Housing slump!

When the presidential nominee of Republican party Mr. John McCain was asked "How many houses do you or Mrs. McCain own?", Mr McCain basically dodged the question more in lines of " I don't know, my staff will get back to you" and did not answer the question.  Why was this such a difficult question? more importantly what does it tell us about the presence of mind of the next president to be contender?

 

In my opinion a simple answer to the question would have been for him to differentiate between HOME and a HOUSE( this takes presence of mind to answer, for you are given a  split second to answer in a live interview). He should have listed out the couple of houses that he owns mostly the ones he has made his HOME and then to leave it vague something in the line of "...couple of other condo/properties that are purely investment"( He will still need to know the count).

But instead he choose to dodge the question and then come back with a well rehearsed answer later when asked by Ms. Katie Couric on the same subject in lines of  ".....how blessed he feels he is to have accomplished what he owns and living the American dream............couple of other properties that are purely investment". Ironically this statement doesn't fit well in the current economy where average American is finding it difficult to make the mortgage payment on ONE house they so badly want to make their HOME. 

This shows the irony in the society where the super rich who get tax rebate for being wealthy, have made it so far high up in the hierarchy that they find it difficult to remember the count on what they own, have no idea what an average American is going through on a daily basis.  While the rest of us are stuck counting every penny we have to judicially make a decision on conservative spending. 

- Common man with a uncommon thought!

 

Gas price and "HYBRID" Cars

The thoughts expressed here are purely mine and it is not acceptable to quote from here without permission.

I am new to blogging and this is my very first artlicle.

It is an accepted fact in American society that gas prices go up in summer and specifically so during the long weekends. It is remarkable that we saw prices as high as $150/barrel while analysts were expecting it to shoot up to $200/barrel.

This was a unprecedented spike even for the ones among us who had prepared themselves for the expected spike during summer holidays. Which forced me to think what if it was after all an artificial spike - blame it on the speculators, war on terror, instability in middle east, higher consumption from emerging markets of China and India but in spite of all these reasonings that were put forth $150/barrel price doesn’t make sense, and some of the trade pundits agreed that all the above said reasons culminate to a $80/barrel and max $90/barrel, unless there was a something more to the story.

The above said is the premise to my article - the actual cause for gas price hike, is far more corporate in nature than what we have been made to believe and definitely inverse from the choices put forth towards the reasoning for the spike.

Lets take the Kyoto agreement - USA the only super power in world and the largest emitter of CO2 from fossil fuels and most polluting of all the countries did not ratify the agreement. Take this in perspective with the auto industry in USA. This was the time when Toyota had launched Hybrid in US, but the US auto giants GM, Fords et la were far from launching any of their hybrid models yet. This was also the time when the country, out of no where was hit by the spiraling descent in housing market. We managed to get past the year 2007, half expecting recession half at the mercy of Fed chairman Mr. Bernanky, and some of us were happy to receive the $600 in by IRS to boost our spending in an crunching economy.

Year 2008 starts with a lull in the market and gas prices taking a steady descending spirit. This is about the time when the US markets are flooded with options of renewable energy, energy independence and emission controls. Every where you turn any industry you take it would be hard to ignore the Green Campaign. At the height of this campaign if you retrospect carefully, you will realize - suddenly we have a whole lot of new hybrid models from every possible car maker in US.

I am forced to think if the hike in crude was anything other than an amazing marketing strategy by the gov. where we saw not only the supports of the current gov like EXXONMOBILE making record historical profits but ultimately making it easier for the next presidential nominee of republican party in embracing clean fuel and going green! This campaign was nothing short of success, as it is now engraved in our psyche the very volatile nature of crude prices. We have come to a point where in an average Joe would think twice before buying a regular car and would find it hard not to buy an hybrid instead.

Does this remind of a similar campaign – for WMD’s in IRAQ? Similar indeed, only this time around it was not the Fed coughing up the expense through budget and regulations through congress but it was us the Common Man who had paid the price with staycations, lesser groceries and lesser spending power and the sleepless nights continue into the fall.As winter approaches and we have to worry for oil to burn...........

But again I am a common Joe who is trying to make a living far from the game plan of corporate world and high profile presidential campaign.

---- Common man with an uncommon thought!.

All your opinions and candid remarks are welcome. Would like to know your thoughts on the same and how do you perceive this article.