Financial Rape and Plunder of the World

[flyingcuda]

good afternoon all...i love this place! all is not so good in canada either. i opened up a lingerie-adult-leather store in june..of course right before all this mess. i have 4 kids...22 -12-10-9...the oldest is out raising her own family. we have my in-laws living with us..with poor dad in-law having alzheimers. NOT easy! we are renting a store..paying 1400 a month..my hubby runs a computer repair and sales store in the other half of the store. we figured each side should be able to carry itself and provide sufficient income... ...boy were we wrong. perhaps in good times...yes..we just opened at the wrong time? i can't buy canadian because the cost is too high..why...because the workers feel they deserve 25 dollars an hour to run a high tech piece of equipment that they dont even have to touch unless they get thier own tie stuck in it. but yet we have other people working in more hazardous situations and being paid less. but as was said earlier...we put ourselves in these situations...for the most part...the bigger, newer house, the new car, the best of food and so on. what really bothers me is paying the high rate of insurance...here we have no choice..you drive you pay...all the money that is forked out by us month after month. we have been paying insurance for over 20 years an not a single accident or claim...(knocking real heavy on wood) what a waste of money! money i could be using to pay for stock for my store or field trips that my kids want to go on and so on. i really could go on and on. my husband and i decided to have 4 kids...my husband and i decided to have all 4 kids involved in sports..which is also very expensive my husband and i decided to take care of his parents...we decided to try to run our own business...sometimes good things come out of all these decisions..and sometimes bad....we just have to keep working at it and hoping that it will all be worth it in the end. we get to go to bed with the feeling of doing our best..wether it's working or not..we are doing our best, and not giving into the world that will always be there to knock you down. concentrate harder on the good that the world does have to offer..beautiful waters..incredible trees, aromatic flowers..a smile from a loved one..a nod from a stranger and so on. it also helps knowing that we are not fighting alone..there are others fighting the same or similar battles. take 5 mins out and truely enjoy the smell and the feel of a piece of leather in your hand....sorry..as i said..i could go on and on and apparently i did. look around..there is a lot to smile at.

flyingcuda

Edited February 19, 2009 by flyingcuda

[Go2Tex]

Yeah well..... as bad as things appear from watching cable news, and watching the stock market tank day after day, and watching our culture being torn apart one institution at a time, we're a long way from the End Times. Even at 10% unemployment, that means 90% are still employed. As long as you don't have to tap into your 401K right now, you haven't lost a dime on that. A down market means a buying opportunity. Raise some cash and buy some cheap stock and sit on it, brothers and sisters.

On the other hand..... if you don't have any cash, just lost your job, have no insurance, and live in California, or worse, in Canada..... damn, you're screwed dudes and dudetts. But fear not, ya'll. President Obama, (AKA: The Masiah), feels your pain and he's sending some assistance your way. Yep, got some pork in that spendulous bill to build some bike trails so you can pedal to your new Government job handing out spoons in the soup lines they're gonna have all across the new Socialist States of Amerika. He said so in his latest Fireside Chat, just like his mentor, FDR used to do back in the day.

Ah yes, the good ol' days of the Great Depression..... Arlo Guthrie, ridin' those trains and singin' his songs of the poor working man, starting unions, causing riots. The Big Brother government, handing out everything. Socialism and Communism on the rise. 'Cause, you know...when you got nothin', a little bit of somethin' looks pretty good.

So no, we're not heading for the End Times. We're just heading for full blown, unabashed, open and accepted Socialism. And for those of you who were victims of the American education system, Socialism is just the transition from Capitalism to Communism.....according to Karl Marx.

[Hilly]

Yeah well..... as bad as things appear from watching cable news, and watching the stock market tank day after day, and watching our culture being torn apart one institution at a time, we're a long way from the End Times. Even at 10% unemployment, that means 90% are still employed. As long as you don't have to tap into your 401K right now, you haven't lost a dime on that. A down market means a buying opportunity. Raise some cash and buy some cheap stock and sit on it, brothers and sisters.

On the other hand..... if you don't have any cash, just lost your job, have no insurance, and live in California, or worse, in Canada..... damn, you're screwed dudes and dudetts. But fear not, ya'll. President Obama, (AKA: The Masiah), feels your pain and he's sending some assistance your way. Yep, got some pork in that spendulous bill to build some bike trails so you can pedal to your new Government job handing out spoons in the soup lines they're gonna have all across the new Socialist States of Amerika. He said so in his latest Fireside Chat, just like his mentor, FDR used to do back in the day.

