I need your advice guys and gals!!

[RattyDog]

Thank you all for the input.

It's a real question...a real question indeed. My MIL (we are VERY close with my husbands side of the family) owns a home just about outright, which is big enough that if we found ourselves up a real creek, we could easily live there...so, that thought makes me wonder if we shouldn't wait this out and see....but at the same time, the idea of owning ("renting" from the gov- thank you for the reminder, my dear dada) some land, etc...sounds very nice. I like the idea of our own milk, eggs and garden. I know how to keep livestock and manage a family sized garden, can things, etc..so I feel like we could really live well that way.

I don't know...I agree with you, Dada, I really do, about ex-Yugoslavia, etc...we knew many people who fled with really little more than what they were wearing and made it to the US. When we lived in Boulder, there were many many Bosnian families living there are refugees and the stories they had were horrific...never left me, for the fact that these people were Middle Class, business owners, etc...owned their own homes, well educated...and lost absolutely everything they had. Were left with nothing. I always thought "If something like that could happen to them, why couldn't it happen to me?" and even as a kid was mind-blown about that.

So. We continue to go back and forth on it...one minute, very sure we will buy..the next, not as sure. It is funny to me, how struck we are with this American Dream BS...in the midst of the "American Dream" being exposed for what it's always been: A pack of lies. But perhaps...perhaps it's really more just the "Human Dream" - to be left alone, on your own little corner of the Universe...to be happy and free with your family, watch your kids grow up, etc. Perhaps a part of this growing into our life as parents, is what's really got us filled with this urge to hide away in the woods somewhere. A nice thought, anyway, how much nicer, if it could be a reality for us.

Hello Grasshopper, good to see you too bud! And yes, FreelanceFreedomFighter...I agree that a "solution" to this "horrible crisis" is already waiting in the wings...things just haven't been made bad enough, to reveal the solution, yet. You know they don't like to give us the solution until we're begging, chanting and pleading for it.  I just don't know how completely evil that solution is going to be...I don't know what side of it we want to find ourselves on...homebuyers, or homeowners...or maybe niether. Maybe "as invisible as possible" is what we really want in that situation!

Thanks again guys, I really appreciate the thougts, I knew I could count on you all to give me some useful perspectives...

[Dave Ridley]

ya the criticism of home ownership based on the possibility of things burning down in civil unrest... applies more to big city homes, and NH doesn't have any big cities so... who knows.   

[ByronB]

If you can afford a house (and the cost of the monthly mortgage is worth it to you) and can keep a decent rainy day fund going I would suggest buying... they can't take everyones houses away after all, just make sure you're better off then the lower 30% or so of America and I'm sure you'll be fine... I'm looking to buy a 2nd home now and find some new renters for my 1st one...

[Friday]

In Bosnia and Croatia people treated homes as investments to avoid heavy inflation.  There was always a desperate "building boom" underway in the 80s.    It made sense.  Then maybe 10 or 20 percent of the houses burned, and the investment in those cases was lost anyway.  The U.S. is similar to ex-Yugoslavia.

Pardon my ignorance, but I'm not sure what you're talking about here.  Are you saying that 10-20% of the houses in these countries burned down... due to firebombing during a violent civil war?  Or was there so much social chaos that people were randomly setting houses on fire, and the fire department stopped working, or...?  And when you say "the U.S. is similar...", do you mean that you expect either of those things to occur here?

It's true that you're still at the mercy of the government and assorted bad guys if you own your own home.  It still seems better than the alternatives.  I live in a nice apartment complex, yet during this winter's ice storm, I was without power for four days.  I didn't have the option of using a generator (not allowed), or making a fire (no fireplace or woodstove).  Fortunately the pipes didn't burst.

I also know what it's like to be evicted from the place you're renting, through absolutely no fault of your own (owners decided to sell the property, gave my roommates and me the legally mandated minimum 30 days notice to get out, which was inconvenient in a number of unpleasant ways).

All things considered, I'll take my chances with the unlikely possibility of eminent domain, and the assured eventuality of ever-rising taxes.   

[Dave Ridley]

Ya, Friday, depending on the town there were a lot of destroyed or damaged houses...some cities had more houses burned than not.  In Bosnia the fighting was almost all over the country, not confined to a front line.  I'm not sure how much "civil crime" type burning there was.

The U.S. similarities to ex-Yugo would be:  Theoretically loose collection of independent states suffering under tightening centralization, traditionally tolerable government being replaced by more fanatical violent government, secession rumblings, multi-ethnic population with history of minority abuse, more religious than most developed places, relatively high standard of living, Federal system in name but not in reality (they called it the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia).

Northern state/republics forced to send tax dollars to the poor south, inflationary spiral triggering a flight to hard assets.  Those are some of the similarities off the top of my head.

[Friday]

The U.S. similarities to ex-Yugo would be:  Theoretically loose collection of independent states suffering under tightening centralization, traditionally tolerable government being replaced by more fanatical violent government, secession rumblings, multi-ethnic population with history of minority abuse, more religious than most developed places, relatively high standard of living, Federal system in name but not in reality (they called it the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia).

Northern state/republics forced to send tax dollars to the poor south, inflationary spiral triggering a flight to hard assets.  Those are some of the similarities off the top of my head.

Interesting.  Hmmm.

I visited Yugoslavia, back when it existed.  And I took an entire college class on the USSR, which existed at the time.  Maybe one day we'll get to say "I'm from the former U.S.A."

There's a very interesting book I read years ago called Nine Nations of North America by Joel Garreau.  I don't think it's in print anymore. It talks about general cultural tendencies of various parts of the U.S.A.

[Pat McCotter]

There's a very interesting book I read years ago called Nine Nations of North America by Joel Garreau.  I don't think it's in print anymore. It talks about general cultural tendencies of various parts of the U.S.A.

Just a warning: Google doesn't like The Garreau Group, which appears to be Joel's official website.

What is the current listing status for garreau.com?

    Site is listed as suspicious - visiting this web site may harm your computer.

    Part of this site was listed for suspicious activity 3 time(s) over the past 90 days.

What happened when Google visited this site?

    Of the 61 pages we tested on the site over the past 90 days, 6 page(s) resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent. The last time Google visited this site was on 2009-05-19, and the last time suspicious content was found on this site was on 2009-05-19.

    Malicious software includes 10 scripting exploit(s), 8 trojan(s), 7 exploit(s). Successful infection resulted in an average of 7 new process(es) on the target machine.

    Malicious software is hosted on 6 domain(s), including v7i2.cn/, c0093.cn/, nvi3.cn/.

    3 domain(s) appear to be functioning as intermediaries for distributing malware to visitors of this site, including v7i2.cn/, oi06.cn/, tejary.net/.

    This site was hosted on 1 network(s) including AS7784 (ATLANTECH).

[Russell Kanning]

I agree with Friday.

Also if you wanted to have some of that country living, but not "owning" ... it is possible to rent things. You can rent entire farms.

[Friday]

I just stumbled upon this blog and it seems relevant to this thread (haven't had a chance to read the whole thing yet):

http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2009/02/social-collapse-best-practices.html