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There is a lot of pointing going on over who is the cause of our economic meltdown. I believe we all share some of the blame. It's clear that the wealthy powerful banks created the largest part of this historical problem that is affecting the world markets.
Credit card companies (banks again) wrote their own laws and created a large part of our problem by providing easy credit to all of us, flooding us with deals weekly in the mail, then jacking up their rates for taking advantage of their offers. In most cases increasing the interest three times higher then the monthly payment. How they expected people to deal with this is beyond my understanding. But this is what greed can do.
The mortgage brokers played a large part by offering loans that they knew people would later not be able to repay once their interest rate went up. But they told their customers to refinance when the rates went up. This of course made some sense when the home values were rising.
And finally we the consumer are partly to blame for allowing ourselves to fall into these traps. If we would of listened to our elders and tried harder to live within our means, many of us would have reacted differently to these marketing themes designed to make powerful more wealthy.
Unfortunately the American public has been trained though various media methods to fall into these traps and the people who present these marketing schemes know it works. You can see this daily on your televisions with "paid advertising" 24 hours a day for example.
We all need to accept some responsibility for the mess were in. Maybe it is time for all of us to accept what our elders tried to teach us. We are in fact the most wasteful nation on earth. The is a direct reflection on our habit of relying on credit. We just buy something and throw away something else.
Years ago people would fix things, today we just buy something new instead. We see people waiting in line overnight to buy a new product. Our elders would think we were nuts and they're right!
Living within your means is not bad, it is the only thing that makes sense. If you don't need something and you don't have the money to buy it, then you shouldn't. In our current economic climate, we need to rethink our buying habits and stop helping the wealthy powerful forces who have put us in this lasting financial mess.
Aloha Mike
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Amen to that! Since we had gotten into the trap and had to bail ourselves out, my motto since then is
"If I don't have the cash to buy it, then I don't need it!"
Credit card companies should be ashamed of themselves for raising peoples interest rates due to the amount of credit they have, raising it if they took a cash advance, and the price of late pay fees are astronomical. While I agree, we take the blame for charging to our hearts content, they should never be allowed to raise the rates and charge the over the limit fees. Greed is a horrible thing. If someone gets into a jam and can't pay on time, what makes these companies think that the fees they impose are going to get paid? They should suspend the credit, work with the customer to get the bill paid and the balance paid, then either cancel the credit totally or then reinstate it. But they allow people to charge over their limits because they know they are going to get the high fees.
When our outside stairs leading to the basement fell apart, it was causing flooding into our basement because the drain that was at the bottom of those stairs and it cracked also. So we had companies come out and give estimates. We were short a tad in the price of the company we chose to go with. So we did a cash advance from an "emergency" credit card we kept. The company we chose did not accept credit cards. So since we did a cash advance, they raised our rate from 4.99 to 18.99! Our payment was more then tripled! We have ripped up that emergency credit card and are almost paid off. NEVER again will I use a credit card.
As far as mortgage companies went, yes they practiced bad policies. They did rip off the American people. And yes we the people were crazy to fall beyond our means. I warned our sister Cindy to change her mortgage shortly before the bottom fell out and thankfully she listened. There was a good side to working at a bank and learning certain things!
As far as the elections go, I am tired of hearing this one did that, the other did this. I want to hear how each candidate plans to run our country, what their insights are and how they plan to make American the country our forefathers originally planned it to be.
I feel that I shouldn't have to press one for English. I shouldn't get mail that is in both English and Spanish.
I feel that Abortion should be a choice. While I don't believe it should be used over and over again as a form of birth control and believe me, I know of people who have used it as such, it should be an option. Everyone has their views on it and I don't want to debate it.
I believe in giving a helping hand to someone who is in desperate need due to real reasons. But public aid should have limits and time frames. To many people sit on their asses and collect public aid because they are too lazy to work and popping out kids.
I feel we should start making things and buying things made in the USA. Companies should not be allowed to move our jobs overseas. These companies have sold out the American people for the love of money.
