Hard Times: Travis Fox crosses the country to see how Americans are coping with the economic downturn.

OUr parents grew up during the Great Depression. We worked with people of that generation. There were great personal sacrifices - what are we modern Americans ready to sacrifice today. ..........
http://thefiresidepost.com/2008/10/12/a-nickle-for-bread-but-no-one-has-a-nickle/

Peter Schiff gives his 2 cents... (This is the most honest and correct assessment I have READ YET)!!

THE PARTY IS OVER--

More than just a mere liquidity or credit crisis, the current financial storm represents the death throes of the old global economic order, and perhaps the birth pains of a new one. The sun is setting on the borrow and spend culture that has defined us for a generation. Our long ride on the global gravy train is finally coming to an end, and once it does nothing will be the same. The sooner we come to grips with this the better.

Despite the myriad of proposals that are coming from Washington and other world capitals, we must understand that this crisis cannot be cured by governments. In the United States, credit is gone because savings are gone. Our shallow pool of savings has been depleted through bad loans, and we can no longer entice foreigners to lend us their available savings. Given that we are already too loaded up on existing debt they we cannot realistically repay, who can blame them for not wanting to lend us more?

As a result, the free market is trying to put an end to our spending spree. Without savings or home equity to fall back on, Americans struggling with rising prices are finally being forced to cut back. This has terrified our leaders and is causing them to dismantle the remaining structure of our free enterprise-based economic system.

The intention of all these daily federal interventions is to keep the credit spigots open so Americans can go even deeper into debt to buy more stuff they can't actually afford. This should be clear enough to anyone who listens to what our leaders are actually saying. When speaking about the need for an even larger fiscal stimulus package, Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said, "We have to prop up consumption." He has it backwards. The government has been propping up consumption for far too long, and the best thing they can do now is remove the props so spending can be replaced by savings.

The sad reality is that we borrowed and spent our way into this crisis, and we are not going to borrow and spend our way out of it. Legitimate credit can only be supplied if there are genuine savings to finance it. Savings can't be magically concocted into existence by a printing press, but can only be created by consumers who spend less than they earn. Efforts to fool the market will not work and will ultimately lead to a monetary disaster and runaway inflation.

Were the government to allow market forces to work, Americans would now have to pay cash for their consumption. That would mean no instant credit for new cars, plasma TVs, appliances, consumer electronics, clothing, furniture, etc. Unless buyers actually had the cash in their checking accounts these purchases would have to be deferred. From an economic perspective this is precisely what the doctor ordered. But for an economy based 72 percent on consumer spending, the medicine will go down hard.

Ultimately, a serious reduction in consumer and mortgage credit, combined with an increase in personal savings, would again provide a pool of needed capital for businesses to produce products and provide employment opportunities. However, the danger is that this potential credit could be completely crowded out by massive borrowing by the Federal Government. In addition, prices for such things as houses and college tuition will fall sharply, as the credit artificially propping them up disappears. People would still be able to buy houses and send their kids to college only they would pay much lower prices when they do.

However, if the government keeps creating inflation to artificially sustain consumer borrowing and spending, there will be no savings left to fund anything and prices will be so high that despite massive consumer spending there will be few goods that Americans could actually afford to buy.

I find it interesting that the gentleman quoted was singing the praises of having a paycheck in retirement. A pension paid for by the government. Good for him. But it's a government pension no less. He's not living off of his savings.

My father too was a child of quite a bitter life during the Depression. He worked for the Federal Government for 30 years and then retired. He makes more in his pension now than he ever made when working. He's gotten that pension for 30 years now, as many years as he worked.

Once he showed me a book by Rush Limbaugh and told me to read it. Rush was ranting on about wasteful governement etc, and the money government was spending. My dad thought I was going to learn something important from Rush, until I pointed out that all the railing Rush was doing was about people like my father....

I have worked for computer consulting companies for most of my 30 years of employment. Not one of them ever offered a pension plan. Some offered 401k's, and not all of them even offered any dollar matching.

So in the past few weeks I've watched the money that my wife and I saved over the years implode.

It's a quaint idea to say that you can put your money in a savings account and save it forever and the interest will protect you in the end. The gentleman in the article, like my father, cannot make the calculation that saving money at 2% and having inflation run at 4% means that, even though you've got a few dollars in a savings account, it's losing value each year, and eventually won't buy you a loaf of bread, let alone pay for a perscription.

