ClassicCar

What a drag. Sorry to hear that, man. Went thru that almost 20 years ago and my life turned into the typical country & western song (yeah, that one). Now they shaved 10% of the people at my current gig. Dodged that bullet, who knows about the next?

walt's garage-53 wrote:

Walt here; I blame all this on the last congress, DEM's RULED; for not taking the gas out of the stock market. They kept raising to price of OIL and the OPEC NATIONS just laughed all the way to their banks. That started the down turn for the car companies and trucking companies. Now here we are and they, DEMs are now giving away BILLIONS and it all will end up in the SEWER.

I hear ya walt!

Thanks for all the support everyone

I've got my dog, my truck, my laptop and my tools ( and knock on wood...my health) it might be time to go off the grid for awhile anyway :eek:

Dan,



Sorry to hear about the job. I lost mine about 7 months ago. Stilling looking but I am fortunate in that I can afford to have turned down two lower paying positions so far. If I had your skills and set up, I would give my right huevo to be self employed. If you were closer, I

'd hire you to paint my coupe.... Niels

tombia wrote:

DON't YA JUST LOVE IT. Give the man a break, he is only been in for less than 2 months and all the neoconservative/republicans are complaining. You will remember that Raganomics started this grab it while you can/trickle down economics. The president is only the leader and sets policy. Congress follows thru and they have been stiffled by conservative and dumb leaders since 2006. Also I would say the vast majority of the CEO's of oil and large corporations are Republican's. Anyway go back in history and see when we went into a recession and you will for the most part find that the good old party was in power when we did. I don't defend Clinton , but he DID bring us from a deficit to a surplus after Bush one. One last comment is YOU should remember what one of the main Rebublican tennets is dont you?. YOU ALONE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR SITUATION, NOT THE GOVERMENT. The 1st TARP was a Bush plan or did you forget. DAN If I were you I would go for it. .

"I inheirited the deficits I voted for - then I trippled them"

OK - I'll play along...Clinton, balanced the budget ONLY because the GOP was in control of house and senate and forced him (sic) to work with them in a fiscally conservative way and moved Clinton towards the center.

BHO - Is as far left a president as we have ever had in office.

This ridiculous compilation of bailouts and giveaways cannot continue too be justified by saying it was started by Republicans so it must be ok to continue or "you have no right to complain"...perposterous, I say! The first ammendment gives me that right!

And just to clarify - I am equally un-impressed with what the slacker republicans have done over the last 8 years - they have not been fiscally conservative - but to foist the whole mess on 80.s Reganomics and late model Republicans is completely disingenous and would skip over the "good times" we had with the Clintons.

The economy always cycles - when goverment steps in to "help" they make it worse.

tombia wrote:

YOU ALONE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR SITUATION, NOT THE GOVERMENT.

Seconded... Spend your money wisely and you won't be sleeping in a ditch. I call it Financial Karma. All those chumps who refi'd their house for the equity money only to blow it on boats, trips, and breast augmentation are learning now that the best place for equity is in the house itself. Or they are learning the joys of renting. I know so many people who used that cash like it was disposable income, and now they're severely upside down. "If you have to give it back, it ain't disposable!", I would say. Then I would go ride in their new SUV. Oh well... I can still go to Vegas by myself, I guess.

walt norem wrote:

The economy always cycles --- That is right Dan! In the 230 some odd years of this country there has been a DEPRESSION, on average, every 75 years (do the math) It should have come 5 years ago but was held off by artificially low interest rates. The Gov.s finger plugging the hole in the dike could only last so long. And I'll add this: As long as lobbyists are allowed to own (yeah I said it) politicians, regular folks ARE going to lose!!!!!!!!

I'm on board with you 100% on this one!

My old 1955 Rambler doubled in value in 8 years (and not because I made it nice)...I kept telling people near me it couldn't continue...this was not sustainable...they laughed then...I sold...

I made a modest investment in this place and hopefully can hang on - but if it comes to it, I'll give it up and move on before I take a handout.

