Apres 'W' Le Deluge!

how the middle class STILLS sees everything as rock-solid.

Yep, so long as they're paying the minimum on their $10K credit card payments, and they still have their cell phones and Coach bags.


Whole thing makes me reconsider whether I'm going to shuttle all my extra $$ into paying off my mortgage early.

Paying down debt is always a good idea. I dont know what I would invest in in this climate. I would at least wait and see what the Democrats do next year before I made any moves.

I can find no fault in your reasoning. Does that mean we're both crazy?

BTW, I have to do a little retirement planning; what's the ETA on that meteor?

Another provocative essay! Excellent! Byron couldn`t have said it better .... The MSM`s idiot son! Our culture and economic security are circling the drain and about to go down the tubes. The Dems are in charge and everyone has his hand out to get his $200 when he passes Go! Isn`t it more than $5 trillion now? Wake me up when it`s over!

we see the market lose 3% more, in a steady drain of a generation of retirement accounts, people are waking up and eyes getting wider. What it'll take to get them off the couch is another thing. Good piece Skep. New one at my place....

What will wake them up is the proposal, seriously advanced in this session of Congress, that all private and public pensions be rolled into one giant fund...including 401k and IRA accounts. Whether the Dems are sneaky enough to pull it off is another thing. A 60-seat Dem majority in the Senate will put ideas like that on the table.

The people around me are so convinced that great things are coming. Maybe I'm too pessimistic. I've been smiling lately. This has made regular people really happy. The black people that I work with have been in a pretty good mood for the last week and that makes me feel good. This is going to be an amazing inauguration. Time to just sit back and groove along with it.

I dont know what the ETA is but without people being able to refi their maxed-out credit card debt companies like AMEX are starting to teeter. I read on someone's blog that Feb or March will be the critical months for the credit card companies. California and all the other Blue States are near bankruptcy. And look at the geniuses that are going to be in charge. The meteor hits the day the new session of congress convenes and 'gets to work'.

for you to photoshop.

GOP Underground needs an image.
This is funny stuff, if you haven't read any of it.

http://www.imao.us/index.php/2008/11/the-new-symbol-of-the- gop/

The only problem I have with that is that i dont believe that the Republican Party will survive this crackup in its present form. it doesn't deserve rocket launchers if it lets a human cockroach like Al Franken steal the election in Minn.

Fresh Blog Available!

I wonder how much warning we'll get to cash them in? I'm not letting them have my money!

The credit cards should be ready to blow after the first of the year. AMEX is asking for $3.5 billion in a handout, I mean bailout, whatever, just write the check.

Business Week has Citigroup really starting to hang. They are laying off 10,000 people.BofA hid their sub-prime by sucking up Country Wide, but they may get dinged with credit cards. JP Morgan Chase may see a down slide with credit cards.
Wells Fargo is holding strong. This all of course told to me by the experts.

The ole' plastic is definitely the next domino to fall. There's another 800 billion to add to the total.

I've been trying to figure out how the 401k/IRA seizure could possibly work. Do they cash it out? Maintain it intact? Try and consolidate millions of these funds and plans? Who owns the stock?

Try to imagine what it would be like if in a single day everyone cashed out their 401k/IRA and filed for bankruptcy and voluntary foreclosure.

These people are not playing with a full deck.

You see, if you control your money there's RISK, so the government 'rolls it over' into a giant government fund that pays you 3% adjusted for inflation...guaranteed! No risk,no stress, no market research; everybody wins! Why invest in some business when you can invest in the state and have your returns indexed for inflation? The government always pays off. Its always better when people with degrees from Ivy league Universities make the decisions; you peasants are too greedy and individualistic to be trusted to make economic choices.

http://www.latimes.com/business/
la-fi-retire16-2008nov16,0,2937536.story

That shows you how many people were living large on the phony 'equity' they thought they had on their houses. Just re-fi the credit card debt into the principal every two or three years with a low-rate ARM that starts off with super-low payments and you can live like a king. Until your house is worth less than your mortgage and you cant re-fi. Obviously this group of victims needs a government bailout because in The New Age Of Change deserving homeowners will be protected against their own stupidity...

Notice how these plans skillfully avoid any suggestion that the government reduce their spending and taxation to pay for these contributions.

I particularly like the "out of box" wenches idea. If I understand her correctly it would be like the movie industry, suffering losses due to high ticket prices, doubling the price to to allow them to sell the tickets at half price.

Many academics confuse "out of the box" with "out of your mind"!

Its almost exciting! I cant wait for January. With Gov Granholm on the economic team and Hillary riding herd at State...well, the mind boggles. I'm going down to the survival store and invest in a year's worth of nutrition bars. If I dig my bomb/riot shelter into the hillside how do I reinforce the sides and keep out moisture?

Using the phrase 'Out of the box' is like that Santayana quote about those who forget history...it instantly brands you as someone who is so deeply stuck in the bottom of the box having hallucinations just as the people who quote Santayana are always historical illiterates.

So true. I would like my bailout please due to my stupidity.

I worked in the real estate industry and I am sorry to say but today the houses are probably worth what they really are. In CA some of these appraisals were off the charts and again, they contributed hugely to the problems.

Living within your means, they should make that into a reality show. Show people how to live within your means and each week if you overspend you get kicked off.

They will have to take over all private 401Ks just to get out of debt.

This will be interesting.