While I don't subscribe to overspending, especially on credit cards, to say that yesterday's solutions will resolve today's problems is a little shortsighted. The average person HAS to invest in the stock market to make enough money to retire. Wall Street knows it, and therein lies the rub. It's all set up to foment manipulation by those at the top of the pyramid. And all we have to do is read the front page of The Post each day to prove it.

My Dad is an Okie and my Mom is from Colorado and are both depression era. Living within your means was the only way they survived. (these men put the blame squarely on greedy Main Street and those people who ran up too much debt.

“That’s one thing my folks always instilled on us is to never live beyond your bounds,” says Dale R Gibson.)

Now that I am nearing retirement myself - I just cannot belive the extremes that so many go to in living way beyond their means. Many that I know will never really retire - they just will not be able to afford too. I am lucky, I learned my lesson well from my parents - I live within my means and I am debt free today.

We were quite poor when I was growing up, and my mother's family was poor too. Nevertheless, my widowed mother was a good manager. She had credit at a local grocery store and a pharmacy. Each month she paid her bill in full. I hated being poor. I hated not having a pile of presents under the Christmas tree. I hated getting socks and underwear instead of the dolls and other things I wanted. I have a fairly decent job now and a home that I'm still paying for. I am grateful now for the good training my mother gave me back then because my paycheck seems to cover less every year. I'm lucky. I can walk to work to save gasoline. I seldom eat out. I even go home for lunch. I turn lights out when I am not using them, and I have converted all my most used lights to compact fluorescents. I had a clothesline put up this past summer so I can save money on drying, at least for part of the year. I shop grocery sales and I stock up when there's a good sale. I cook my food from scratch instead of buying prepared foods. Yes, it takes a little more time but I make use of that time by cleaning the bathroom or doing a load of laundry. Preparing my own food not only saves me money, it's a lot healthier for me as well. I produce a fair amount of my own food as well. I've had a vegetable garden for two years now. I haven't put any in the freezer yet but it still has saved me money throughout the summer. There are many things that many of us can do to live more simply and frugally. It's going to be harder for the young ones. They're young and they want things. Houses, clothing, cars, stuff. I think it wouldn't hurt them though to learn the lessons in how to take care of themselves better. We who are older need to start talking to them and helping them to learn how to get by with less.

Effective Economic Strategy Suggestion
To Barack Obama
From Registered Democratic Voter

What are the critical elements of an effective strategy in the current situation:Economic Crisis?
A. Persistent, patient explanation to all sections of the American population in every state, county, and city in America that the suvival of Americans and the effective solving of any problems of any sections of the American population is right now crucially dependent on the transformation of the American Presidency from Republican domination to Democratic equality, where the working population is a part of the decision-making process. The preservation of the world-wide environment, the ending of pollution, the intervention of war, the prevention of nuclear holocaust, the curbing of crime, the functioning of the educational systems, the intervention of world starvation, adequate health care for everyone, and the elimination of racist, sexist and all other oppressions, can no longer, any of them, be achieved to any satisfactory degree without the transformation of our American Presidential leadership to a democratic leadership.
Large numbers of Americans are on the verg of reaching such a conclusion for themselves. If such a conclusion is given the right voice--Baracp Obama, it will meet ready agreement. The transformation will be hindered only by American fears--such as fears about taking any initiative for their own survival; and by voter apathetic "trust" in present Republican leaders to "take care of them."
A sizable number of American voters have become completely disillusioned with the present republican leadership but have found no alternative in the republican presidential candidate and his team except bitterness, apathy, despair, resorts to violence, or chanting determined hopelessness to each other. To reach these American voters will require the sturdiest optimism and the most intransigent firmness on the part of the Democratic party leadership--rejecting their painful emotional rigidities but insisting that the American people themselves can take a different attitude, can be valuable in the struggle to overcome America's money problems.
Middle-class America is Crucial
B. The education and organization of Middle-class, particularly, industrial American workers and most particularly Disadvantaged Residents Entering America's Mainstream(D.R.E.A.M.), in American foundation industries, industries on which all other American industries depend. This would include the improvement of American consciousness, enhanced organization of the unorganized middle-class into trade groups, the reclaiming of self-control by D.R.E.A.M.; the ending of racism and sexism and all other forms of oppression within organized labor, and initiative from the organized middle-class workers to seek alliances with world-wide people, such as consumers, environmentalists, American farmers, etc.
The workers in the bacis industries are the Americans whom the present economic system has put into a position of great democratic potential power. At the same time, a Wall Street Economic system has somewhat brainwashed the republican leadership and government into accepting an attitude of American powerlessness while continuing to force the Republican leadership to rediscover their power as an essential for their republican leadership survival. It is not the Republican leaders in the American government that have real power.
Bush, the American Republican President of the USA, over the weekend, met with other economic leadership of other world-wide countries. That leadership has little or no power to go in a progressive direction; once committed to the system, he/she is able only to move in that direction. But the middle-class and D.R.E.A.M. in the basic industries has the power to call a halt to the entire production of American wealth, and can, once clear enough in their own minds and firmly enough united, require any change in America that the middle-class wish.

