On my street – a look at the US financial crisis
I wanted to share a few human stories from my street.
- Hedge Fund guy: We moved into our home in March, 2002. Hedge Fund guy was one of the first people we met. We’d never heard of a Hedge Fund. He was a funny, friendly guy who taught skiing to disabled people in his free time. He told me, as an aside, that he got into managing a hedge fund after taking a seminar and reading a book. The greatest thing about running a hedge fund? You didn’t need to secure the money. Everyone knew that up front. The profits were unbelievable for everyone involved. And what could possibly go wrong?
- African American Artist guy: In 2003, a friend was rehabbing a house up the street from us. He invited me to see his work. I joined a group of his friends on a tour of this gorgeous home. Our friend’s sixty year old wife had just started her first job – writing mortgages. An accomplished painter, the wife was able to spread the fantastic new loan packages to her artist friends.Standing in the rehabbed kitchen, between the cabinet installer and newly exposed brick wall, I met an African American Artist. He had just made an offer on a 900 square foot home up the street. He wept when the wife said that she had finished his loan papers. Talking in excited sentences, the tears dropping from his unguarded eyes, he spoke of his life long dream of owning his own home. Not a young man, he was probably in his late sixties when he finally achieved his dream. The entire room glowed with the promise and excitement created by these ‘new’ loan packages.
- The Jerk: I’ve written about the jerk before. During my first interaction with him in late 2002, he told me that he made such a much better deal on his house than we had on ours. His smug face beamed at his brilliance, and our stupidity. They ‘rehabbed’ the house (which is a whole other story) and, in the fall of 2006, they purchased a new home in a ritzy neighborhood from the equity they generated through their rehab and their financial prowess.
- Barbeque Boy: What can you say about a guy who barbeques on his apartment porch year round? He rides a Harley and barbeques. He works an eight hour a day job at a motorcycle shop, parties on the weekends, and barbeques.
- The Young Couple: I heard about these folks from a neighbor who’s son went to school with the young man. In the blush of love, they bought two story Denver Square up the street. He worked for one of the large Internet companies here in Denver and she was a teacher. Together, they spent the first years of their marriage lovingly restoring this home. Every detail was perfect.
When I listen to analysts and pundits talk about ‘what happened’, I think of the people on my street. When we ask ‘what happened’, we have to look at the people involved with compassion. Because they’re dreams have been trampled and they will bear the consequences the rest of their lives.
Hedge Fund guy? He’s on the run from the FBI. They just disappeared about a year ago. No one has seen them.
African American Artist guy? He lost his home. The realtor, the mortgage broker and my friend’s wife, even the bank, made a lot of money on African American Artist guy. He not only lost his home, but screwed up his credit and has had to declare bankruptcy. Before you say that he should have known better, how could he know when the people who knew better, and made money on him, told him he had nothing to worry about?
The Jerk: They told the Jones (you know the people everyone has to keep up with) that they were moving to the Cayman Islands. Why stay in the US where everything is so expensive? While begging their renters to pay next month’s rent, both houses went into foreclosure. We argue as to what happened with the money. D. says that they spent it. I think they took it with them. We heard that they received foreclosure assistance, but then heard from the people who bought the home that they didn’t. Who knows where they are now?
Barbeque Boy: He’s still barbequing, still riding his Harley and still working. He doesn’t seem affected by all of this financial stuff.
The Young Couple: His job moved off shore to India. Not able to make it on her salary, they moved to another city where he took a job at 3/4ths the salary. The house stood abandoned for a long time. Our neighbor offered to help them rent it out. But they spent so much time and effort rehabbing it, the couple couldn’t stand the idea of renters in the house. I heard recently that the couple got divorced and that the house now belonged to the now ex-wife. It’s still vacant.
This financial crisis was built on the dreams of real people. Maybe someone should have known better. But they didn’t and they bear the consequences. They were told by realtors, mortgage people and bankers, that they had nothing to worry about.
After all, what could possibly go wrong?
Filed under: About Claudia, Going out on a limb, Thoughts on being human....
These stories should bring home to everyone that this disaster has happened and continues to happen to Real People, not statistics.
Misfortune is the great equalizer, sadly.
Sad. It’s all just very sad. The thing is your neighborhood is no different from anyone else’s neighborhood, it’s happening all around us and to us.
Of all the tales the black artist guy is the one that hits the nail. It was not greed, but hope that allowed him to have what he longed for. So much hope and faith in people who were supposed to be conducting themselves in a professional manner. It is them searching for a paycheck that caused this, not them who provided the money in that check.
I doubt it, but them who made that check should be mired in shame at the ruin they have brought to an old man’s life.
Claudia,
I think this post is amazing. It really puts the current crisis into perspective. Thanks.
-Rob
Completely, totally, encompassingly digs Barbeque Boy, because Rupe IS Barbeque Boy … !!!
So sad…we all need to realize that people are being affected all around us-whether or not that includes us it’s important to know that no one is alone and no one is untouched.
Behind the tacky headlines, underneath the sterile analysis..are people..That’s what the media seems to forget, and part of the reason why I’ve been distancing myself from journalism. It’s a shame.
Excellent post…
Perspective, that is what this is all about, and it works!
I have similar stories of close friends and family members. It’s sad. My heart goes out to everyone that has been so severely effected by this crisis.
Without being able to notice, or know my neighbors this well, I suspect a lot of this has gone on in my neighborhood, and everyone else’s.
The easy credit years allowed a lot of people to get into homes, and predators to make every cent possible off of them. I’m no bleeding heart, but this whole process is sickening.
Greed.
That is so sad. Except the BBQ guy of course
)
I think that people like that will help rebuilt the economy.
I just got my quarterly 401k report and I’m too scared to look. It went straight to my filing cabinet. I do not want to get upset more than I already am.
The house across the street from us was for sale for over a year…and now there’s a sign on it that it’s owned by the bank. Not sure what happened to the former owners other than that they moved to FL.
A house up the street caught fire somehow this weekend and was promptly torn down. This is the house I went to weekly for piano lessons. So sad…
This street has changed so much over the years…houses have been torn down (bad), renovated (good), caught fire and seemingly deserted.
Wow- either I live in an extremely stable and boring area or I don’t know enough gossip! There is one house for sale on our block (for about six months) because the lady got married. She had lived there for about a year, so I think she is asking peak price (to match what she paid). I heard another neighbor is relocating for work and will have to put her house on the market- that is worrisome.
We are young and got into this first mortgage right before the super crazy lending- but I thought that the mortgage company had pre-approved us for too much money. Luckily, we tried to low-ball our real estate agent so that we didn’t max out to where the mortgage company *thought* we could afford. But it was hard to find a reasonably priced house. We paid TWICE what the previous owners had paid seven years prior.
It’s all very sad! I’m glad you and D are the happy ending in your story!
XOXOXO
Wow. Powerful post – made me cry. Especially having read an earlier story about the $440,000 of company money the AIG executive team just spent on a weeklong spa retureat – after being bailed out by the taxpayers (including the ones losing their homes). I don’t understand this crazy world.
Joan
A lot of people are going to be affected by the crisis. We know these people. We are these people.
Thanks for sharing this.
– f
I have a meeting with one of these people in an hour and a half. She wants a miracle to occur, again.
Thank you for this piece, I work with these folks daily. They are bitter.
Thank you so much for writing this. I am seeing the same things here in LA. Absolutely heartbreaking to see folks lives so altered by the rampant greed that encompasses our financial industry.
In the UK they are going to part-nationalise the banks.
Wow! Who thought that would ever happen?