Strippers

No, not that kind. Think stripping something of all its saleable assets, for example. Like corporate raiders that buy up a failing business that still has potential in the right hands.

An enterprise that employs plenty of people but hasn't been flourishing in the market because of incompetent management, or because of a downturn in the economy, or because their product requires updating. Instead of being bought out by moneyed interests with a view to returning them to profitability, their saleable parts are disposed of at great profit, and the shell that remains is dumped on a market that isn't interested.

But the corporate raiders have done well for themselves; bought the entire enterprise at a fire-sale price, and made hefty profits through the dismemberment of the whole, so letting go the shell that remains at a loss hardly matters. That remaining shell is worthless. And those whom the healthy corporation employed in its better days suddenly find themselves rootless, unemployed and set adrift.

This, really, is the story of ruthless American-style free enterprise.

So should it really be surprising when the little guys, the people who got stung with those inflated house prices and worthless mortgages is taking a page out of the corporate books? There are no laws to halt the pirate-ization of corporate entities; what they do to manipulate a property to scavenge the healthy portions and destroy the entirety in the process isn't illegal. It's business and profit and the bottom line.

So imagine, people whose homes are on the verge of foreclosure, advertising on Craig's List that they're in the process of stripping those homes, and anyone who is seriously interested should be alerted to opportunities to access appliances and fixtures and anything that isn't hammered down too securely, to come right along and pick up bargains. They go at bargain prices, and the small advantage to the foreclosed homeowner is that he walks away with something.

Of course the stripped-down house is no longer a home, nor is it all that much of a house. But that's the way such things go, isn't it? The stripping bazaar has become very popular, it would appear, in states hardest hit by foreclosures, like Arizona, Florida, Nevada. Where there may not be laws enacted prohibiting this type of activity - for who, actually could have foreseen such behaviour?

"Clearly it's happening, and it's happening with some frequency", admitted the president of the Mortgage Bankers Association. As for the banks, they have no legal power to halt a homeowner from proceeding to strip his property - for it is his, until such time as the foreclosure takes effect. The expense and difficulty in pursuing the matter through the court system mitigates against it, since there is little gain to be had in the final analysis.

So, when ads are posted, offering air conditioners, kitchen cabinets, ceiling fans, light fixtures and appliances at rock-bottom prices, little wonder, in a tight economy where people are generally feeling the pinch of a heartless recession, that there are buyers eager to bring home bargains.