Look for "Effective Strategy C" in my next blog.

Action Speaks
gloriahnt@yahoo.com

My parents grew up in the depression, born in 1923 and 1925. Both of my grandfathers were able to hold on to their jobs but were on reduced hours and were affected by the hard times. Many of the ways of coping they adopted were continued the rest of their lives. They instilled values in myself and my siblings including living within your means that we continue to this day. We lost our way with our children. They are the ones who feel entitled. We made them that way by indulging their desires. Only one of my brothers is a college grad. Most of our children are grads or on track to graduate. They want to know why they can't have it all right now. They don't understand that our wealth, such as it is, came from a lifetime of work and savings.
When I first heard of the depression I did not fully comprehend how bad it was. I was taught in school about this and other economic hard times in the past and how safeguards had been put in place to prevent it from happening again. I guess they misunderstood how greedy people could be. Outright theft, fraud and incompetence on all levels led to this. People buying houses, without the means to hire a lawyer to interpret what they were getting into, could not possibly afford to own a house. Realtors, who were paid on commission, had no reason to sell a house at a fair price. Mortgage brokers, who earned their commission on the sale of the mortgage and the interest rate had no reason to help you get a fair price or determine if you could truly afford it. Banks that bought the mortgage only to sell it on Wall St. didn't care if you could afford it either. Bond rating firms gave these packages a superficial inspection before rating them AAA. The investors who bought these securities were only interested in potential profits that were too good to be true. Then when the people who saw what was going on tried to warn us they were shouted down. As the house of cards started to tumble down we were assured or were lied to, time will tell us which. Now that the die is cast we will see if the goverment's promise will be kept or where the blame will lie.
I'm hoping for the promise.

After WWII, after my father got his first job, he went to a banker to see about getting a loan for a washing machine for my mother. Instead of a washing machine, he got a lecture from the banker about the importance of saving money when you were young. And he did that for years - 15% out of every paycheck. I just hope the theives on Wal-Street don't still it from my mother as she has many years in front of her.

The only complaint I have about my parents was as they got older, their greed got the best of them and they became Republicans who hated paying taxes to the government that allowed them to become rich in the first place. My father went to college on the GI bill and became an engineer, they got a good loan to buy their first house through the GI bill, my Dad's company thrived because of government welfare for corporate America and thus his company never went out of business. His government helped him become rich. My mothers parents both prospered during the depression because they both had government jobs.

But when my grandfather died a multimillionaire and had to pay $500,000+ for estate taxes, they were furious.(there was still a great deal of money left)

My grandfather joined the military in 1928 and became a military officer (after running off to join the military and leaving his wife and two children, my dad and his sister, destitute and with no child support because he had to leave town because he got in trouble with gambling debt). So my grandfather became wealthy working for the military industrial complex and investing in US companies that thrived because of friendly US government policy. He said he payed bribes overseas to sell military equipment to foreign governments (this was pre Jimmy Carter and he was furious at Carter for stopping these tactics). He also became a Republican.

The current wealthy generation forgets who helped them get where they are today and don't want to give back so the next generation can have the opportunities they did.

I just hope this crisis doesn't cause my mother and me to end up like an Okie. But it sure looks like we're headed that way.

At least I still drive old cars and keep them up. I'm waiting for the electric vehicles before I spend another dollar on old technology.

I would not dispute the fact that people got too greedy and overextended themselves. This is certainly a FACTOR in our current dilemma, but it is not the cause of our current economic crisis.

