Homeowners with good credit are falling behind on their payments in growing numbers, even as the problems with mortgages made to people with weak, or subprime, credit are showing their first, tentative signs of leveling off after two years of spiraling defaults.
The mortgage troubles have been exacerbated by an economy that is still struggling. Reports last week showed another drop in home prices, slower-than-expected economic growth and a huge loss at General Motors. On Friday, the Labor Department reported that the unemployment rate in July climbed to a four-year high.
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20080804/znyt01/808040374&tc=yahoo
It's quite obviously time for Americans to do some belt-tightening. It's gone beyond simply giving up that daily latté (note that Starbucks is closing some 600 under-performing outlets across the US). It is now time to make some major conservation moves.
Firstly,it's time to give up the cocaine habit (90% of Columbian production ends up in the US). But, rather than quit "cold turkey", consumers can switch (back) to marijuana, in a kind of reversal of the so-called "gateway drug" theory. And the major advantage here is that, while the coco plant does not grow well at home, marijuana grows pratically everywhere! And not only that, it requires very little attention (unless the greenhouse variety with it's 20% THC content is the plant of choice -- but we ARE talking austerity here; a variety of the "back to the land" movement).
Secondly, the successful backyard grower can not only reap the price difference between imported coke and domestic mary jane to keep the mortgage payments up, he or she can re-assert good old American entrepreneurship to offer up a little curbside pot stand. After all, didn't we all sell lemonade when we were kids? It's time to get back to the basics in this time of trouble and uncertainty.
Stumble It!