Financials mess

[Blake NWR]

The only thing I have that's financed is my house, and I got that shortly before the economy went to shit. My car is 18 years old with almost 180,000 miles on it; when that finally dies, I'll probably get another just like it. I have two credit cards with small limits, which I use sparingly if possible.

Aside from that, I've been looking at other ways to save - replaced all the light bulbs in my house with compact fluorescents; downgraded my cable since I rarely watch TV anyway (but it's bundled with my internet so I can't just cancel it completely); taking the bus to work more often since there's a stop three doors up from my house that goes right by my work.

Anyone else have ways they tighten their belts?

[The Green Manalishi]

Yes.
But I'll tell ya what makes me want to take my belt off and kick somebody's a-hole.

Already crappy day for the most part at the coal mine.

SOOoo I'm driving home listening to the regular Miles & Thrill & The Ted Smith, when I hear how the f'g CEO's of the 3 largest Auto industries (American) go to testify to big daddy on how they need their gadzillion dollar bail out. We the people billed of course.

Oi.

The DJ's go on to explain how each corp has their own FLEET of private leer jets to send the lil' piggys to the meetings. This one included. 20 grand round trip for just one of the fuckers. 20K.

I can't even type I'm so pissed.

The DJ's went on with more mind boggling details.

I was tickled however and the blunt honesty of the DJ's regarding these idiot CEO's and their corporations.

But not enough.

This shit is jacked.

[The Green Manalishi]

The only thing I have that's financed is my house, and I got that shortly before the economy went to shit. My car is 18 years old with almost 180,000 miles on it; when that finally dies, I'll probably get another just like it. I have two credit cards with small limits, which I use sparingly if possible.

Aside from that, I've been looking at other ways to save - replaced all the light bulbs in my house with compact fluorescents; downgraded my cable since I rarely watch TV anyway (but it's bundled with my internet so I can't just cancel it completely); taking the bus to work more often since there's a stop three doors up from my house that goes right by my work.

Anyone else have ways they tighten their belts?

Srsly? ok, you asked.


1. Wash full loads in cold water. Make sure dryer is set to exactly when those puppies are dry.

2. Get perfectly good Aluminum foil, trash bags, etc. at the dollar store.

3. Keep the heat lower and put on some clothes.

4. Buy in bulk items/sundries that you WILL use. Taylor to your lifestyle.
We drink Drip Coffee from made at home, (just like the Grandparental Units used to). Costco has excellent buys on coffee beans. Rarely to we ever buy Lattes, etc. plus the fact Starbucks owner sold our Team. (another thread.)

6. My dog will never eat $80.00 dog food. I don't need $80.00 dollar dog pooh.

Peace.

[wadruid]

I just got round trip airline tickets to Arizona (to visit my Dad, who's health is failing), for $235. Round trip!! Total price!! That's amazing!! Saved almost $400 by waiting 2 weeks.

[Six6VI]

You don't even want to know what my in-laws paid a few months back to fly the three of us, round trip, for this next week. Something tells me the airline isn't going to be compensating them the difference either.

Lee

[DeathFrogg]

And people are wondering where all the money went. This is hopefully on the first out of hundreds or thousands of examples.

All American debt, including all mortgages, credit cards, general bank loans and leins, added together, comes up to something like $43 Trillion. Meanwhile, people like this clown gets a few hundred thousand dollar fine and a pretend six month sentence at the local country club. And WE get to buy off his debts.

Guess we now know why people like that needed those tax breaks so much.

[DeathFrogg]

Hey, you senators: Thanks for nothing
A few parting words for the senators who squashed the auto rescue

By MITCH ALBOM • FREE PRESS COLUMNIST • December 13, 2008

Do you want to watch us drown? Is that it? Do want to see the last gurgle of economic air spit from our lips? If so, senators, know this: We’re taking a piece of you with us. America isn’t America without an auto industry. You can argue whether $14 billion would have saved it, but your actions surely could have killed it.

We have grease on our hands.

You have blood.

Kill the car, kill the country. History will show that when America was on its knees, you lawmakers wanted to cut off its feet. How does this happen in America?

Suddenly, the worker is the problem? Suddenly, unless union members, overnight, drastically slash their wages with a hard deadline, you pull the plug on an industry?