There are an estimated $1.7 trillion in bad loans. There is an estimated $55 trillion in CDSs and other derivatives linked to these bad loans. And there is an estimated $550 trillion in the total derivatives market. It is possible to pay off the bad loans, but it is practically impossible to cover a collapsing derivatives market especially since there are more in derivatives out there THAN THE WHOLE EARTH IS WORTH. So some home buyers got out of control, well take a good look at what Wall St did because they've made the home buyers look like a bunch of kids caught stealing out of the cookie jar.

Why would anyone trust the democrats? They and their corrupt buddies got us into this mess. Raines, Gorelick and Johnson raped Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, while the congressional slugs Barney Frank and Chris Dodd ran interference, defeating every attempt by the Bush administration to rein in the insanity at those agencies. Meanwhile, Obama's organization ACORN kept pressure on banks (Obama sued one for ACORN) to continue to make loans to people who hadn't a prayer of repaying them.
All of you who think Obama will be good for the economy are either ignorant of the facts or dishonest. No one with common sense would vote for the socialist affirmative action candidate.

Bush's Big Rock Candy Mountains

(to the melody of Big Rock Candy Mountains)
Lyrics By WilliamBanzai7

One evening as the DOW went down and the ABX was burning
Down the track came a banker hiking and he said boys I'm not turning
I'm headin for a land that's far away from Wall Street's crystal towers
So come with me we'll go and see the Bush's Big Rock Candy Mountains

In Bush's Big Rock Candy Mountains there's a land that's fair and bright
Where the handouts grow from the bailout pros and you sleep sound every night
Where the ABS books are all empty and the sun shines every day
On the birds and the bees and the bonus trees
Where the perrier springs where the squawk box sings
In the Bush's Big Rock Candy Mountains

In Bush's Big Rock Candy Mountains all the regulators have wooden legs
And the shorts all have rubber teeth and the taxpayers lay golden eggs
The traders books are full of fruit and the bankers play all day
Oh, I'm bound to go where there ain't no snow
Where the rain don't fall and the wind don't blow
In Bush's Big Rock Candy Mountains

In Bush's Big Rock Candy Mountains you never sell your stocks
And the glimmering streams of origination fees come a-trickling down the rocks
The enforcers have to tip their hats and the bears and shorts are banned
There's a lake of stew and of champagne too
You can sail all around 'em in your custom yachts
In Bush's Big Rock Candy Mountains

In Bush's Rock Candy Mountains white collar jails are made of tin
And you can walk right out again as soon as you are in
There ain't no short handled shovels, no axes saws or picks
I'm a goin to stay where you sleep all day
Where they hung that jerk from Berkshire Hathaway
In Bush's Big Rock Candy Mountains

I'll see you all this coming fall in Bush's Big Rock Candy Mountains

I agree with many of his points, but actually, I think he is totally wrong on one -- had he put his money in a 401(k) or IRA etc., back 20 years ago, in the 1980s, even with today's recent declines, he'd still be far, far ahead of had he just put it in a bank savings account or stuffed under the mattress.

Had a person put money away back in the Depression or the 1940s, he'd be wealthy today. Historically, for all its peaks and valleys, the stock market has always rebounded and grown in a predictable fashion. Time is the balm that will heal this current mess. Time and patience and calm.

The market has not grown in a predictable fashion. Warren Buffet says so. Here's a quote from 1999:

The last time I tackled this subject, in 1999, I broke down the previous 34 years into two 17-year periods, which in the sense of lean years and fat were astonishingly symmetrical. Here's the first period. As you can see, over 17 years the Dow gained exactly one-tenth of one percent.

* Dow Jones Industrial Average*
Dec. 31, 1964: *874.12*
Dec. 31, 1981: *875.00

I think this article originally appeared in Forbes or Fortune, but I'll throw you a link to make you do some work to verify that I'm right. (Some link has Chinese in it can't be correct to those who don't know their history, can it?) Not only that, Warren Buffet says the years that were most productive in terms of GDP growth, the earlier period and not the Reagan on period, had the least market gains. I think it might have something to do with requiring corporate investment in infrastructure through taxation, which reduces profits but benefits the country.

http://chinese-school.netfirms.com/Warren-Buffett-interview.html

Well, hard as we have tried to live within our means, 2 kids and 3 life-threatening medical emergencies have helped to ensure that my wife and I have not been able to put much money aside for retirement or anything else. Our small mutual funds have recently plunged, although hopefully we'll make some of it back before we retire. It's easy to pin blame, and certainly some of it can be placed on small-time greed, but it's hard to see how the bursting of the housing bubble would have led to this global crisis without the enthusiastically crooked actions of the Mammon-worshippers on Wall Street. It's only been 70 years, for goodness' sake - how can the lessons of the last global crash been so thoroughly forgotten?

