Housey, housey…

All is very well for me in the garden lately. However, as Bob told me early today, a whole lot of you humans are being put through the grinder, and all because of the greed and selfishness that pervades a certain level of humanity. You may not think so, but I truly sympathise with the predicament you find yourselves in today. Being a frog, this allows me to view life through different eyes and perhaps it’s just as well that I can. Ribbit!!!

Quite unlike Bob, I’m not able to watch what you call television. Why, I hear some of you asking? Well, it’s because I tend to leave a filthy mess in Bob’s living room if I go in his house, something that derives from my living in the garden. But hey ho, that’s how things are and I enjoy it this way. Ribbit!!!

Anyway, had I been able to watch this television, I may have been able to warn you of your calamity much earlier than I did. Sorry! You must have realised by now that those of you who bought houses and thought that their value could only go up, had unfortunately made the biggest mistake of your miserable lives. This came about because of a sinister plot perpetrated by a few unscrupulous financiers. They developed a way to help themselves make personal fortunes and laugh at you all the way to their bank in the Caymans, or wherever. They didn’t give Toad’s crap whether it would help you to lose your homes when the bubble burst. You could have avoided this if you hadn’t believed all that hype spun at you by so many of those house selling television programmes. Bob tells me that they still show these on a daily basis, so it came as a surprise to learn that you lot still think that paying a quarter of a million for a house that’s worth fifty thousand squid, is still a good bet. Hey! Shake those cobwebs from what you call a brain! Croak!!!

What still amazes me after these past years of learning about you humans, it’s that Bankers fell for buying up all these mortgages hook, line and sinker from the American market, Why??? Great horny toads, Bob told me that normally you lot have to move heaven and earth to get them to lend money to you, and even when they do, you have to give them something that will make them have trust in your being able to pay them back. So why did they trust the American Financiers and Bankers when it was quite obvious to a blind man that what goes up in value, also goes down? And why give out one hundred percent plus mortgages to British buyers, when the market quite obviously couldn’t afford to keep up the payments when the interest rates went up? One of your children could have spelled that out to them. Croak!!!

Bob tells me that you lot are laying the blame for what’s now happening, the credit crunch and the housing crisis, onto the shoulders of your Gordon Brown. Get real! This isn’t his fault. If you must blame somebody for the falling markets and the credit crunch, lay the blame squarely where it truly belongs: on the shoulders of those greedy financiers, top bankers and all those dumb enough to want to buy houses with a mortgage much bigger than they could comfortably afford to take on. If this is you, then accept the blame for yourself and stop blaming others for your pathetic mistakes. Croak!!!

Did you know that nobody else in the whole world looks at houses in quite the same way as the British? It staggers me to think that you lot are prepared to mortgage your lives to the hilt, just so that you can show and tell everyone how much of a pratt you are. Bob says that you frown on renting a house, possibly because it’s never yours. But the way I see it, many of you who bought your houses in the current financial climate, are destined to lose them anyway. And even if you don’t, you’ll spend your life shelling out piles of money to put on a new roof when it gives up the ghost, as it will, and all along with countless other repairs that will want doing and paying for. Do you think that those who rent are concerned with these kinds of crippling costs? I know what I’d prefer, and this is to rent. Even rented accommodation can be passed on to your children when you die. Of course, I’m forgetting that the Brits love to sell their homes every few years, so, how is this saving money? When I look at the current market, those who rent have the least to worry themselves about. Ribbit!!!

Oh! And I forgot your obsession for buying more than one house to live in, not forgetting all of those holiday homes you seem to go crazy for. You know what? Bob would rather go to a hundred destinations for his holidays and stay in five star accommodation, not forgetting those who will wait on him hand and foot, thereby making his holidays all the more memorable, than buy some pathetic holiday home. Whose is going to watch your holiday homes while you’re not there to do it? Okay, so you can rent it out to holidaymakers for part of the rest of the year, that’s assuming that somebody doesn’t break in and squat on your precious property while you’re away. It’s little wonder that humans are so messed up today. Croak!!!

One last thing that has been on my mind for some time. Why is it that you Brits cannot do anything without that the Americans have tried and tested it first? Their latest mistake is a dandy…. Croak!!!

Well, I have to go, so, if you haven’t been kicked out of your job, and haven’t lost your home either, I’ll see you all again next time. I may seem harsh at times, but someone has to drill some sense into you, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s me…

Froggy :-)