Suddenly, Detroit is the symbol of economic dysfunction? Are you kidding? Have you looked in the mirror lately, Washington?

In a world where banks hemorrhaged trillions in a high-priced gamble called credit derivative swaps that you failed to regulate, how on earth do we need to be punished? In a bailout era where you shoveled billions, with no demands, to banks and financial firms — who created the problem in the first place — why do need to be schooled on how to run a business?

Who is more dysfunctional in business than you? Who blows more money? Who fashions and molds its work based on favors and pork and traded compromises?

At least in the auto industry, if folks don’t like what you make, they don’t have to buy it. In government, even your worst mistakes, we have to live with.

And now Detroit should die with this?

Kill the car, kill the country. Sen. Richard Shelby, Sen. Bob Corker, your names will not be forgotten. It’s amazing how you pretend to speak for America when you are only watching out for your political party, which would love to cripple unions, and your states, which house foreign auto plants.

Corker, you’ve got Nissan there and Volkswagen coming. Shelby, you’ve got Hyundai, Honda, Mercedes-Benz and Toyota. Oh, don’t kid yourself. They didn’t come because you earned their business, a subject on which you enjoy lecturing the Detroit Big Three. No, they came because you threw billions in state tax breaks to lure them.

And now — this is rich — you want those foreign companies, which you lured, and which get help from their governments, to dictate to American workers how much they should be paid? Tell you what. You’re so fond of the foreign model, why don’t you do what Japanese ministers do when they screw up the country’s finances?

They cut their salaries.

Or they resign in shame.

When was the last time a U.S. senator resigned over the failure of his policies?
Yet you want to fire Rick Wagoner?

Who are you people?

There ought to be a law — against the selfishness and hypocrisy our government has demonstrated. The speed with which wheelbarrows of money were dumped at the feet of Wall Street versus the slow noose hung on the auto companies is reprehensible. Some of those same banks we bailed out are now saying they won’t extend credit to auto dealers. Wasn’t that why we gave them the money? To loosen credit?

Where’s your tight grip on those funds, senators? Or do you just enjoy having your hands around blue-collared throats?

No matter what the president does, history will not forget this: At our nation’s most uncertain hour, you stood ready to plunge tens of thousands of families into oblivion. Push them onto public payrolls, unemployment, no health insurance. And you were willing to put our nation’s security at risk — by squashing the American manufacturing we most rely on in times of war.

And why? So you could stand on some phony principle? Crush a union? Play to your base? How is our nation better off today now that you kept $14 billion in the treasury? Are you going to balance the budget with that?

Don’t make us laugh.

Kill the car, kill the country. You tried to slam a stake into the chest of this business, and you don’t even realize how close to the nation’s heart you’re coming. Shame on your pettiness. Shame on your hypocrisy. This is how we behave two weeks before Christmas? Honestly. What has become of this country?

==============================================

I would like to add that the fact that these U.S. "Senators", have deliberately, openly and with an incredible level of deliberate malice, have put the interests of FOREIGN Corporations ahead of domestic interests. They know who it is that is lining their pockets. They have sold out the United States to the enemy.

Thats treason. That is the very definition of the word.

Are we on the third box yet? Any of you GOP fascists and traitors got anything to say? Any rationale at all? It's obvious where your loyalties lie. It certainly isn't in the interests of the American worker, or even the American economy. You put Foreign interests ahead of those of the people that pay your salaries. I guess all that bribe money from those foreign companies is more important. More than half of the money that was handed over to financial companies was given, with no strings attached, to foreign banks.

If the auto companies fail, that means five million people out of work. Suppliers, restaurants, grocery stores, dealerships, dentists etc.

Ayn Rand would be very proud of these men. After all, it is she who designed the current economy. This is the ultimate manifestation of "Trickle Down-supply side" economics.

[derek666]

You find 2, yes 2 GOP Senators out of how many idiots that voted for the major bailouts and blame the very few repub's for being Fascists and traitors? So what does that make the Dems who voted the same exact way? Just a curious question.

