I think I am about over real estate investors walking around dumbfounded as to why real estate prices came back down. As a good friend of mine says (and I mean no disrespect) “Ray Charles could see that one coming.” 

You remember the game Monopoly? The game tends to serve as a great example when describing various situations in real life.  

As I am sure you may remember, one of the first properties after “Go” was Mediterranean Avenue. No one really ever wanted Mediterranean Avenue – you could tell because of all the properties on the board it was the cheapest to purchase. 

Mediterranean Avenue sold for $60. Conversely Boardwalk sold for $400. If you landed on either property and it was owned by someone you paid “rent.” It should be no surprise the price to stay at Boardwalk was considerably higher – especially if someone erected a Trump Hotel or a couple houses. 

Boardwalk was more expensive than Mediterranean Avenue because, I guess, they were different sides of the tracks (or at least on different sides of “Go”). No matter how you cut it, Boardwalk was a nice villa with water fountains in the front yard and Mediterranean Avenue had a ’73 Chevy Nova on blocks sitting in the front. 

If you were a buyer you wouldn’t pay the same for Mediterranean Avenue as you would for Boardwalk – you would never make your money back. You would simply meander around the board until you ran out of money or ended up in jail. 

The same held true over the last couple years as “real” real estate went higher and higher. If you paid Boardwalk prices for a house located next to Mediterranean Avenue – you paid too much. 

Hey, I don’t like it anymore than anyone else does that houses came down in price – but I can’t say I am “surprised” when they went up as fast as they did. Isn’t there some gravity thing like “what goes up must come…?)

If you aren’t familiar with the phrase let’s play Monopoly sometime…

I keep hoping people will learn but I am no longer surprised when they don’t. As gas prices crept higher and higher people screamed about energy

Ok, what is the deal anyway? 

In September Paulson was the man with a plan. Matter of fact, he basically scared the $^#@! out of everyone saying if they didn’t do what he wanted we were in for an economic collapse.

With all of the bailout and deficit spending talk during the Presidential election, American voters became (painfully) aware of the debt the U.S. owes to other countries.China was mentioned several times during the debates and currently the U.S. owes them a cool $541 billion. Certainly not good on the surface

Even as we fight to recover, there is a lot of blamestorming* going around in Washington right now as to who was responsible for the economic downturn. The Democrats of course blame the Republicans and vice-versa.*(ok, not a real word, but I like it).

The AIG bailout is getting more and more representational of a monumental screw- up than a legitimate government assistance bailout.

If you remember, the government agreed in September to give $85 billion to faltering AIG to avoid a collapse in the economy (mmmm, how did that work out for you?).

I wrote a blog awhile back basically making fun of the fact the government was simply trying to “print more money” as a way to get us out of this financial crisis. The writing was a take on my childhood misconceptions.