Long night at work. Not much happened, so it was just boring and cold. I tried to watch the replay at 1 AM of the USC/Notre Dame game, but I knew the outcome so it wasn't very exciting. I read the blogs till my eyes blurred, so it was Spider solitaire and KROQ to stay awake.
When I hooked into the radio station it was playing some sort of techno/rock/rave stuff that I almost turned off, but I kept listening and kind of enjoyed it. Thought I'd give it a listen next week and see if I still could take it. Turns out it was the guys last show and he thanked all his listeners and signed off before I got any of the artists names.
The next DJ payed some good stuff. Here's a couple that I like.
Foo Fighters - Everlong (live on Letterman)
I listen to "Talk Radio" during the week, so music is only a weekend thing. This one I've heard a few times and I just like it.
Shiny Toy Guns 'GHOST TOWN'
P.S. You guys that post music videos on your blog...give a title or group. If I like it, I hate having to search for it.
I;ve lost track, depression is a bad thing. After the elections I just went into a funk that I couldn't throw. Then I found this website that I thought was saving me, it made me feel better for a while, but I stopped keeping track of the minutes adding up while I was there. Now I'm still depressed and my credit cards are maxed. These people will say anything to keep you online.
I bought my house 23 years ago. We tried Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but we didn't qualify, so we went with an adjustable. The interest was around 7.25%, but the payments were very affordable.
A little over a year later, the interest rates took a small jump (with economic indications of more increases to come), so we refinanced with a fixed rate. Got a decent deal and knew what our payments would be and could plan.
A few years later, the tax rules were changed so that interest on auto loans and a bunch of other things you do in everyday life couldn't be written off. We needed new cars, we had a ton of equity in the house, interest rates had dropped, so over the next few years, we pulled some of the equity out got decent vehicles, added a little to the home loan (tax deductible)and moved on with life.
I'm now separated from my now minimally waged wife (income cut in half), with all the same responsibilities, plus some debts that were a...surprise. When I signed those contracts, I didn't know that these things were going to happen! It isn't fair.
I've muddled through, so far. I'm paying off what I can when I can. I just deal with it one thing at a time. Once something is gone, I move to the next. Constant stress, but I keep hoping that there are no new things popping up. It's got to stop somewhere.
I had the privilege of listening to Maxine Waters today telling me that people who signed contracts saying they didn't understand them, or what could happen if interest rates go up. She informed me that due to lack of regulation, it wasn't their fault.
Let's go see what was said: (Maxine starts at 2:00 and runs thu 3:18, but you really should watch the whole thing)
I was yelling at the TV so loud that I scared my dog.
I then got to hear a Republican(?) Rep from Michigan try to tell me that giving money to the auto companies is in my best interest.
(paraphrased)
Cavuto: Why should the taxpayer give their money to a failing company to continue?
Representative: It's not their money.
Say What?
From what I've read, about $3,000 of that 1 trillion is mine. $6,000 with my (still) wife. Either I pay it all now, or they just print more dollars that are worth 5% less...which will work out great for me trying to get out of my personal debt...what's another 5% added on?
I'm seriously considering not paying my mortgage for three months so that I can get the gov't to reduce my payments. Damn stupid of me to play by the rules of personal responsibility and to pay off any debt I incurred. I didn't understand everything in the multitude of pages I signed or initialed during refinancing...but I'm just a dumb oilfield worker, not a lawyer, so how can they hold me to it. The three biggest corporations in the world, with all their lawyers couldn't foresee signing contracts with the UAW would bankrupt them? Why do they get gov't money to correct their mistake, but not me?
I've lost faith in my country's ability to face up to missteps. When the market doesn't go they way they want, it's the fault of somebody else. Nobody told them that the economy cycles? After way too many years of an up market, nobody expected a down correction?
I bought my house at around 100K (I felt it was overpriced, but I loved and wanted to live in my home turf), and last year was it would list at around 550K...pretty good return. I didn't foresee this either. If I don't weather my current storm and have to sell my house, I'll still come out OK. I bought at a good time and survived long enough. Luck!
My Uncle gave me some of the best advice when I was around 16 and becoming aware of the stock market. He said "Never invest money that you can't afford to lose."
UPDATE:
I couldn't find the video of that asshole cogresscritter telling us "It isn't our money" at first, but ran across it at Hot Air this morning. This guy lost his reelection bid, but I bet the guy replacing him has big plans for HIS money also.
Am I surprised? Not at all. That it started so quickly did.
As I've been cruising around the web the last couple of days I've noticed a consistant theme t coming out of the Obambi camp and the Dhimmi Congresscritters..."We may not be able to deliver what we promised."
Let's start with the President-elect.
Back in June 2007:
“While we’re at it,” he said, “we’re going to close Guantanamo. And we’re going to restore habeas corpus. … We’re going to lead by example _ by not just word but by deed. That’s our vision for the future.
Now that he would be the one responsible for jihadi's running around the country the message from his team:
“You can’t be a purist and say there’s never any circumstance in which a democratic society can preventively detain someone,” said one civil liberties lawyer, David D. Cole, a Georgetown law professor who has been a critic of the Bush administration.