A person can blame Obama for allowing and proposing a bail out program that has million of special interest "Pork" in it. It was put in by the majority party (Dems). Where is all the "Change" that Obama spewed in the floor show he made to be elected? more to the point, the Dems and unions destroyed California's ecomomy (7th largest in the world). No one with a straight face can say that they did not bankrup California. The Unions won't give an inch so stick it to the "real" working man, the tax payer.

walt norem wrote:

was held off by artificially low interest rates

You hit it right on the head, Walt! And who sets the interest rates? .......The Federal Reserve!!!!!! Now you know who to blame.



Don't believe me?????



Find the film "America: Freedom to Fascism" by Aaron Russo.



After you watch it, you will be mad as hell as well as sick to your stomach but you will understand who has been robbing America blind since 1913!!!



Kevin C.

Totally agree the job of an elected official is to help their constituents. however, that does not mean help destroy the nation by wasting money when we are in a severe recession. Everyone of them, the majority of Dems and the few Reps (still left) that added pork should be ashamed of themselves. Shame on Obama for missing a golden opportunity to make a real change.

And then there is still California where it has been raped by the democrats and their spending and taxation (no one is denies the Dems control California) . For those who want a little cocktail conversation piece, California Union teachers are the highest paid in the country and they have one of the worst High School drop out rates in the nation at 56%. Pathetic. No wonder the Democratic party supporting teachers union doesn't want merit pay... because they are lousy teachers and administrators with no accountability. OK. I'm done.

I blame the SEC. 4 years ago my wife received a proxy vote request from her retirement fund company, AIG/Valic (yep, THAT AIG). The vote request had ten long, complicated sections full of legalese mumbo-jumbo. When you looked closer, most of the sections were no-brainer "yes" clauses that everyone would agree to... stuff like "The fund shall adhere to all applicable US laws and regulations". Section 8b however, contained what I feel was the whole reason for the proxy vote. AIG wanted to change the fund rules to allow for speculation using mortgage-based derivatives. Other funds were making huge gains on these things... and AIG wanted IN on the action. Folks, whoever invented this monopoly-money "derivative" idea contributed a great deal to the pile of meadow muffins we're now standing in, and the SEC turned a blind eye on the whole stinkin' mess. When the pool of people that could actually afford those $350,000 "cornfield castles" finally dried up, that derivative house of cards fell in on itself.

bobdriveshudson wrote:

AMEN, thanks to all who posted with good comments. A good read. Bob

Yes, thanks everyone!

What's been really fun about this thread - is even with differing views no one has reverted to the typical political name calling...see if we car people can discuss sensitive issues with diplomacy - maybe the rest of the world will follow!

Someone has to start talking common sense - 'cause them darn politicians are already talking about "Stimulus 2"... idiots :mad:

Hudson308 wrote:

I blame the SEC. 4 years ago my wife received a proxy vote request from her retirement fund company, AIG/Valic (yep, THAT AIG). The vote request had ten long, complicated sections full of legalese mumbo-jumbo. When you looked closer, most of the sections were no-brainer "yes" clauses that everyone would agree to... stuff like "The fund shall adhere to all applicable US laws and regulations". Section 8b however, contained what I feel was the whole reason for the proxy vote. AIG wanted to change the fund rules to allow for speculation using mortgage-based derivatives. Other funds were making huge gains on these things... and AIG wanted IN on the action. Folks, whoever invented this monopoly-money "derivative" idea contributed a great deal to the pile of meadow muffins we're now standing in, and the SEC turned a blind eye on the whole stinkin' mess. When the pool of people that could actually afford those $350,000 "cornfield castles" finally dried up, that derivative house of cards fell in on itself.

And a tip o' the Hatlow Hat to Hudson308- we have a bingo!



The "mortgage based derivative" was the final piece in the puzzle that was needed to create the perfect storm, financially speaking.



I worked for an agricultural lender for 15 years in the 70's and 80's, as a Loan Officer. My job was to evaluate the borrower, verify "the numbers", and make my recommendation on the loan. I was on salary, and my performance was evaluated both on loan volume produced, and loan quality. If I never turned anybody down, I'd have had too many bad loans, and would have been fired. If I never made a loan, my volume would be too low, and I would have been fired. I was a protector of the company's money, as well as a producer of profit on lending the money out in a prudent manner. The system worked pretty well.