These OKIEs are right, much as I hate to admit it. I'm one of those who ran up too much debt, and I'm still paying for it at 60. At least I stopped living on credit almost 7 years ago. It can bury you. Peter Shiff pretty much says it all.

Americans, this one included, need to start paying as they go, and FORGET the credit. I think small businesses should still be able to get credit, because they employ people. Other than them, we should just let the credit markets dry up!

In the long run, we will all be much better off. Just look at all the old frogs from OK - they're OK!

Not everyone who is buried in credit is there because they have spent the last several years buying plasma televisions and new cars. The Republican administration has, over the past 8 years, created a wider gap between the wealthy and the middle class -- making owning a home, having health insurance, saving for retirement, or sending children to college next to impossible without the use of credit. The rich of this country have gotten VERY rich, and the American worker has lost the ability to have economic security. Second mortgages have been taken out and credit has been used to pay for necessities such as medical care as much as it has been used to pay for plasma televisions. I'm sick of hearing how the excess of the American lifestyle has caused this mess. Sure, some people have lived beyond their means (I can think of a few CEO's with golden parachutes, for instance). But most Americans have just been trying to get by in a climate in which it has gotten much harder to afford a moderate, middle-class lifestyle.

"Why would anyone trust the democrats? They and their corrupt buddies got..."

Posted by: LarryG62 | October 13, 2008 12:42 PM

Please get it right. It's the corrupt Democrats AND Rupublicans!

European Crisis Deepens; Officials Vow to Save Banks

The credit crunch deepened in Europe as government leaders pledged to bail out troubled banks and protect depositors. Leaders of Europe's four biggest economies stopped short of a plan mirroring the $700 billion rescue in the U.S. and instead agreed to work together to limit the economic fallout, ease accounting rules, and seek tougher financial regulations. French President Nicolas Sarkozy called for a global summit to implement complete reform of the international financial system. We want a new world to come out of this,'' Sarkozy said.

----------

If you had any doubt, the purpose of this financial meltdown has been stated above, "We want a new world to come out of this".

I wish saving for the future were still so simple as putting it away. I've resigned myself to the idea of working til I die -- I certainly have no faith that my 401(k) or any sort of Social Security I might get will in any way support me in old age. With prices as high as they are, and the economy this bad, I am still dipping into my personal savings each month to make ends meet, and I have a good job. I worry about those of us who are living on a single income. How will we support our families in these days, let alone save for our futures? How will I pay for my son's college? We don't have many more corners we can cut; I pay our rent and utilities, groceries, Internet, and a loan every month. We buy second hand clothes and furnishings. We walk or take the subway. I don't have cable tv, car payments, or a cell phone bill. How is everyone else making ends meet??
-Solomother

"There are many things that many of us can do to live more simply and frugally. It's going to be harder for the young ones. They're young and they want things. Houses, clothing, cars, stuff. I think it wouldn't hurt them though to learn the lessons in how to take care of themselves better. We who are older need to start talking to them and helping them to learn how to get by with less."

Posted by: crisroll | October 13, 2008 11:38 AM

Yeah, the young and their simple-minded greed for things like housing, clothing, transportation and food.

I forgot that the "older" generation lived like hobos, hopping trains from town to town, completing odd jobs for table scraps and wearing loin cloths while living in tents.

What a wonderful legacy to pass on. Please, what additional wisdom can you bestow upon the young?

volley2.ind 11: ?>*:\ ...//2008:10:13:15:56:75*W
#33 of 33: William Hale (hinging0) Mon 13 Oct 2008 (02:12 PM)

volley2.ind 11: ?>*:\ ...//2008:10:13:15:56:75*W
#32 of 32: William Hale (hinging0) Mon 13 Oct 2008 (02:07 PM)

"Turn around has begun" until who can prove national treasuries are
bankrupt and creating wealth without harvesting (taxing) to replenish bath tub
of treasuries.

Alternate theory: treasury is a tree of authority that grows
independent of needing any water other than ground water.

Therefore water table rising by creating transferable receipts of
authority and
sending them out so that economic activity 'soaks' the ground causes
the treasury authority tree to grow on sunlight, soil, and ground water
alone!!!

