Euphoria in The Vault

Friends: Euphoria in The Vault

"For in that hour so great riches are gone to nothing." Rev. 18:17

The Credit Bomb has exploded.

It casts its nasty ashes over the landscape of gleaming new condos overlooking a promised utopia. Smoke from the burning of the equity meltdown obscures the sun and fills the nostrils of snowbird vacationers. The horizon blazes with the red glow of cities on fire, fueled by the implosion of credit. It is a "doomsday" scenario--it is Florida.

Norway has made provision for the contagion. It has opened a "doomsday vault" deep in a frozen glacier in which thousands of plant seeds are being stored underground in preparation for Armageddon. People are fleeing into caves and burrows to ride out this credit fire-storm.

There is a collective wailing in the streets of America, lamentations and gnashing of teeth in the Land of the Free--only freedom has been compromised by the dark Specter of Foreclosure. Greedy lenders and lawyers with foreclosure writs rush madly into homes, summarily dispossessing people of their Possessions---"borrowed" possessions, that is!

A mad rush for the exits ensues as the conflagration spreads like the swamp wildfires of the past summer...Sherman would have loved this!

But not some, including myself, at least on a recent night. A new bank, celebrating its opening, had a reception "in the vault". Wine flowed, food was lustily gobbled by the swirling and swilling crowd, intoxicated by the smell of the "new money." It was a high time of euphoria, the promise of a new life on more borrowed money...as the Bible says, "Wine maketh merry, but money answereth all things." Eccl 10:19

It all reminded me of the "Four Stages of Real Estate Ownership" I had painfully learned: First, Euphoria when it's purchased; next, nagging Fear of having bought a bad deal; followed by outright Distress and finally, when someone shows up offering our money back, Relief. And there are a lot of folks looking for that last stage of ownership today!

Paul Dunbar foresaw these problems when he said: "Slight was the thing I bought, Small was the debt I thought; Poor was the loan at best...but God! O the Interest!"

Good luck on your investments!


Bud
February 28, 2006