Saturday, September 20, 2008

Plano Balloon Festival

What perfect weather for an outdoor event!

The Plano Hot Air Balloon Festival was a great opportunity to be outside and enjoy a great community event. The weather was wonderful, the food and drink ridiculously expensive yet wonderfully decadent and the balloon pilots were on their game.

Yes, there was an Elvis. This one sang with the band and everything... headlined you might say. Like there wasn't enough hot air out there already? Good fun.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

One more Fannie Cartoon...


I like this one too.
Most folks I talk to don't have an opinion about the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bailout. Most of them don't know who AIG is nore do they care. Ask them if they care in April... around the 15th... no matter who they vote for... I think they'll care then.
(Image found at http://straighttalkaboutmortgages.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/moral-hazard.jpg)

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

No More New Cars!

My Appologies to any new car salesmen.

I was talking with a friend in our office today and she was sick over the fact that she owes more on her cool 2007 sports car than she can get for it should she try to sell it. Wow. If she sold it today, at the best possible price, she'd come up about $7,500 short. Ouch.

Dave Ramsey, the guru of debt-free living has one of the coolest mathematic applications I have ever seen. Dave claims that he has figured out a way for us to drive "free" cars for the rest of our lives. I like that. Check it out...

Monday, September 15, 2008

Free Market vs. Freddie's Fannie

Webster defines
"free market"
as follows...

free market
Function:noun
Date:1897
: an economic market operating by free competition

Now, if the fishmonger is selling bad fish, at some point the fish buyers will stop buying his fish and shop at the Dairy Queen instead. I think that would be an example of what the fancy-pants economists would call a "market correction." So, why does Uncle Sam have to spend my hard earned money on Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae?


The obvious answer is that bad federal policy and corporate greed for decades has led the U.S. economy to a point that not bailing out the two mortgage giants would have made that bitter pill too big and too bitter for most of the politicians to get re-elected! Oh, I mean too hard to swallow for the American people. Yeah.

Frankly, this is all beyond the ken of my wee brain. I do know this though, the cartoon below is an apt summary of the end result of this temporary and costly shoring up of Freddie's Fannie.

Local Schools Turn in Mixed Results


I am a parent of an elementary student. So, whenever the TEA posts new data, you can bet I'll be tuning in! If you'd like to see the complete report summary provided by my friends at Republic Title, just drop me an email and I'll shoot you a copy. Or, if you are pretty web-savvy you can glean the same info from the Texas Education Agency at www.tea.state.tx.us

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Steve Warren

You know...

I love selling houses. I love helping people find the place for them, for their families. The place to open Christmas presents, the place to bring babies home to, the place to bring loved ones home to for their last days.

Houses count. Houses are important.

But it's the people in the houses that make the building a home. The people in the houses and the WHO that they bring into the houses with them... that's waht matters. If I can help get them in position to expereince great things, cool. It's a good gig. But the REALTOR just opens the door, the people have to make it special.



Yesterday I lost one of my buddies. The REALTOR(R) community lost a good agent, and a family lost a great Dad. My friend Steve Warren, agent at the Keller Williams Rockwall market center, passed away after a powerful and dramatic 6-week struggle with cancer. Please remember his family and church in your prayers, and giving.