mortgage crisis because prices were just shooting up through the roof. The entire market was fueling subprime mortgage, not just brokers happily taking their commisions.
The market was fueling demand for mortgages, but not necessarily subprime ones.
Thrag
1619
Yes, there was a huge problem in the subprime market. Some states (not all, I’m looking at you Ohio) tried to take action to deal with various aspects of it. The Bush admin’s OCC stepped in and using a federal supremacy argument prevented the states from regulating things in their state saying it could only be done at the federal level. At which point at the federal level they did at best fuck all and at worst encouraged it.
When a group of people say “hey, that bus is hurtling toward a cliff let’s stop it” and other people take direct action to prevent them from stopping it, they then get a share of the blame when the bus hurtles off the cliff.
In the case of Ohio, Cleveland, one of the cities most fucked over by the crisis, saw their city council try to take action to stop some of the shit the banks were pulling there and the state stepped in to stop them.
Timex
1620
Yeah, this is what i said previously… The GOP is going to have a problem here. They are fighting hard against something that has broad popular support. They aren’t winning the messaging on it, like they did with the ACA.
That’s really what they seem to have tried here… To just do the same thing as they did with the ACA. But they’ve got two problems… First, while the American healthcare system was a mess before the ACA, for most people it actually worked fine. So you could lie and say that the ACA broke it. No one is looking at Covid and thinking things are fine (other than the dumbest of the GOP).
Second… The modern GOP is, frankly, dumber and less competent than the GOP from 10 years ago. Like, in a very literal sense. The GOP is being led by morons.
Thrag
1621
Which is why they relate so well with their salt of the earth, common clay of the new west, base.
I’ve been in a donut shop with both Fox and Newsmax on the teevees for two hours, and oh my god are the white people concentrating on the Mexican border. Every now and then they pause to take a breath and, while exhaling, decry the effect of the Covid relief plan on gas prices.
I say you take off and nuke the site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
There’s a big TV at my local Volvo dealership, with a sign next to it saying to the extent that under no circumstances is it to be tuned to any news channels. So it’s HGTV home makeovers all day.
Sounds like the NYT needs to get reporters to the donut shops to feel the pulse of the Real America.
CraigM
1628
They’re crying about Biden stopping the Keystone XL build, and halting the issue of new fracking permits on pubic land.
Who the fuck knows. I think they picked random topics from column A and column B of the bitch chart.
ShivaX
1630
Gas went up like 30 cents or something which is proof that the Democrats planned to increase the cost of gas or something.
I’ve been seeing it here and there as well.
Jesus who’s even buying gas right now (other than a nation-full of tragically put upon service industry workers keeping privileged WFHers like myself well fed on DoorDash and Instacart’ed cuisine from their workplaces, along with drivers for said services).
I bought gas a month ago or so I think? Maybe two?
JoshL
1633
I think I’ve bought gas twice in the last year (although my wife runs the errands so she’s bought gas more than that). Every time I start my car I have to jump start it, because the battery has run down.
abrandt
1634
So. Many. People. Anytime I have to go out it always strikes me that traffic looks basically no different than it did in the before times.
ShivaX
1635
I topped off the tank the other day, but as a rule it’s not a common thing.
Also a fluctuation of like a quarter doesn’t register on my radar, or anyone else I know.
It’s not like it’s the early aughts where it was under a buck a gallon.
Gas prices were low because demand had disappeared. Rising gas prices, if anything, are an indication that things are trending towards normalcy.
KevinC
1636
I bought gas twice over the past year, but that was me intentionally burning it off before it oxidized in my gas tank.