They took our jobs away and gave them to foreign people because they can pay less and make more money to stuff in their pockets. It proves they don't give a damn about the American people. So we import products from other countries for the American people to buy and then we find out there is lead in things that is harmful to our children (Dora dolls to name one) and certain toothpastes made people sick to name only a couple. Yeah that helped didn't it? Get the factories back to the United States. Put the American people back to work. Give them their pride back. We can and have in the past make things of much better quality. Stop over padding your pockets and split that gain with your employees and watch and see how our economy rises to be the great Nation once again. Because let's be honest people, we aren't doing so good right now and it scares me.
I keep remembering Osama Bin Laden's word after 9-11. He didn't necessarily want to hurt the United States due to such magnitude. He wants to make us the poorest country in the world. Is he succeeding??? More people losing jobs, the stock market going down and down, people losing their retirement money. This is really scary and it is really crappy. Thank you George Bush.
I believe there should be a way to make health insurance better. With my husband's job, we have the two choices. One to go to their clinic and their doctors and we pay nothing as long as we go to their clinic.
The other choice is we can choose where we want to go to and who to use but we would pay way too much money. So of course you choose option one but it is a joke. You wait for hours for your appointment, some of the doctors should have retired already and shouldn't be allowed to treat anyone. I could tell you nightmare stories of what we went through with these doctors. But we can't afford to switch so we are stuck. We can't find different jobs so we are stuck. Thankfully right now we have a good doctor after going through few to find the good one. But the appointments are months out.
The pharmaceutical companies should be ashamed of themselves. Medications are so over priced it is sickening. Before we had mail order option, my medications were over $150.00 a month. But it amazes me that I can now get a three month supply of the three medications I take for $50.00..
So I am saving $400.00. What is wrong with this picture? Imagine what our senior citizens are paying.
My neighbor has to pay over $300.00 a month just for her medications.
I feel we should not stop saying the Pledge of Allegiance in schools. I believe we should be allowed to pray when and where we want too. We don't go into other countries and tell them what to do so why in the hell should we change our policies, our practices, our beliefs? NO WE SHOULD NOT HAVE TOO! And we are stupid if we do. If you don't like it, don't come here! PLAIN AND SIMPLE. One day Tom and I were driving Angelena to gymnastics and she was in the back seat and all of sudden she started reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. I was so proud to hear her say that! She also surprised us and said grace before dinner. Way to go ABC Daycare and Learning Center. I have to ask her if she does the Pledge of Allegiance now that she is in Kindergarten at a real school. And if you are atheist, then don't attend functions that do pray or pledge. Our nation is founded as such. "ONE NATION UNDER GOD"
I feel if a person from another country comes here to live and earn our money, they should pay taxes and live like we do. In other words they should follow our rules and regulations and laws. No one should get freebies because they come from another country. I am sure other countries don't give us hand outs if we moved there. Our ancestors came here became citizens and follow the laws of the land and so should anyone who comes here. We don't owe anyone anything.
From working in restaurants for over 30 years, I can tell you that there is tons of foreigners working and getting paid cash. Shame on the American business owners for selling out their own people for the love of money. They seem to get away with it. And since I need a job I see no evil. While most of the people are hard workers and work for lessor pay then American's would put up with, it's not right.
I had someone once tell me that they had American cooks. They did not work as hard or as much, demanded more pay constantly. called off work many times. So they switched to foreigners because they worked harder, rarely took off work, and accepted whatever pay the job offered.
I feel that sex shouldn't have to sell products. We shouldn't have such violence on television and I still can't figure out why we have to use bad language on television shows. Using profanity shouldn't help make or break a show. I have seen it changing over and over and more and more profanity is used and not bleeped out. I find it a shame that our children have to listen to it. I know many people use it at home so what's the difference. But it's how I feel. I am entitled to how I feel.
I am American first of Italian and Polish descent. Obama is American. His father was born in Kenya. Kenya is a country in East Africa. So I am taking it that he is American of African descent. His mother was born in Kansas. I am not sure of what her nationality is.
He will not be the first black president. He is AMERICAN. As American as you and I. As American as John McCain. I wish people would stop referring him as the first black presidential candidate. He is not 100% black. While it doesn't matter to me his nationality, it is his policies as president that concern me. And so far I am liking his ideas.
I am sorry, I didn't mean to go off on a tangent. There is so much more that I could say but that again is just how I feel. Some may agree and some may disagree. I am not doing this to do into a debate. It is just how I personally feel.
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