Real estate loans were made by an employee of the bank to which you were applying. Same deal- salaried person, lending prudently.



My first exposure to a "Mortgage Broker" was in 1985 (actually, Dan, for buying a house on Bainbridge Island). The real estate agent who found our house referred me to the broker, and upon questioning, explained that the broker got paid a commission on the loans that were made. Not an employee of the lender, but a "free-lancer". I remember my first thought was, "Isn't the fox watching the chickens here?" Commissions work fine on selling widgets- It's not easy to sell a widget- customer has to be talked into it, much competition from other widget salesmen, etc.- if you can sell one, you deserve your commission. Not so with selling money- your customer wants your product, and the only one with anything to lose is the lender- so there's an automatic tendency for everyone except the lender to "fudge" a little- and later a lot- to get the deal done, as that's the only way anyone gets paid.



Enter the Barney Franks of the world, wanting to put a chicken in every pot and everyone into a home, whether they could afford it or not. Through the Community Reinvestment Act, credit standards got really soft for applicants who were "traditionally underserved" ('nough said). A lot of "soft" loans were made to them, but more importantly, the soft lending standards became the new standards, period. The liar loan (also referred to as the NINJA- No Income, No Job or Assets), the 80/20 (80% first mortgage, 20% second, no money down, and because the first is only 80%, no mortgage insurance required), and the worst of all, the 5 year ARM- with an artificially low "teaser" interest rate the first 5 years, so the payment would be low enough for the borrower to qualify (especially when he lied about his income in the first place). No chance for borrower to perform when the loan repriced to market rate, and payments doubled.



There was some half-hearted bleating from the right that credit standards needed tightening- but they were quickly shouted down by the libs. Everybody was making rafts of money, and nobody really wanted to be the spoilsport. Remember when you were a kid, and somebody discovered that old Mr. Waverly forgot to lock the candy shop when he went home one night? Some went in and helped themselves, some had more principles and didn't want any part of it, but nobody bolted to the cops.



But still, we had that pesky lender, worrying about its money! What to do. . . finally, the Wunderkinds of Wall Street figured it out- a financial product consisting of a bundle of mortgages, to be sold to investors! So now, even the actual lenders would be protected, because they were selling the loan. And to who? Why, the greedy fund managers, who were always looking for a high yielding investment in which to "invest" the never-ending flow of 401k money that came in, relentlessly, every day. OK, so it would be easy to sell the good loans, but what about the "not so good" ones? So someone else came up with "tranching" (look it up on Wikipedia)- basically, packaging good loans with higher risk loans, so the overall package doesn't stink up the place too badly, and low and behold, you can sell the lower quality tranches easily because they have higher interest rates! All the better to satisfy the performance-driven fund managers. Soon, AIG, Goldman Sachs, and all the others were on the bandwagon, making more profit than they ever dreamed imaginable. . .



So now, the lenders didn't even care if the loans were any good- because they could bundle and sell them, to ignorant investors who would buy any pig that their fund manager could manage to get a little lipstick on. The fish were jumpin', and the cotton was high. . .



Until everyone started defaulting, and you know the rest. Its hard to keep that house of cards upright, when the bottom cards start buckling under the weight.



There's plenty of blame to go around, but at the base of is all is just plain ole garden variety GREED- And we all share a little of the blame, I guess- What business did a 60 year old man like me have putting all his IRA into stocks? Any prudent advisor would have had me at least half in bonds. But my broker wasn't prudent, and neither was I.



All of which, Dan, doesn't help you a whit. But its a tech world, and you've got the tech. Microsoft is always looking for "a few good men", as are many others hi-tech outfits. Bet you'll be carrying a lunch box before you know it.:rolleyes:

And the morons just keep voting them back in. City of Los Angeles for example voted a usless mayor moron back it. Must be the give aways to the none American Citizens.