Bad Week for Money

Yesterday the Dow dropped over seven hundred points costing stock holders 1.1 TRILLION ($1,100,000,000,000) in losses.  That made now the only time in my life that I’m glad I don’t have stocks or a 401k.  The drop affected global stocks too with London and Paris reporting loses in the aftermath as the global econemy gets pulled into the toilet with America.  The drop was triggered by the announcement that congress (specifically the house of representatives i believe) shot down a bill that would spend 700 billion dollars ($700,000,000,000) to give to companies that gave over priced loans to underpaid people that would never be able to afford their 250 thousand dollar ($250,000) homes on a 50 thousand dollar (50,000) annual income before taxes (average going tax rate at the moment I believe is around twenty percent [20%]) which would be about 10 thousand dollars ($,000) leaving only fourty thousand dollars ($40,000) which then has to be divied up on house payment to add six percent (6%) interest rate tallying up 150 thousand dollars ($150,000) in interest there for making the house payment 400 thousand dollars ($400,000) divided by thirty years and then twelve months to make a monthly payment of $1111.11 dollars per month leaving only $2222.22 dollars to spend on gas ($4.09/gallon) with average MPG being 20 miles per gallon or 5 gallons per hundred miles and over two hundred miles per week to work equals 10 gallons per week or ($40.99/week or approx $175.67 per 30 day month) and then groceries of atleast 100 dollars a week or $428.57/day it all and then car insurance and health insurance if you have it and that all adds up to cutting it very close.  Given that most people still splurge and eat out a bunch of about 100 dollars per week then you come up with too little money when you take everything into account including electricity, gas and water and sewage bills.

All that in mind the banks ran out of money.  When it was discovered that the banks were running out of money people made panic withdrawals and created runs on the banks.  Now the washington bill was to buy all the overdue loans from the banks so they could keep that from happening and then sell the loans to other banks for a nominal profit.  Therefore using tax payer dollars to change mortgage companies and keep the people in the financial situation above in their nice big comfy over priced homes which they can’t afford so they can keep the vicious cycle going for another year and have to bail the banks out again.  It’s a good thing the bail-out bill as it’s now called was shot down.  It would just allow a vicious cycle to continue and prolong the problem for just a little while longer while spending the tax payer money and generating more debt.  Oh well.  Atleast we weren’t affected by it.

*UPDATE*

As most of you surely know the bail out bill was indeed passed on the second try.  As of this point in time nothing has changed.  Foreclosures have climbed even higher since it was passed and credit companies are charging higher rates to try and recover the money causing people to have to choose between their bills or food and utilities forcing them to let their bills run higher with interest that they won’t be able to pay because so many companies have cut back on hours so people aren’t making as much money but are forced to spend a lot more.

Food for thought

I just had a thought.  I wonder if we had one person in control of the government (as in a dictatorship) if the country would be better off.  If you picked just an average person who has to work for a living and got them to run things could they do a better job then the presidency and congress?  They would unconditionally be able to cap fuel prices and force oil production and if companies refuse they could seize them and force the prices to be reduced.  I wonder if we had socialized oil if things would be better too.  May not be a bad idea.  Everybody knows that OPEC is doing a wonderful job of raping the country so maybe if you had someone to force the companies to merge into one monolith and do away with the corrupted OPEC comission and set a team of disinterested parties to regulate and monitor fuel in a non-profit organization would they be able to do a better job then the hight profit OPEC.  If you start with fuel you also have to ask questions of more mundane everyday commodities and lifestyles such as medicine and law enforcement.  If all the drug companies were forced to cap their wares and the country was designed to obey only one set of laws would it not only help to cap inflation but also help to simplify daily lives?  Just some food for thought.  Contray to the conspiracy theories you hear in school about socialism maybe it’s not such a bad idea if it’s truly used for the greater good by the greater good.

More Stress

Let’s see mother’s day has come and gone with a high amount of stress and tension, yesterday there was an elevated level of stress with us worrying about Rui’s family with the earthquake, today we ran out of money and tomorrow we’ll have to wait and see what happens.  I guess it could always get worse but does it ever get better?  The good news is that with rising gas prices over the summer Kat will be able to drive into work and hopefully convince her bosses to give her a gas allowance so we can atleast afford some of it without having to rely on my parent’s fuel card and having them foot the bill.  I’m not the begging type so things are in really bad shape when I ask for help.  Oooh now that I think about it the annual trip to North Carolina is not this weekend but the next and we get to figure out how to pay for it.  Looks like I may have to resort to begging after all.  Wish me luck.

P.S. I put this under the politics category because the rising gas prices are directly corrolated to bad politics. 