[sharklive6]

I am making so much money$$I can't decide were to put it all. I keep rolls and rolls of bills in my suitcase since banks are not trustworthy.$$$$$

I am hiring
I need some people to do work around my yard, sweep and clean my garage.
I will tell you how much you get paid after your done doing all the f*cking work
no breaks
work hard
clean up my sh*t out of my yard and make it nice$$$$$$$

I need to have helpers so I can double my income from $5,000 per day to $10,000 per day I need more dough.

[DeathFrogg]

You find 2, yes 2 GOP Senators out of how many idiots that voted for the major bailouts and blame the very few repub's for being Fascists and traitors? So what does that make the Dems who voted the same exact way? Just a curious question.

The bailout of the banking system was just that, a cash giveaway to certain freinds of the bankers in the US Senate and Congress, not to mention the president who is owned, lock stock and crooked barrel by the Saudi Royal Family. The bailout of the auto companies was intended as a loan, that would have had to be paid back. The Bankers have gotten thus far over two TRILLION dollars, paid by the US Taxpayer with zero oversight, zero accounting, and zero responsibility, it was a total, no strings attached giveaway deal.

The Auto companies needed the loan to stay afloat, and thats what it was, a LOAN. The GOP is quite openly saying that the purpose of denying that loan was to break the back of the UAW, they said, flat out that the UAW members would have to agree to take a 30% pay cut. Naturally the union told them to go fuck themselves. Nobody can afford to have their wages reduced by a third. Except maybe the executives, who make an average of 420 times what the hourly workers do. And they weren't asked to. The president of GM, his wages add up to something like $3200.00 an hour.

All the Senators who voted against the loans to the Auto companies have spent billions of their respective states money, as well as federal dollars to attract foreign auto makers to build factories in their states. Their palms have been very well greased by those companies. They are putting the interests of foreign corporations ahead of the American worker. The workers in those foreign owned factories make an average of $4 an hour less than the UAW workers, and have much less benefits like medical and dental and such, and zero retirement, and zero worker protections. All the Senators who voted against the Auto company loans were republicans from the southern right to work states with foreign auto factories.

All the Senate needed was 6 more votes, and it would have passed.

I don't like the idea of a massive bailout of any industry. I don't like at all the idea of government borrowing money to bail out companies that have been run into the ground by incompetant or criminal management.

But the reality is, if we have to build a lot of shit in a hurry, like we did in 1942-45, we would have no solid manufacturing base in this country. The auto companies are the last bastion of heavy mass production we have. That is where the expertise is. We cannot afford to lose that expertise. Or the next major war we have to fight will be fought the way the Vietnamese fought us. And we do not have the experience for that type of warfare.

[derek666]

I think some people on here should re-read their words!!!

[Jonathan]

I think some people on here should re-read their words!!!

Like I said in my two posts on this thread.

This country's culture is greed and materialism. From the top down to the bottom. The top can afford to multiply their billions off the backs of the middle/lower class. The bottom is ignorant to buy up their shiny new possessions with their credit cards, although they can't afford the payments.

It's NOT an endless cycle. The cycle will implode. These people will hold the system together with all their might. Even as jobs dissappear, even as their children go hungary. But it will end and hopefully THIS is the start of it.

I am lower middle class. I know my place. I am proud of it. The country is held together by us workers. But I know that what comes with lower middle class is NOT a brand new car, it's NOT a house that I can barely make payments on and it's NOT the $10K in guitar gear.

As long as you do your part to keep this culture afloat, you can NOT blame the rich, the politicians, etc...

[derek666]

Like I said in my two posts on this thread.

This country's culture is greed and materialism. From the top down to the bottom. The top can afford to multiply their billions off the backs of the middle/lower class. The bottom is ignorant to buy up their shiny new possessions with their credit cards, although they can't afford the payments.

It's NOT an endless cycle. The cycle will implode. These people will hold the system together with all their might. Even as jobs dissappear, even as their children go hungary. But it will end and hopefully THIS is the start of it.

I am lower middle class. I know my place. I am proud of it. The country is held together by us workers. But I know that what comes with lower middle class is NOT a brand new car, it's NOT a house that I can barely make payments on and it's NOT the $10K in guitar gear.

As long as you do your part to keep this culture afloat, you can NOT blame the rich, the politicians, etc...

I wasn't refering to you, sexxxy!!