by Spook 4 Replies latest jw friends
Most of my former JW friends in the late 90's and early 00's were working in construction. They were doing well. The housing bubble hit them particularly hard because...
They were all selling houses to fellow JW's. Everybody's plan seemed to be to sell each other houses, profit off the inflating prices and auxilliary pioneer off of your equity.
I don't think that kind of protectionism and isolation can survive this economy. Has anyone noticed this group getting hit particularly hard?
Yes I have noticed that many JW were affected by the housing crisis because their occupations were in construction. Now they are out of work.
I know of some JW who were getting elderly JWs to invest in housing, condos, etc to make a quick buck. I know of one who mortgaged her home to invest. They were doing quite well until the housing crisis. Now the elderly JW sisters who invested their money are upset. They have got various bodies of elders to investigate the possibility of fraud on the part of those JW who asked for investments. I know of one that was df over this situation.
I know of some dubs in construction who are struggling a bit, but they have their own networking system in place...dubs referring dubs referring dubs, so when a project becomes available, calls go out to each other to get them involved. A couple of brothers who did the same kind of work have pooled their efforts and have basically merged thier operations into one in order to survive.
I do know one brother who had to let his permanent help go but still needs help from time to time so he hires teens from the hall a couple of days at at time. He can pay them minimum wage (if that even) and only uses them sporadically so they don't bug him about needing more hours. Meanwhile the brother he let go is still looking for work.
As for dubs losing houses, I haven't heard of anyone being foreclosed on, though I do know of a couple who have their houses up for sale, just wanting to get out from under. They're losing money if they sell because the values fell but they see the Big A coming and they think it will only get worse.
But there are a couple of brothers who are in the buying business. They've actually gone out and bought up. They knew this was the time to get more house for the money. Apparently they're not as worried about the Big A.
Amazing what you can learn by just sitting and listening to JW family gossip about the goings on at the hall...
Yeah, they do have a tight network. I just know in the midwest here that sooooo many people work for / with a few individuals, plus there are a lot of single income families. And don't get me started on the way a lot of them save.
This only works so long before the prices start crashing, and someone is going to take a bath on their investment. And, that means having that much less money to put into the Worldwide Pedophile Defense Fund, even though Brother Hounder continues urging them to trust in Jehovah to provide the money (He never does).
