Post
by dcease » Sat Feb 09, 2008 12:48 am
yay! finally a label for me! i am a "doomer", as you put it... seems nice and quaint...
i'll just drop what i've seen, as far as housing development, here in central texas... it's fucked, the whole setup, really. i worked on thousands of homes in the area, maybe tens of thousands. i can only speak from my experience, but i am willing to bet that this is similar all over the US...
a house used to be built, stick by stick, by americans. now, houses are build by numbers, half assembled in a factory, by illegal aliens, from, guess where?! the trusses and walls are prefab, and supposedly engineered to more exacting standards than a crew of men could achieve, building from the ground up. thing is, foundations are poured too small, which means the wood, setup for a certain size, is now too large. so what happens? the manufactured truss is cut. well, seems to me, that would weaken the structural integrity. this is not how the house was intended to be built, yet it happens again and again. i've seen leaky roofs, roofs that blow off, houses in mid construction just blow over, a la the big bad wolf. three of them, in a row. i've seen two story houses, where 30-40% of the foundation was jackhammered, because of plumbing leaks, i've seen plumbing leaks ruin 75% of the sheetrock in a home, brick crumble and crack in less than a year, foundations cracked, within months of pouring... on and on i could go. nobody in their right mind starts a job, and leaves it in a state of danger. if a house is supposed to be braced, until framing is finished, how the fuck does the wind blow it over?
the problem lies in a labor force that gives exactly 2 shits about you and your family. why the fuck would they, they don't even have the common courtesy to learn the language spoken by a majority of the people of the US. i would not even think of moving to france, without learning basic french. how rude!!!
they are cheap, and plentiful. this is modern day slavery, at its best. they don't get over the border for free, after all... yet it continues, unabashed, with no signs of slowing. woe be unto the family living in a home wired by this type of person. not to say all illegals are worthless, there are plenty of americans who are the same way. difference is, americans do not have these jobs, anymore. the ratio is way off balance... way more people who work, not to learn a trade, but to pay off their indenturetude, if thats even a word... they don't care, and they won't. get it and go... do you know how much the dollar is worth in mexico? it's a third world country, for fucks sake. one side of the rio grande, cities, with paved roads, the other side, shacks, with dirt roads. odd sight, driving through el paso...
and what is it for? why are the houses started, and finished in less than three months? the same as it is for everything else... the bottom line. build it as cheap as possible, jack up the value, and interest, and pray it makes it one year. there's a common saying amongst contractors... as long as it works for one year... then they are no longer responsible for the home. building a home, to last for one year, and selling you a thirty year note? now it's not all doom and gloom, the houses don't all fall apart, but it's the mentality that bothers me.
this is usually done in-house, by large companies. they contract out the work, finance the home, and sell the mortgage to the highest bidder, and the consumer, only happy that they will have "their own home", signs an adjustable rate mortgage. now we see what is happening now. everything goes up in price, yet no one makes any more money, save the already rich. then people worry the economy is going to collapse... well duh!!! nobody has any money to spend! you cram them in little boxes, not even worth 1/3 of the principal, jack up their interests rates, because the war has caused everything else to raise in price, so less money is being spent on the extras, subsequently having an adverse effect on the entire market, hence the need to raise the rates... now people are signed on to a loan, that at one point, they could afford, but now can't. add the cost of groceries going up. gas. electricity. necessitiesof our society. another of which is the need to be cool. to have the newest crap. eating out. eating food grown by poor people, in a country that hates you, or on a ranch in america, who, in order to survive, uses our southern neighbors finest to employ. they piss and shit on your food for fun. think they don't? not that it will affect the final product, but the act... what happened with all the vegetable problems not too long ago? who worked at those farms? and don't even get me started on china.
the system is fucked, like it or not. what can you do? live YOUR life, how you feel is best. make the best of what you have. share your joy with your friends. deal with life one day at a time. this is our world, we are the only ones to blame, and only through us will it change.
i imagine all the numbnuts of the world will kill each other off, leaving only people who see life for what it is, to rebuild. and try again. but who can argue with 10,000 +years of greed? this is the course of man, and greed is the wrong path. always has been, always will be. and the less fortunate shall remain wanting.
go ahead, and lie to yourself. humanity cares. about itself. survival of the fittest and all...
and gjm, you may hold the solution right there. do enough people care,for each other, is the real question.