No taxes needed!?! [^]

What about Article I? Article II sends Article I a Constitutionally
Capped 'allowance' to pay for budget. Controlled spiral inflation of
wages leading prices harvests value from all dollar denominated assets
world wide, including counterfeit money! Plus your address book remains
private. Unless you want money from Uncle Sam.

volley2.ind 11: ?>*:\ ...//2008:10:13:15:56:75*W
#37 of 37: William Hale (hinging0) Mon 13 Oct 2008 (02:21 PM)

volley2.ind 11: ?>*:\ ...//2008:10:13:15:56:75*W
#35 of 35: William Hale (hinging0) Mon 13 Oct 2008 (02:17 PM)

IRS becomes audit arm of OMB. Tax Industry accountants and Attorneys
become paid consultants for CBO or OMB - your choice; xref: $2.5M paid
by Henry to consultants
TODAY.

Entire budget is on [^] line each item like a separate E-bay item:
searchable by dollar sign alone and/or boolean operators to bracket
dollar amounts and/or key words you're interested in

xref: Will [^] LULU.com, TheLongestPeaceMarch.com, and what else?
"Come with me, bring yesterday behind, and take a giant step outside
your mind," (King, Carole; xref: Taj Mahal)

Hi Travis, I hope you'll be stopping in Detroit on your trip -- lots to see/shoot here. Best, Craig Porter, DOP&V, Detroit Free Press

volley2.ind 11: ?>*:\ ...//2008:10:13:15:56:75*W
#62 of 62: William Hale (hinging0) Mon 13 Oct 2008 (03:19 PM)

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-comments.cgi

Hard Times
Thank you for commenting.

Your comment has been received and held for approval by the blog
owner.

Return to the original entry.

===========NH:
vs. Your comment has been sent to the 'over flow' posting area until
it can be reviewed for approval by the blog owner and transfered to the
main blog. Note anyone can visit the 'over flow' posting area by
clicking on the 'overflow' link at the main blog.

Thank you. May the most perfect union accept our efforts.
=============Null Hypothesis [[^]]//

To the merry go round you were too big to get on, Joe:

volley2.ind 11: ?>*:\ ...//2008:10:13:15:56:75*W
#75 of 75: William Hale (hinging0) Mon 13 Oct 2008 (03:53 PM)

Detroit Free Press does look beyond the water dripping from the lips
of those who control the printing presses contiguous to which was
placed the holocaust museum of those who are such experts in
manipulating [sound] "transferable receipts of authority";

xref: "You pay to avoid taking a risk, you get paid to take a risk,"

xref: Interest earners get less of a return than equity holders, and
in times gone by commercial interest earners were separated by LAW from
being equity holders, precisely because of the risk priveleges of
having a national charter to earn certain interest on loans backed by
the authority of federal pay guns to arrive if necessary to collect.

So is the US Holocaust Museum next door to the US Mint a heart
felt memorial, or a clever threat against those so expert at
manipulating transferable receipts of authority - that if who screws
up, who might again become the target of whose wrath?

Instead we say, The Guentburg Bible Printing Press, or an exact
replica thereof, should be donated [sound]...

...by Germany to the Holocaust Museum in Jeruslame, and the US.

Instead, we say, Water Cycle: Financial Cycle: Balance Sheets, and
statements of changes in financial position, as well as Income
Statements from all governments.

Taxes may not be necessary, but full circle logic accountability IS.
Please search for "dollar denominated assets" above, or
"Constitutionally Capped" above.

See Lulu.com William Hale

volley2.ind 11: ?>*:\ ...//2008:10:13:15:56:75*W
#74 of 74: William Hale (hinging0) Mon 13 Oct 2008 (03:42 PM)

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

volley2.ind 11: ?>*:\ …//2008:10:13:15:56:75*W
#71 of 71: William Hale (hinging0) Mon 13 Oct 2008 (03:33 PM)

LIFO / FIFO display choice?
Statistical tools for readers to better read the comments?
The ability to search all comments by key word?
Public comment areas
vs.
Semi-private comment areas where only EDITORS can search the entire
data base of comments?

Robotic tools to open, copy, paste, all pages of ANY comment area and
use your OWN tools to statistically analyze them [dopper shift]

xref> means of production in the hands of the rich and intelligent
while the poor are locked out by whom?

