Mike Shields

A drunk gets up from the bar and heads for the bathroom. A few minutes later, a loud, blood-curdling scream is heard coming from the bathroom.

A few minutes after that, another loud scream echo's through the bar. The bartender goes into the bathroom to investigate what the drunk is screaming about.

The bartender yells, "What's all the screaming about in there? You're scaring my customers!"

The drunk responds, "I'm just sitting here on the toilet and every time I try to flush, something comes up and squeezes the hell out of my balls."

The bartender opens the door and looks in.

You idiot! You're sitting on the mop bucket!

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The aforementioned joke is a good figurative illustration of what it's like to be an appraiser in today's market. The Appraisal Management Companies will soon have the appraisers that do bank/MB ordered appraisals by the balls and our clients are constantly busting our stones over not hitting the number.

Taco Bell is looking better every day.

Even in a drastically declining market like NW Ohio many homeowners are still dropping acid and thinking their home is the one that is still appreciating. I've taken a massive equity hit on my own home. Don't like it, but I have to face reality and deal with it.

The hard reality is that the real estate market has yet to bottom out. While some areas of the country are doing OK, many still aren't and will continue to decline. Ten percent of Ohio is on food stamps. Things are only going to get worse. A barrel of oil contains 42 gallons, so, at $123/bbl the actual cost of the oil is about $3/gallon. Factor in refining costs and within six months we will have to be paying five bucks a gallon.

About 20% of taxpayers pay 80% of the taxes. If you look at the job cuts and layoffs and consider that those people are in the 20% that pay the majority of taxes, you can see that municipalities will have to raise taxes to cover the revenue shortfall; thus, those who can least afford to pay more tax will be paying more tax. Factor in food and other commodity price increases due to high fuel prices and you can see we are in for what may be a worse depression than the Great Depression.

Hang on to your hats 'cause we are in for a wild ride.