Dale Terry

During his campaign for President, John Edwards spoke of two Americas, one for the rich and one for the poor. A bomb shell story erupted in the middle of it, with a former campaign photographer saying she had an affair with the self proclaimed family man. He not only denied the affair, but spoke on national TV about his innocence.

He still denied the affair months later,but finally bowed under the pressure and admitted the affair, giving the usual statements about guilt, love and asking forgiveness. But when news broke of a possible love child, Edwards again denied being the father and using any campaign money for a payoff to the mistress.

Today, after years of denial, he admits that the child is his. John Edwards remains one of the privileged in America. His America, buys silence, pays for expensive lawyers and allows him to live in luxury. The other America, one is which most people inhabit, can't or won't do those things

I expect he will try to rehabilitate his image, but for me, he is just a douche bag..

Citigroup announced it's fourth quarter results this morning, posting a loss of 7.6 billion dollars or 33 cents per share, in line with analysts expectations.

How can this be? Not the loss, but how can analysts have certain expectations? Where are they getting their information. Do they just guess? Or is it something worse.

How would anybody know what the credit card losses of a major world bank be. What about mortgage money? Heck, what about TARP and all that! I can't tell you about my tax return until my accountant looks at all the numbers once a year. And only after plugging in the numbers, taking the correct deductions, calculating depreciation, etc... can he do it . So my question stands. How do analyst have information that really isn't even available to the people who own the company-the shareholders?

It is the insidious world of Wall Street. Back door meetings, expensive lunches, outright payoffs create a system in which information is king. And of course there is great profit from it. What is to keep "analysts" from using the information to their advantage? Nothing and it is done all the time. This is a culture that has stripped billions from unwary consumers, the last decade produced a net loss for investors while billions have been funneled to the heads of our major trading firms and hedge funds. Even now we are having discussions on the record bonuses that will be paid out based on banks trading on the nation's problems.

So unless you can take a CEO to lunch and he will tell you what his companies financials are before they are posted, you are at a disadvantage to the "house" And the house always wins.

That's right, we are part of the problem going on in the real estate industry right now. But as a group, we aren't taking any blame. You can read blogs from two years ago all the way up to today, where "blame is placed on the banks for making bad loans, to the government for buying them, to homeowners who got in over their heads. There is enough blame for all. But one group is not taking any blame. Realtors!

When reading posts, it seems that everybody has a story about a bad customer, be it a seller or buyer. About how unreasonable they are and the many stupid things that they do. But consider our behavior. There are posts today about how it is a great time to buy real estate. What evidence is truly there that that is true? Of course we can spout statistics on home prices two years ago but can we truly say that homes are properly priced? Please, be honest, of course we can't. And too many of us say we gave the homeowner the information they needed to make the decision to buy or sell but we didn't make the decision for them. Guys, if we are to be the professionals we crave to be, we have to start taking responsiblity for our actions and advice.

It looks like short sales are going to be with us for awhile. But to hear from us, the banks are difficult to work with, won't return our calls and refuse to negotiate. Who told them they could do that! They should just take their losses and let us get our commission. Our customer wants in that home for much less than someone else paid for it years ago. Let us have it now!

As a country we are trying to stop terrorism by giving money to warlords in Afganistan so they will not fight us or give aid to our enemies. They are fine with taking our money and will do so until we stop. We we do, they start helping our enemies. Sounds like a no win strategy. But that is exactly what we did years ago. We helped promote the fact there was a loan for everybody. No customer was left behind. Now, we complain that the banks won't give money to our customers in the form of bailouts and shortsales. We promote the same mentality today about FHA and other government programs when it is clear that we are trading one problem for another and will have to face the devil sooner or later.

So here is the real truth.

Not everybody should own a home. Government programs have only made the problems worse. The only winners are and will continue to be the banks who can use their influence to shape our lives without being responsible, government and anyone involved with government that takes money from one tax payer and gives it to another under the guise of special government programs that limit those who qualify.

The first 5 deer or so, crossed the road, the one that hit me came out of nowhere. I stopped and went back to look at the deer and make sure it wasn't going to cause another wreck. It was lying on the side of the road. A homeowner came out and we decided that the deer needed to be put down, it was bleeding and would not move. He asked his wife to get a knife, she came back and he proceeded to cut into neck. The knife was so dull, he asked his wife to get his gun. While she was gone, I had been moving the deer further off the road. All at once, the deer puts his head up, we help it get up and it goes off into the woods like nothing ever happened. Thanks on that and also that the van was just one of my work vans. easily fixed.

1. House prices will fall 6-10% as more and more foreclosures hit the markets. Government tax credits, lower interest rates are secondary to millions of Americans that can't find jobs and are finally off unemployment.

2. Job losses continue to be downplayed in Washington DC where they are helpless to stem the tide. With trillions already spent, they have overplayed their hand.

3. Trillions of dollars worth of government obligations finally come to light in the mortgage industry, pension plans, FDIC, health care and other. Congress has meetings to discuss issues, makes pledge to clean house. American yawns

4. NAR continues to say "Now is the best time to buy Real Estate"

5. A new stock market bubble reaches it's peak, drops like a rock and millions are left wondering what happened.

6. Oil, commodities go through the roof.

7. Climate change is further discredited, Probably won't have to buy that "Green" house now.

8. Governments everywhere look to raise money by raising taxes and fees, while reducing services for tax payers only.

9. The super rich continue to wonder what the problem is.

10. Americans actually began to care about their government and the people who they elect by showing support to candidates outside the mainstream parties.

And finally, for those that have been frugal, less pain this year than last.