How about those changes in the tax codes to redistribute money to those less fortunate lazier? Our old friend Charlie Rangel, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, which oversees tax policy has a little epiphany:
New York Representative Charles Rangel said he’s revising his tax overhaul proposal to reduce U.S. corporate tax rates to 28 percent, down from the current rate of 35 percent.
Although like most of what comes out of Rangel's mouth he leaves out the details that contradict what he just said:
In July 2007, the Treasury Department said the U.S. could reduce the corporate tax rate to 25 percent by eliminating popular benefits such as a research credit and a deduction for making products domestically.
Rangel two months later also recommended repealing the deduction for domestic production, other incentives that primarily benefit multinational corporations, as well as tax benefits associated with a popular accounting method known as last-in, first-out.
So, they lower the taxes, but remove deductions for the things they want accomplished.
No deduction for research? How do they plan on getting companies to invest in developing all those new green energy systems?
No deduction for domestic production? Bye-bye domestic jobs.
And just for grins and giggles, let's not forget out esteemed Goddard Institute for Space Studies announcement that last month was the warmest October on record.
Really? Turns out they don't have, nor can they guarantee that they can get accurate figures to punch into their computers to predict the weather. What do they do, they reuse old data or just make up what they beleive it should be. Even in the face of facts that counter what they "feel".
The error was so glaring that when it was reported on the two blogs - run by the US meteorologist Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre, the Canadian computer analyst who won fame for his expert debunking of the notorious “hockey stick” graph - GISS began hastily revising its figures. This only made the confusion worse because, to compensate for the lowered temperatures in Russia, GISS claimed to have discovered a new “hotspot” in the Arctic - in a month when satellite images were showing Arctic sea-ice recovering so fast from its summer melt that three weeks ago it was 30 per cent more extensive than at the same time last year.
They lie, then when caught, make up a new lie, only to be caught again. Management at GISS needs to go now!
It's been two weeks since the elections and the Dems are feeling the heat from how the world works in reality. I don't think they believed any of the crap they spewed during the last two years, they knew if they could put off the collapse of the mortgage industry and confuse the populous long enough about what caused it, they could win by promising everything to everybody.
This whole thing reminds me of a little ditty from "The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas".
I haven't been on the net at all for the last week. I'm on "vacation", had six days (10 tacking on my long change)to use and running out of year all ready. I can't afford to go anywhere or do much, it it's really just been some time away from work and trying to spend a little time with the boy.
Nailing Chris down is hard. He's trying to see all his friends, and his recruiter is constantly calling about this paperwork or that test. On his aptitude(?)test he got a 94 out of 99. Last night they hauled him off to Ft. Irwin overnight for his physical. If he passes this, I guess it's just wait until he has to report in January.
He's got his specialty reserved and will be doing Basic at Ft. Benning then on to Ft. Rucker for his training. We have close family friends in Birmingham and New Orleans, which is a good thing.
Myself, I just haven't been in the mood for anything political. Little news and less internet. From now until the inauguration I don't see anything really big happening. The Dems may try to push through some stuff, but I think the Repubs will fight it off until it can be completely dumped on the Dems.
Last week my "check engine" light came on, then started flashing. It was "just" my spark plug wires, I say "just" because a new set cost $130 + labor. Two days later the damn check engine light came on again, luckily that was just a hose that got knocked loose during the wire change and fell off. No charge for the fix, but the stress of more truck troubles wasn't what I needed.
Note: I started writing this prior to the election. When you get to the line, that is the day after the election.
Today we're voting for a new President.
There are so many things I could say to try to sway you to my side of the argument that would just be political. I now have something that is much more important to me.
My son, Chris, enlisted in the Army yesterday.
He just turned 20, he's an adult, and he has the right to decide what to do with his life. Since he was 10 he has been interested in the military. I had taken him to Air Shows since he was 2, but from when he was old enough to understand, I never said that that military was the only way to go.
In High School, he went through JROTC, and he (now tells me) planned on going in right after graduation, but he was "in love" with a (smart, good, parent approved) girl, and she didn't want him to go away. So he didn't.
With only a HS education and not knowing what he wanted to do, he got a crap job and as a floor stocker then cashier at a local department store. They managed to always schedule him for 38 1/2 hours a week, so no benefits. They kept dumping more responsibility on him with no compensation until he said enough is enough.
He quit, and while I don't believe in leaving a job without somewhere else to go, I understood. He spent the next 9 months looking for jobs. He basically lived off what he had saved for everything outside of room and board, but the responses he started getting lately was that "No hiring until February and even then, they may lay people off". Just the prospect of a Obambi election was killing expansion.
I now live in a country who's people have decided that they want the gov't to make all those hard decisions for them. The fact that, like all gov't programs, that we will only get .30 return on the dollar (if lucky), well, don't bother them with the details, it'll be "free".
My son is going into the military. I'm am still very proud of his choice, but now I fear for him. Obambi is going to gut the military budget, yet...I'm willing to bet...commit them to "blue helmet" conflicts with no set ROE or real goal. I just wonder, is he going to throw us into the middle of Darfur with the rule of "don't hurt anyone"...or maybe "help out" in the stability of Kenya, by shoring up Obambi's family ties there?
And the left kept telling us that overthrowing a dictator that killed an average of 2,000 people a day, every day for twenty years, wasn't justified. Want to know what real torture is like, go here. (WARNING: GRAPHIC)
