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  #11  
Old 05-15-2009, 08:06 AM
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simi simi is offline
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I can't believe with all the talk about how jobs will be created, the admins are pushing the car companies to close dealerships, putting people out of work, and they are also looking at closing down manufacture of the C-17... between those two industries, and the amount of work they are talking about taking away... WOAH.. it's gonna get worse ya'll...
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  #12  
Old 05-15-2009, 04:49 PM
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Twodogs Twodogs is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kretinus View Post
GM is headed for bankruptcy, read the financials, even their execs are dumping the stock.

The unemployment rate in Kansas has been rising steadily since July last year and continues to rise right through the end of the first quarter and beyond.

The problem here is people are looking for the turn around when the fact is we haven't even hit bottom.

The next real estate bubble is coming apart in the commercial sector, foreclosures are still rising, bankruptcies are still climbing and even strong companies are showing signs of cracking at the seams.

And we haven't actually even seen the effects of the house of credit cards our economy was fueled by to it's full extent.

Yes, GM is heading for bankruptcy, but that doesn't mean they are going to stop building cars.

Kansas still has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country. There is absolutely NO shortage of jobs in the area I live in (near Kansas City). I do not know a single person in this community that wants to work, and can find none.

I agree completely that there is a longer harder road to be trod, before any "real" turnaround occurs.

As for real estate, there have been some foreclosures in the area. These have nearly all been effects of the old ARM scam. Young couples who overbought, thinking they would be able to swing a higher payment, but in reality could not. My wife works in the real estate field, and has helped many of these young folks keep their houses, or do short sales. The banks (around here at least), have started to negotiate a little more as time goes on, and foreclosed properties fall into disrepair and ruin.

The credit card thing is just a mess. The only opinion I have on that, is don't use one unless you pay it off every time the bill comes.
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  #13  
Old 05-15-2009, 10:52 PM
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Ozmoid Ozmoid is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by merrylander View Post
Nowhere else in the world is the salary differential so great, CEOs get 300 times and more than the average worker.

I submit to you that there is no man or woman in this world worth more than $800,000 per year and there are damn few of them.
Hear Hear!
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  #14  
Old 05-16-2009, 08:45 AM
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merrylander merrylander is offline
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Re credit cards we pay for everything with Amex because we get award points and use them to get free meat. It started because the local supremarket called one day and said they had lost our check. Put a stop payment on that one and even drove over and gave them a new one.

About two weeks later as my wife was about to pay for some groceries the clerk calls over the manager who loudly tells her our checks are no good. After much calling and talking to various cretins I finally discovered that they had 'found' the lost check and tried to cash it - of course the bank refused.

It finally got straightened out but we decided that if they did not want our checks then they effing well would not get them. BTW, the card is paid in full every month and if Amex tries to dick with us they get told we will cancel the card, boy does that ever make them sit up and take notice.

Just had a letter from Visa telling us there are all sorts of new charges but we only have Visa for merchants who refuse Amex.

Last edited by merrylander; 05-16-2009 at 10:13 AM.
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  #15  
Old 05-16-2009, 09:22 AM
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OvenMaster OvenMaster is offline
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This "correction" would have started -- and finished -- a lot sooner if there hadn't been a crapload of non-existent future tax dollars given to all the criminals running the shell game they call American banks. All these bailouts are doing is prolonging the inevitable, IMHO.

I saw a headline and couldn't believe it:

"Obama Says Debt Load 'Unsustainable'; Warns of skyrocketing interest rates..."

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...efer=worldwide

If our Fearless Leader doesn't want deficit spending, then why on earth is he DOING it?!

/rant
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  #16  
Old 05-16-2009, 12:01 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by OvenMaster View Post
This "correction" would have started -- and finished -- a lot sooner if there hadn't been a crapload of non-existent future tax dollars given to all the criminals running the shell game they call American banks. All these bailouts are doing is prolonging the inevitable, IMHO.

I saw a headline and couldn't believe it:

"Obama Says Debt Load 'Unsustainable'; Warns of skyrocketing interest rates..."

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...efer=worldwide

If our Fearless Leader doesn't want deficit spending, then why on earth is he DOING it?!

/rant

It boggles the mind, doesn't it? I just hope we reach critical mass sooner and not later. Hopefully before 2010, and 2012.
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  #17  
Old 05-21-2009, 10:00 AM
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merrylander merrylander is offline
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Well remember that part of the 'deficit' was hidden under W because he kept the costs of Iraq and Afghanistan 'off budget' not that it meant we were not spending the money. It is called creative bookkeeping in most circles, outright theft in others.

God forbid we go back to their economic theories. Fortunately for my pension Canada did not have any sub-primates running about as the CMHC did not allow such idiocy. Derivatives and tranches are dirty words in the GWN. You get a mortgage directly from a bank and they don't sell them, bundled or otherwise. Here, while there was a mortgage on this house, we went through over six different banks, yet we only re-negotiated once.

With the whole concept of derivatives and tranches how in hell anyone knows who really holds their mortgage is beyond comprehension. Another set of thieves the CMHC does not allow are Title Companies.
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  #18  
Old 05-21-2009, 07:20 PM
Charles Charles is offline
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Derivatives

With the whole concept of derivatives and tranches how in hell anyone knows who really holds their mortgage is beyond comprehension. Another set of thieves the CMHC does not allow are Title Companies.

This is a quote from Merrylander, I don't know how to do it the easy way.

Heading West.

I read that the money tied up in derivatives is something like 10 times the GNP of the entire world. Certainly points out the difference between wealth and money. No wonder Buffet calls them "Weapons of mass destruction".

My crude analogy has been that derivatives were like side bets on a crap game. And if you ever saw L. Hanks shooting craps at the Country Club, blind drunk, I think you might agree.

Where were the regulators when we needed them? Licking their master's boots, I suppose.

Chas
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  #19  
Old 05-22-2009, 07:23 AM
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merrylander merrylander is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Charles View Post
I read that the money tied up in derivatives is something like 10 times the GNP of the entire world. Certainly points out the difference between wealth and money. No wonder Buffet calls them "Weapons of mass destruction".

My crude analogy has been that derivatives were like side bets on a crap game. And if you ever saw L. Hanks shooting craps at the Country Club, blind drunk, I think you might agree.

Where were the regulators when we needed them? Licking their master's boots, I suppose.

Chas
Chas it is the red rectangle at the bottom of the post.

You can thank that barking idiot Phil Gramm for repealing the Glass Stegal Act and Clinton's finance guru Robert Reich for telling Bill it was a good idea. Harry Truman had it right when he asked for a one-armed economist. Put two economists in a room and they will come up with at least four theories.

You might just as well consult a tea leaf reader as an economist.
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  #20  
Old 05-22-2009, 08:57 AM
Sandy G Sandy G is offline
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Yeah, I was an Economics major in college, & I'll be damned if I can tell you a single SIMPLE thing about it...To be a good economist, you have to be able to make a point, & then refute it at least 10 ways...And support it 20 more. The one thing that I DID get from it was is that the economy of America is SO vast, & so complicated, there is really no way to devise a model to explain it adequately...Yes, you CAN influence the economy on a "Macro"-large-scale, but often as not, by the time your influences take effect, the economy has moved on, & your "influences" end up harming things rather than helping.
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