Pomona RV Show - Day Eternity

This is the new Fiat 500. It is so unbelievably cute. Here is the cabriolet version.

The dashboard.

A red interior. It gets good mileage. Driving it across country would probably be painful, but for an in town car, it's a hot ticket.

The rest of this post will be whining and complaining. So, if you continue to read, you've been warned.

We "bought" the Class A. We are having trouble getting financed. Why, you ask yourself, would two people with a near perfect credit score, and no debt, have trouble financing? Well, that's an excellent question.

It appears to be related to being full timers. After that, the stories diverge.

The web says it's due to:

• The new lending laws imposed by Regulation Z Section 226.35 require banks to escrow property taxes and insurance on any RV or boat that is the borrower's primary residence. Since full-time RVers don't have a "permanent residence," the banks may have difficulty determining what taxes to withhold and in what amount.
• Well, this is crap. I do have a permanent address; it's in South Dakota and there are no property taxes. Further, why would a loan to a full timer require the escrowing of insurance, and not a loan for a recreational use RV? It makes no sense.

One of the salesmen said it's due to:

• Banks don't want to lend to full-timers because if they default, the banks don't know where to go to repo the unit.
• Well, this is crap. What's to stop someone with a stick frame house that's underwater on their mortgage, from walking on the mortgage, taking the RV, and disappearing into the wilds of Alaska?

The finance guy we're talking to can't articulate the problem at all. A torrent of words came out, but with no real meaning. So, it's two days later, and we still have no word on financing availability. Personally, I find this annoying because we're having to stick around in this wretched park waiting for some sort of decision.
From a more global perspective, think about the long term ramifications of full timers not being able to finance. This park is full of people who live in their RVs full time. None of them can ever buy a new unit unless they pay cash. The RV industry was just about killed by the collapse of the global economy. Whose interests are served by making it impossible for people to buy the product unless they're able to pay cash? SD and TX are going to be hit by this because they pull in big dollars from full timers paying sales tax, registering their vehicles, and paying for mail forwarding services. This is the most stupid idiotic thing I have ever dealt with in my life, and I have seen much stupid stuff in my life.

Then on top of all this, we unwrapped the pork tenderloin we were going to have for dinner, and discovered it was spoiled. We're having pizza and asparagus for dinner because that's all the food we have left. Spoilage just made a shambles of the week's menu planning.

I have more complaining to do at a later date about the FCC, full time RVs and local channel availability, but that will have to wait for another day.

Over and out, maties.