Our Tax Dollars at Work

I just heard something very disturbing on the news.  Here we are in a war with Iraq, Afghanistan and on the brink of war with Iran and Korea and the US congress is meeting to discuss steroid abuse in baseball.  Maybe it’s just me but I think there are more important things at hand then whether or not a bunch of rich jocks shoot up.

More Red Tape

It’s not secret that I despise America.  Slowly our civil liberties are being stripped away while the economy slips into decay as the ever consuming rift dividing poverty and wealth threatens to engulf the nation as it slips into a caste system.  To add insult to injury the government abandons those who truly need help.  My daughters will be out of health insurance on December 31 because the government has turned their back.  We officially make too much money to get government assistance of any kind and yet are not able to even put gas in our car or food on our table much less talk about doctors visits.  The worst part of it all is that it is a four dollar difference.  By the government standards we are four dollars above the poverty level so we can afford to eat cake and drink wine.  Quite the contrary.  Tonight for dinner we’re having left over ham that someone donated to us over Christmas.  I don’t know what we’re going to do when it’s finished.  All we have left is a bag of chicken wings so skimpy that it will last just one meal between all of us.  I have no way to feed my family and no one will help.  Looking for a job is out of the question because in order to afford fuel, car insurance, and daycare I’d have to be making atleast $20,000 annually and there are no jobs in Georgia that will pay that much starting.  We will finally be caught up on the mortgage just in time to get another bill from them and start the new year in the same shape in which we left the old; broken and battered and generally worse for wear and looking for help which will never be given.  We have been abandoned by the one entity that is supposed to protect us and nurture us as we grow and thrive while we instead wilt and suffer.  What makes it so horrible is that we’re not the only family with this problem.  You look all over the nation and millions are in the same position we’re in.  My only true wish is that I had the money to leave before it gets worse, but alas what money we do save gets sucked away on fuel expenses so we can get enough money to scrape by.  We’ve already decided that no matter how much money we get back on a tax refund it’s already spent on something to try and make life bearable.  My current thought is to get the roof replaced.  Maybe if roofing tiles are cheap enough I can do it a bit at a time.  But then again that would entail that I actually have the time to do it and the money for the tiles.  I guess I’ll look into it though just in case.  Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to wallow in self pity and will be out for the rest of the day.

I Despise America

I know it sounds contradicting since I am and American but I cannot stand living in the United States. It’s no secret that we need help. We don’t have enough money to make all of our bills and having one extra person in the house really puts a lot more strain on the budget then you’d think. That said we applied for a couple of things the even the richest people in the states can get and those are food stamps and TANF or temporary assistance for needy families which is a monthly cash payment to help cover bills and such as that for families who really need it. As it is we officially make too much money to get eather one of them but I know someone whose household makes over eighty thousand dollars a year and gets food stamps and buys over four hundred dollars in groceries a month and that’s for about three people. Why is it that the government is more then willing to help out the people who don’t need it but gladly abandons those who just need a little bit of temporary help. It’s things such as this that are forcing America into a caste system. It’s a slow change but it has been slipping the entire time I’ve been alive. America is morphing into a travesty of its former glory as it slips into decay. I think it’s a safe assumption that we need a change, however, the only problem with that is that the only ways to truly make a change for the better have been outlawed. If we had one uncorruptable person in absolute control then America may be worth saving, but, as it stands we have over five hundred corrupt and twisted individuals who are only making themselves more comfortable at the expense of the honest hard working citizens who are growing thin and starving so they can live fat and happy.

The American Dream

So when exactly did the American dream go from being about having a good job with good pay and being able to come home to a spouse, kids and a nice warm meal fit for a king but at the cost for a pauper? It seems like these days the American dream has morphed into a menagerie of disappointments and let downs beginning with working over forty hours a week to barely be able to afford gas to get to work to work the over forty hours with a side of reduced retirement prospects and the slow and eventual abolition of social security meaning that when Generation X gets old they’ll turn into Generation Octogenarian-seeks-third-full-time-job-to-pay-gas-to-work-first-two-jobs! Still it is America so I guess that stands for something, I just don’t quite know what yet. As I write this I’m looking for work and trying to figure out where I’m going to get the money to fix one of the four dead cars we have so I can actually get to it and be able to afford for Kat to get to her job during the day. If anyone knows of any needed freelance work (particularly in writing or editing but I’ll do assassinations too if they have good vision and dental coverage) then feel free to drop a line at my email link somewhere on the page. In the mean time remember to work hard, Uncle Sam needs your money to support his habit; after all it’s not easy trying to scam billions of hard working tax payers out of their money.