A soapbox post...

I don't get it, I understand how it works, but don't get WHY!!
Oil barrel prices have dropped $15 a barrel, but they say we probably will not see any decrease in costs at the pump because we have "increased our reserves". But when barrel prices went up we saw increases the very next day that were blamed on the barrel increases!
They just announced today that housing sales of existing homes was 1% lower than expected (2.5 % drop in June), so stocks dove down today. Banks gave crazy loans like ARM's and interest only to get buyers in, and now many of them are going into bancrupcy!! Two houses are empty on our block alone.
Many of you have heard me rant about our horrible neighbors who just left a few weeks ago - only owned the home for 13 months - it turns out they took all the appliances and the HOT TUB right out of the deck, never mind the filthy carpets, holes in the walls and food left out on the counters (they did not even bother to lock the doors)- ugh!!
So the County comes by yesterday, after I called about the grass being out of control. She tells me they post a sign, and send a letter and wait a few weeks for them to respond. If they don't the county will cut it. They thought the owners still lived there, so it was good I talked to her, she said it will save about a months time, as they were going to send the letter to the homeowners, and will now send it directly to the bank. She also said the banks are really big now on not selling forclosure houses, they are keeping them on their books and taking huge write offs - WHAT!! The government should not be giving write offs to banks who are not even trying to sell the houses!!! A friend of mine here has had a bank owned house next door to her empty for 2.5 years.
And so, the Fed Reserve is keeping interest rates below 2% to "stimulate the economy", but homeowners with good credit and mortgage histories are looking at home loan interest rates of 6.5%. Holy cow, we only have a 5.2% now, but if we sell and buy a new house we would go up 1.3%. How does that intice people to want to but a home?????
And get this, the mortgage broker tells me that we qualify to buy another home while we still own this one, what, so I can have two mortgages!!! Isn't this the stuff that has gotten them in trouble so far.
OK, I am done on my soapbox! ( BTW, we still have no idea if we will be moving or not - you did not miss a major announcement, I am just getting ready!)
Karen