Feels like 2006

 According to the Wall Street Journal, "housing affordability" is as low now as it was in 2006. And I'll keep saying, I remember the "crash of 2008" well as I was there. House prices sagged all through 2006, the balloon slowly deflating. Early '07 looked a bit better, in February, as people got their tax returns and maybe put money into improving their houses in hopes of selling them - they'd already lost $50k or more by not selling a year earlier. By June 2007 things were in full crash mode. By August '07 I'd lost the apartment, was going to lose my car, and needless to say had lost my business. 

I drove that car out to a friend's in Nowhere, Arizona. I figured I'd have to go to debtor's prison but at least I was going to make them work to find me. It took my friend a while to convince me that debtor's prison was no longer a thing, since the 1840s in fact. 

My employer, Ken, made it through OK. That crash, I lost everything. This latest crash, the "covid crash" hasn't been one for the rich, but tons of working-class people have lost everything and had their lives completely changed. Ken and I have both managed to sail right through this last one. 

But what may be called the crash of 2023 may be interesting. The Republicans may win big in the 2022 elections coming up, and they can be counted on to make things much worse than they'd be under Democrats. 

I don't think Ken or I will lose everything. We may have our sales go way down but we can survive that. Ken's still got his job, gets a generous Social Security check now, and they refi'd their house when rates were still really good. The only thing that could go wrong now is Ken's health takes a bad turn. Or, of course, Putin launches nukes or Atomwaffen blows up the White House or something. 

After all the running around and shopping yesterday and that late night run to get my pledge and raffle tickets to the temple, and sifting, sorting, and cleaning 15 things to list, I decided I was tired and went to bed. 

I woke up at about 3. I had coffee etc. and packed some more things in addition to the 8 or so I'd packed last night, and left the usual time. The post office and FedEx visits were routine, and I didn't find much packing stuff but don't want much as I need to trim down what I have. I checked the bountiful dumpster and there was good stuff in there so I hurried back here and got my long reacher stick and went back and got the stuff, unloaded that here along with the trailer, and rode back up to Lowe's. 

I found bungee cords, some string, sticky-back felt for the bottom of the book case that's in the loft, and got some paper towels. Also got cash back so I'll have money for Obon. 

On my first go-out I'd noticed Crazy Chrissie's car by the new storage place, and remembered she'd gone grinding through last night on a flat tire. This time, the car was parked so maybe she was has a storage space, or maybe some other of her type of business (drugs, prostitution) and also noticed she has a zombie dog now, so that's lovely. A dangerous zombie and an undead dog that no doubt hungers for brains, also. The car was not there my second trip. 

Also, the burned-out shell of a zombie RV has finally been removed, but in some kind of weird zombie cosmic balance, at least two more "new" zombie RVs are parked along Junction. Similarly, on Rogers, the trees that hosted a row of druggie nests have been taken out and there are places where you can tell by the dirt cars used to be, but to keep things in balance, there are more zombies along the street in total. I zipped through, and I mean, I was going with the wind and really doing my best to go fast as I had to go past some zombies and one or two of them with bikes. I wanted to give the impression that it would be a lot of work to catch me, if they could. 

I got back in, buttoned up, and that's my day. I'm pondering the email exchange I just had with a guy I used to know when we were student interns together at a company. He was rumored to be just waiting it out until he was going to inherit a million dollars or two. This was in the mid-1980s so that was something. Nice guy, and we did fun stuff like go up the "Stairway To Heaven" and one time I tagged along to an Okinawan dance event or something that was being rehearsed in this big, grand, 1920s type theater there in Honolulu. 

Well, it turns out the guy never inherited "millions" and in fact lives on the Big Island where land is cheap, in a shipping-container house, and lives on Disability. It wasn't that I was going to ask him and his millions for help or anything, it's just that I wanted to look up what old friends I have back there who are still alive, and try to re-establish the old network. I might be able to help *him*. 

But what's annoying is, email used to be basically, just an electronic version of regular mail. But now, the computers chop everything up into little bits and make any sort of serious conversation very difficult to impossible. So you miss something that turns out to be an important question, or they think you answered it one way when you were actually replying to something else. And, he says, he doesn't have a mail box out so he can't get mail ... how does he get any mail at all? I can keep the guy in envelopes, paper, and stamps. 

I have no interest in even visiting the Big Island. It's a lot whiter, right-wing, and Trumpy than Oahu; Oahu being the place whites tend to denigrate as "ghetto". I had, at one time, looked at the land prices on the Big Island and thought I could buy an acre or ten out there but then I started looking at the crime rate and the politics - it's just like those little 99% white little towns here on the mainland, no where anyone with a 3-digit IQ would want to live. 

Why this friend moved there, who knows. It *is* the one place an ordinary person can afford to own property in the state, but then there are hellholes here on the mainland where anyone can buy a bunch of acres, too. If you can deal with the crime and the politics, and who knows, I don't know if the guy doesn't *agree* with the politics, it's probably about the cheapest living you can get. Say you spend maybe $20k for an improvised house on an acre or even a half-acre, now all you have to worry about is the property tax and not only is it going to be low on a $30k place, but Hawaii's got low property taxes in general. 

So if the guy's a Christian or a Trumper (pretty much the same thing these days) I'll have to stop communicating but when we both worked at the same place he was a pretty normal guy. 

He gave me his address so I looked his place up - it looks like it was made out of three shipping containers or two with a spacer, and hell, on a half acre you can do some pretty serious gardening and keep some chickens. Places like that are a lot of work but as mentioned, it's probably something like $500 a *year* to live in. Too bad you have to fly to Oahu to see the doctor... 

Until I learn otherwise I'm going to assume he's the same goofy, nice guy he was 40 years ago, and if I can help him, I will. 

Meanwhile ... tons of people want to move to Canada, well, Canada just had their internet go down and I mean banking, 911 calls, debit cards, everything. The only time there's been a crash of that magnitude in the US it was the 1987 rtm worm and I think we got that fixed faster. But, the chatter on Reddit reminds me that I need to keep a cash stash, which I had for a while then spent it w/o replenishing it.