Ah yes, the good ol' days of the Great Depression..... Arlo Guthrie, ridin' those trains and singin' his songs of the poor working man, starting unions, causing riots. The Big Brother government, handing out everything. Socialism and Communism on the rise. 'Cause, you know...when you got nothin', a little bit of somethin' looks pretty good.

So no, we're not heading for the End Times. We're just heading for full blown, unabashed, open and accepted Socialism. And for those of you who were victims of the American education system, Socialism is just the transition from Capitalism to Communism.....according to Karl Marx.

Well said, Comrade, well said!

[esantoro]

Though James Goldsmith made his millions in buying companies and breaking them down in the 70's, in the 90's he seemed to have changed his rhetoric 180 degrees:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdwmI9O4LEA

ed

I think it is very important in times like these, and then keep up the habit in the future, to try to connect all the dots in examining how power works in society. While it does take time, it ends up becoming like a game, like playing cards or tennis or chess or backgammon. Its payoff is sanity in knowing how the tectonic plates of economics, politics, and power are shifting, which allows one to hop to the other foot when needed in the smallest and most mundane of everyday decisions that must be made -- as the personal is political.

Though I am doubtful of the Internet's utility in the long run, there are still windows of opportunity for it to aid in shedding light on the fissures and cracks in the Matrix. All the dirt is right out there in plain sight; it just takes time to research and organize the information, and it is being done.

Grab a big bottle of hard liquor of your choice and connect the dots below. When you're finished, never look back and never watch mainstream news again. Keep track of the names of the folks who really do have their eye on the walnut shell with the pea underneath and always search for their take on the issues:

This ride requires a Double-E ticket and no seat belts will be provided:

-------------------------

The Rabbit Hole: "All hope abandon ye who enter here"

Your main conductor for this ride is the British journalist and agent provocateur Adam Curtis.

1. Click on this You Tube link to Adam Curtis' "The Century of the Self. There are four episodes (The Century of the Self), each about an hour long. Each episode is broken into about six 10-minute files.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Kp24ZeHtv4

2. Then go on to the next film: "The Trap"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIXDMycMYsw...feature=related

This doc is also segmented into four parts, which are segmented into parts themselves.

3. If you can still stand the pain, take in Curtis' "The Mayfair Set"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yWY8IGczQE

If you're still on board, then there is no going back, so you might as well keep it up.

4. "Status Anxiety":

Now drive it all deeper into muscle memory:

5. Any number of Bill Moyers' interviews of the past two years, but this one will do fine: "Are we chumps?" "We might be."

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/02132009/watch.html

6. Thomas Frank:

7. Rick Shenkman:

8. Interview with Adam Curtis:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/20/ad...rtis_interview/

9. For good measure, Dante's "Divine Comedy"

Through me you pass into the city of woe:

Through me you pass into eternal pain:

Through me among the people lost for aye.

Justice the founder of my fabric mov'd:

To rear me was the task of power divine,

Supremest wisdom, and primeval love.

Before me things create were none, save things

Eternal, and eternal I endure.

All hope abandon ye who enter here.

Such characters in colour dim I mark'd

Over a portal's lofty arch inscrib'd:

Whereat I thus: Master, these words import.

---------------------------------------

Now, if you're still conscious but writhing on a bile-puddled floor in pain without the will to go on, you are then in THEEEEEEE perfect place to read Henry Miller's "Tropic of Capricorn." It will lift you up and make you right and put you back together in a way you never thought possible, a Phoenix rising from the ashes.

Someone asked a while back why I've given the name "Maverick" to my bags. I had wanted to reply but was unable to encapsulate the exact reason why -- until now -- and I wanted to make sure that any explanation I gave be perfect.

Well, if you've taken in all these links, including Miller's "Capricorn," and you put together all the disgust, pain, laughter, sadness, despair, joy, hatred, love, lust, and desire that you encounter throughout the journey, shake it and stir, and then start punching your way back to sanity stitch by ing stitch, you have a "Maverick."

[Washroad]

Maybe someone from California can confirm or deny this... I recently heard that CA is in such bad shape that they've issued IOU's to pay some of their bills. Is this true, or is it some type of "The Sky Is Falling!" propaganda?

