Wow–that’s scary! Sorry to hear about it. At least you’ve got the job for now.

Thanks so much for your excellent comment. What an excellent illustration of the real possibility of things continuing to spiral downward. Ironically, the more cautious people become, the more things spiral down.

So far the unprecedented actions by the federal government have done very little to stem the tide. Personally, I think the 3rd bailout bill–which is supposed to address housing–should have been the first, and should have come at least a year ago–instead of the brilliant bi-partisan “let’s give everybody $600 to buy Chinese imported goods with” initial bill.

The first half of the second bailout ($350 billion) was used to purchase bank stocks. How’s that working out?

Where’s Bill Clinton with his targeted tax credits when we need him?

Most predictors keep pushing back the bottom–now 1 – 2 years out.

That said, rates and prices are both attractively low. One needs to be prudent, but can’t be paralyzed by fear either.

I think a lot of us are praying for wisdom. Perhaps it helps us focus on the non-material things that matter most: Family, friends, God, helping others.

With all due respect, in the current economy, very few people have secure jobs. In a company of 120,000 employee’s I’m the only one that knows how to do the job that I do. That would seem secure, but yet I just had a conversation with my superiors today that put me on notice that I could be eliminated.

Buying now is a risk plain and simple. I’m not talking about the equity that is going to be lost over the next 6 to 32 months but the stability of any one persons job. Silly of me to think that my position was more stable than others who did more generic jobs.

Reality hit my family today.

However… I have to wonder what the big wildcard of the upcoming Commercial Real Estate collapse is going to have in further dragging down the economy.

Plenty of retail stores are going vacant and nobody is coming in to take up these vacancies… nor will they for quite some time. Not sure what you see… but I see plenty of brand new retail and office buildings here sitting here vacant with payments coming due soon.

Nice and thoughtful post.. Our trends seem to always follow yours.