Only 15% of Germans use credit or debit cards?

[derzai]

Hey I am a german too!

Yeh Klaus Littbarski and Pierre Augenthaler, famous guys. Who doesnt know them.

I found an interesting ted talk on money. By Prof. Franz Hoermann.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88ksYFsleto

I didnt get all of it, so if anybody would add his/her comments, that would be welcome.

Basically he argues that private banks create money out of nothing, just as debt, nothing new, but they want it back including interest, which they didnt create.

So thats the mechanism of banks taking collateral.

As far as i have understood.

[eyeknow]

They're a business. Maybe the biggest? They are in business to make money....or take it from the feds

At any rate, credit is fine if it's not overused. Again, houses used to be an investment. I don't know how it works in other countries.

[Machinesworking]

Where Americans have the famous attitude of "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" and will borrow & spend accordingly

Actually, the correct answer is most of my life (many decades), real estate was an investment. A pretty safe one too. If I ever get from under this house, I'll never buy again though.

Not to rub it in, but maybe the only advantage to being severely working class is I didn't buy a house until after the mortgage crisis hit.
Bought a place with an FHA loan, 20k to fix it up, did it mostly myself, and went 10k in credit card debt. Paid that off two years ago and the house is worth more than twice what I paid for it now. Basically if you know what you're doing, everything said in this thread can be contradicted with success, using credit cards you know you can't pay off before interest racks up, buying property etc. It's just knowing what kinds of risks make sense. I would have bought ten houses in 2010 if I could of, and I'd be a multi millionaire now.

That said my credit cards sit unused. My line of work is too topsy turvy to use those things regularly.

[eyeknow]

Meh, rub it in. I'm paid off and don't have to work. That's why I get to fiddle with toys all day while other people ask if they'd like fries with that (or whatever)

Smarts has nothing to do with it. You get lucky, or you don't. It's like sports. People on top of the hill like to rub it in and then when they lose, they get to be the punching bag.

[TomViolenz]

People on top of the hill like to rub it in and then when they lose, they get to be the punching bag.

Depending on what you mean with top of the hill and punching bag, that almost never happens.

Once you got your 1%er membership card it's very unlikely to ever again be a punching bag for the rest of us.

[Machinesworking]

Smarts has nothing to do with it. You get lucky, or you don't. It's like sports.

That, is simply not true.
A friend from a seminal industrial rock band, (70's) was complaining about how NIN, Ministry etc. were selfish greedy bastards etc. Basically whinging because he never made it big, they got lucky etc. Thing is I remember him living in his bus when I met him, without a band or job, drunk off his ass. He didn't put in the work, period.

With real estate it's simple; an economic downturn like the bubble we experienced will turn around in areas like I live in that are filled with wealthy tech nerds. Especially when the prices before although high were not anything compared to places around Silicon Valley. I also didn't buy when the market was asking for a mortgage I could barely afford, because I'm not willing to take that kind of risk. There was nothing lucky about what I did. I'm glad you're solvent, but acting like real estate is no longer a solid investment because you lost out is silly. Plenty of people I know bought when the market was high to the limits of what they could afford, because they wanted a nice house in a nice neighborhood, and they lost out for those reasons.

Sure, people get born into money, people get born into families that instal a sense of proportion in their thinking about life in general etc. and investing is always a gamble, but a huge part of the problem is people over stretching their means to have 'success' right now. Buying houses they can barely afford, new cars, things to fill the void. It's not 'credit' that's bad, it's what people do with the concept.

[Machinesworking]

Actually, the correct answer is most of my life (many decades), real estate was an investment. A pretty safe one too. If I ever get from under this house, I'll never buy again though.

Also this, you were willing to pay the price for the house when you bought it, but now that the rest of the market says it's worth less it's a POS?
It takes people 20 years to pay off a house, if the market doesn't make it back up to well over what you paid we have bigger problems than real estate to deal with . So many people I know tossed their house like a hot potato because it was under value two years ago, and now it's worth what they paid for it again, but their credit is screwed and the bank owns the house.
You're in NorCal right? My bet is in another year or so your place is worth what you bought it for. Unless you guys all dry up and CA becomes a dustbowl.

[TomViolenz]

What Warren Buffet is quoted saying about the stock market applies equally to real estate:

You have to buy, when there is blood in the streets!


I'll leave at your disgression, if you take this as literal or not ....

[beats me]

I have it on good authority that the 5 year long cocaine bender of the Silicon Valley should be collapsing within the next year. Investors are sobering up and realizing they’ve been shoveling over boatloads of money to people who aren’t doing anything of real value by any measurable standard, and they could get the same nothing accomplished for only truckloads of money elsewhere in the country. I’m stoked!

[Machinesworking]

I have it on good authority that the 5 year long cocaine bender of the Silicon Valley should be collapsing within the next year. Investors are sobering up and realizing they’ve been shoveling over boatloads of money to people who aren’t doing anything of real value by any measurable standard, and they could get the same nothing accomplished for only truckloads of money elsewhere in the country. I’m stoked!

So another .com bubble based on "start ups" is about to happen? not that surprising. That area is retardedly expensive. IMO if it fucks up the price of real estate I would definitely buy, Silicon Valley isn't going anywhere.

[beats me]

I have it on good authority that the 5 year long cocaine bender of the Silicon Valley should be collapsing within the next year. Investors are sobering up and realizing they’ve been shoveling over boatloads of money to people who aren’t doing anything of real value by any measurable standard, and they could get the same nothing accomplished for only truckloads of money elsewhere in the country. I’m stoked!

So another .com bubble based on "start ups" is about to happen? not that surprising. That area is retardedly expensive. IMO if it fucks up the price of real estate I would definitely buy, Silicon Valley isn't going anywhere.

Yeah its basically another dot com implosion but with a lot more money being flushed down the toilet. This is how the economy is going to rise and crash more frequently, a bunch of short sighted get rich now speculative investors and knowing how to exit just before it predictively crashes. The middle people who are currently benefiting from the boom usually don’t know or give enough of a shit to see the writing was on the wall a long time ago.

My source who works in finance already sees the tide of investors pulling way out just before the tsunami hits.

[eyeknow]

Actually, the correct answer is most of my life (many decades), real estate was an investment. A pretty safe one too. If I ever get from under this house, I'll never buy again though.

Also this, you were willing to pay the price for the house when you bought it, but now that the rest of the market says it's worth less it's a POS?
It takes people 20 years to pay off a house, if the market doesn't make it back up to well over what you paid we have bigger problems than real estate to deal with . So many people I know tossed their house like a hot potato because it was under value two years ago, and now it's worth what they paid for it again, but their credit is screwed and the bank owns the house.
You're in NorCal right? My bet is in another year or so your place is worth what you bought it for. Unless you guys all dry up and CA becomes a dustbowl.

Don't get me started on the drought

I don't think it ever will. Sure, it's worth more than it's lowest (I paid 435 and it was under 200 at the worst) but 350 ain't 435 and it's old and needs work (which I blissfully put off as long as I can )

I was hoping for fire. I have fire insurance

[eyeknow]

Anyways, back to credit and germans. Who cares. I buy with a credit card and pay it off every month. Ho hum.

[Machinesworking]

I don't think it ever will. Sure, it's worth more than it's lowest (I paid 435 and it was under 200 at the worst) but 350 ain't 435 and it's old and needs work (which I blissfully put off as long as I can )

I'm betting it will go back to 450. I bought at 135, it's worth at least twice that now. It sold for 310 at one point in 07. It will go back to that price at some point here. Pretty much all of CA will be at 450 in ten years or so.