House of the rising Moonglum

The Pope recently announced a set of new Cardinals, including the patriarch of the Chaldean Church. It is not a big thing, but makes me happy none the less.

I realized that I have been remiss in posting world news lately. In general though, things have been going much better in Iraq, which makes it very interesting to watch the presidential contenders try to explain that away. *sigh* One of the things that I really like about Obama is that he is able to stay rooted in reality better than most. Unfortunately harping on the war seems to be of critical importance to the current race.

While it is true that the midwest is hit less hard by the vagaries of the real estate market, we are still hit by it. In particular, even if prices go up and down more slowly here, when people use ARMs to buy beyond their means, that is small comfort. The Sun Times has a good article talking about the increasing rate of foreclosures in Chicago, as all of those ARMs come due. I honestly don’t get them at all. Sure it lets you get more for less at the beginning, but you have to know that the piper is going to come calling. And on the flip side, it seems like the banks should have a vested interest in trying to make it work out. Isn’t it better to adjust up to something that the people can pay and get something back, rather than forcing them to foreclose by squeezing a little more short term gain out of them? It’s not like you are gonna make the rest back on selling the house in this market.

On a positive note, while increase of foreclosures in Roger’s Park was quite high (70%) (pdf), we are still only in the middle of the pack in terms of absolute foreclosure rate. And good lord what happened in Portage Park? 200% increase in foreclosures?