[[RhhRhnn]]

I too have lived within my means all my life. Now a senior, I don't have much but I live frugally, have no debt and pay off my credit card every month. Meanwhile, no matter what I've counselled, I've watched my adult children go deeper in debt for "stuff," not willing to give up anything for instant gratification.

So how do I respond now when they tell me they are losing their homes and asking me for help? If I do I compromise my own security; if I don't I watch them lose everything. Has been a very painful decision for me but I have chosen to let their cards fall where they may. They have time to recover and may learn by the experience.

I, too, have been taught to live within my means, and still do (however, making my husband live within in them was a battle I've finally won only recently). And I'm in my 30's.

And it's nice that you had the option to refuse a 401(k) - most people my age do not have that luxury. Indeed, at one company I had been working at for several years in my 20's, they converted our pensions to 401(k)'s. Except the money that had been in my pension? That went away, too, and no one could tell me where it went.

I agree that Main Street has had its share of greed as well. But you are lucky that you worked during a time when pensions were the norm.

Not every "young'un" is greedy and spendthrift. Some of us came from families like yours, where lessons of the Great Depression were handed down. But that sense of saving and thrift, however, doesn't mean that we were lucky enough to live and work in a time when loyalty to your workplace was rewarded - both with being able to stay in the same workplace for decades, or that you could expect a fixed-rate retirement benefit.

I think one of the big problems for people today who fall on hard times is that many of the survival skills that people had in the 30s are forgotten. People don't know how to garden, sew, or even cook. I think parents who do know these skills should teach their children, as well as the importance of thinking long term and living within their means.

I am so sick and tired of the media and the politicians and the wealthy "economists" blaming people for "living beyond their means." Now, the media trots out people who were either too young or already too poor to fully understand what caused the last great depression to scold us for being naughty! People today have been trying to live The American Dream as defined by our predecessors (doing better than Mom and Dad did), our politicians (Bush told America to keep on flying and keep on shopping and not let the terrorists destroy our "way of life" after 9/11), and our media with its shameless and shameful exploitation of sex, technology, and human nature. "Balanced reporting" notwithstanding, how dare any news source publish this kind of negative criticism when the irresponsible "Main Street" elected and looked to those with more -- more education, more money, more experience -- to be competent and to do right by the nation! We expect rich people to make money, but we expect them to recognize and to respect and to protect the rest of us as THE fundamental cash pool. We elected politicians to actually advocate for our financial as well as our moral issues and far too many politicians are in bed servicing those interests whose avarice was and still is treasonous. We depend upon the media to do more than entertain, titillate, and "spin" us with an addictively intoxicating brew of truth, fiction, and propaganda: The press has a Constitutional expectation (it is granted special protection in the First Amendment) to be a force of truth, honesty, and protection for the electorate which depends so heavily upon the privileged, ownership class, not the people and interests who possess so much wealth and power that without some external restraint, they could easily usurp the Constitution itself! Stop trying to blame hardworking, proud Americans for this monumental mess. If the politicians, the media, and the super-wealthy had done what was needed and expected, Americans would have jobs with living wages, restrictions on financial exploitation, and a reliable way to be informed so we can make life-affecting decisions based on our own best interests and not those who would rape and pillage the nation and then blame the nation for being too loose!

We have been FORCED to sacrifice for the GOOD OF THE GREATER...now, it's time we CHOOSE to sacrifice for the GREATER GOOD.

At this point we can't afford to let FEAR stop us from rebuilding this country in ALL ASPECTS. Our credibility is ruined and the consensus around the globe is; if the US "stays the course" we'll be moving backward. Look ahead to a better day FOR ALL not just a few and not based on foolish beliefs (the lady who says "I'm afraid the blacks will take over"- WTF?!?!)- THAT HAS TO GO! Drop the pretense, false beliefs and turn the cards "face down"! Stop with the parties, racial foolishness and "alleged" affiliations and look at the FACTS. Sorry, but my attentions are focused on AMERICA and the America I LIVE IN IS NOT looking for 10 more years of war- if we put McCain/Palin in office that's what we'll get. VOTE FOR AMERICA!

@iphoenix- I totally AGREE!
@claritygraph- So true- I feel the pinch but I HAVE those survival skills and always try to pass that knowledge on to the younger generations, like Chasmosaur1 says, a lot of us were brought up to "live within"- yet we are constantly encouraged to "live beyond" by the tune of credit card companies and credit lenders' coos and dangling carrots.