Not yet.

The legislature is still trying to get a budget passed. They need one more vote (Republican) to pass it. The CA senate is locked in and can't leave. If the budget doesn't pass, then yes, the IOUs will go out and that will start in a couple of days.

If the budget passes and Governor Schwarenegger Shriver signs it, then no IOUs but a major increase in taxes. I figure that my taxes will go up at least $2000 this year alone and that's not counting the sales tax increase.

I'm working for a small family owned company and been here 18 years so far. We knew this was coming and got ready for it. I haven't had a raise in 4 years now. My boss (company owner) took a 3 month no pay and a 10% cut. We haven't hired anyone in 3 years but we haven't laid off anyone either. We're going to survive this.

When my wife and I bough our house back in '99, we saved up for almost 5 years to buy it with a 10% down. We bought a beat-to-hell rental with an absentee landlord but we were so happy to get it and we do love the place and we can afford the payments. We also put a few bucks in the bank.

My profit sharing is going down. So is my wife's 401K. OK, well, we have a long time until retirement. We'll be alright.

Rawhide, yeppers! You're right. We did this to ourselves. I gotta say some people got into situations they shouldn't have but they did. Like buying a house with 3% down, adjustable mortgage, no credit check, and then they can't make the payment with the increase in interest. Duh. I know a guy that bought a house in Huntington Beach that way. He paid $500,000 for it. Managed to keep it 3 years. Didn't sell it, rather he "lost" it in foreclosure. I asked him how he could afford a house that had a $5,000 month payment. He said the first year it was only $2600! Then it went up. Now, I know where this guy works. We make about the same amount of money and I can't afford $2600 a month! WTH was he thinking? He was thinking he'd sell it in a few years and make a lot of money. Didn't happen. Lots of these around right now.

[Hennessy]

Just a little addition, I watched the pbs show last night Inside the financial meltdown or something like that. I was amazed at the number of things that lined up over time that when combined, started the ball rolling downhill, kind of like the perfect storm scenario. Add the amazing egos, greed and arrogance of the pro ported smartest financial players and it was inevitable. What I find sad though is the thousands upon thousands of people that thought they were playing by the rules and working hard, are losing so much. While it seems the perps are waddling away with the prize. The last time I frizbee golfed was at the park in pasadena by JPL many moons ago.

recently on a tv in depth depresser,they talk'd about a insurance policy available to anyone whereby one could cover his investment in a co goin belly up.they have a name for it and it was big way back untill 1900 there was even shops similar to a betting shop with boards showing co's instead of horses.sometime around the early years 1900 -1920 it was outlaw'd.well guess wot it was reintroduced 2000,one of those big dudes co went belly up and he got millions off an insurance co,talk aboot a conflict of interest,its still goin too, oh an jesse lied he left th clantons hangin pete

[Windy]

Ah yes, the good ol' days of the Great Depression..... Arlo Guthrie, ridin' those trains and singin' his songs of the poor working man, starting unions, causing riots.

I think you mean Woody Guthrie not Arlo.

WINDY

[Go2Tex]

Ah yes, the good ol' days of the Great Depression..... Arlo Guthrie, ridin' those trains and singin' his songs of the poor working man, starting unions, causing riots.

I think you mean Woody Guthrie not Arlo.

WINDY

Right. Woody. Of course. How stupid of me. Arlo was the dope smokin' long haired puke of my generation who never could live up to the reputation or ability of his family name.....

[Ian]

There is only ONE reason for this "stimulus" package, and that ONE reason is to increase the size of government. Period. The government could care less about any one of us posting here, or our financial situation.

Actually, there's TWO reasons. The other is to pay back all the unions, media, and organizations who helped get the president elected. Do we think that people give to politicians out of altruism?

I've always said - there is nothing that has happened in world history that won't happen again, and that includes revolution, world war, depression, famine, dictatorships, slavery.

American democracy is a very new concept. Did we think we could live in paradise forever regardless of who we put in power? Already the great democracy of Britain is caving to socialism and the wonderful Australian democracy is giving in to it as well.

I hear the drumbeat from every faction for civil unrest. It's only a matter of time.

[TexasJack]

"This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper"

'The Hollow men' by T.S. Eliot, not e.e. cummings

Thanks for the correction.