Letters to the Editor
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Amateur Investors
The middle class economy reads like an old episode of "The Honeymooners". Ralph sees a hot stock, buys it because some other guy made a lot of money, and gets creamed. Hope springs eternal, and Ralph starts flipping houses.
The housing market was pumped not only by low interest rates, but by speculators who were flipping houses. People were buying multiple houses. Forests, meadows and woodlands were bulldozed for these spare houses. Flippity flip. Wildlife loses habitat because Ralph got out of the stock market in 2000 and thought he'd hit the big time with tract houses.
Other people decided it was time to have a McMansion with a 3500 square foot house for two yuppies and an infant, when 1300 square feet would do. Norton decided to buy outside his means because of a no-down mortgage. To the moon!
My only hope is that the developers stop bulldozing and this trend toward McMansions goes the way of the habitat that they destroyed.