Originally Posted By mawnck ... more effectively than anything I've seen. One of the reasons I'm SO mad at most of you conservatives is that THIS is the position you guys should be taking to rescue your gol-dang beloved country, rather than the garbage you've been spewing recently. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/drew-westen/change-we-can-believe-in_b_258451.html" target="_blank">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...451.html</a> Some highlights: >>These people aren't "raving liberals." ... They're ordinary voters who either sometimes or reliably vote Democratic, who were members of the Obama majority in 2008 and were convinced that this time their vote really mattered. Now they're disillusioned. They can see the economic upturn. They see the Dow rising. They know that corporate profits are no longer in a free-fall. But they can also see that those profits are rising as their own company is considering another round of layoffs -- and that those two facts are not unrelated. And what they feel summarizes what they see: where before they had hope, now they feel primarily frustration and resentment. << >>When the President put in charge of our financial system a man who had led the New York Fed during a period of extraordinary Wall Street corruption and another who had helped dismantle protections against it, many of us scratched our heads in confusion. When he traded off billions in stimulus money that would have prevented precisely the cuts states are making today -- laying off workers and slashing essential programs, which runs counter to the whole point of the stimulus package -- for the same kind of tax cuts that ballooned the deficit during the Bush years, many of us thought he was just a really bad poker player. But he was playing solitaire, with no one on the other side of the table. We figured every President is entitled to his early mistakes. But then came the news about the new law designed to protect consumers from credit card companies raising their rates. The President described how Americans had had enough of the fine print. But one provision seemed awfully odd: a 10-month grace period for credit card companies to "adjust" to the new legislation and make whatever changes they wanted in the meantime. You normally don't give burglars your vacation schedule in advance so they have time to "adjust." Then the reports started to come in from ordinary Americans who were seeing their interest rates hit the roof -- applied retroactively to money they had borrowed before the recession hit or they lost their jobs. << >>if Americans are starting to turn populist anger toward a White House that has doggedly refused to focus that anger where it belongs -- toward the banks, the mortgage brokers, the regulators who failed to regulate, the oil companies that have blocked energy reform for decades while racking up record profits, the health insurance companies that make their profits by denying coverage and discriminating against the ill, the pharmaceutical companies whose lobbyists have negotiated away the right to negotiate, and the Republicans who bankrupted the treasury during the eight long years of the Bush Presidency and crashed the economy on their way out -- I can understand why.<<
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder God, don't get me started on Amercian Express credit cards. A bigger bunch of lying, a-holes I have never seen. We have two cards with low balances with them. One was 2.99% interst, the other 3.99%. We just got letters on both cards saying the rates were getting raised to 11.99% plus whatever prime is. My mother in law did as well, and on the same day she got a letter from them raising her limit to $75K. We, of ocurse, never miss payments, didn't even have balances as recently as 4-5 months ago but my wife wants to utilize the rewards program they have becasue we planned on doing some traveling. But oh yeah, say goodbye to the rewards program too. F them. We're just going to pay it off and thrwo the cards in a drawer. If I close the accounts, one of which my wife has had over 20 years, our FICO scores suffer. Once this is all over and things are back to whatever normal is going to be, we'll go without rather than turn to Amex.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder I swear I was checking post 2 for typos in the preview window when the thing just closed and posted.
Originally Posted By Darkbeer From today's news <a href="http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2009/08/13/ap6775423.html" target="_blank">http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap...423.html</a> >> Retail sales disappointed in July and the number of newly laid-off workers filing claims for unemployment benefits rose unexpectedly last week. The latest government reports reinforced concerns about how quickly consumers will be able to contribute to a broad economic recovery. "There is really no positive spin to put on these numbers," Jennifer Lee, an economist with BMO Capital Markets, wrote in a research note. "The U.S. consumer remains very weak. The jobs situation, while slowly improving, is still dismal." The Commerce Department said Thursday that retail sales fell 0.1 percent last month. Economists had expected a gain of 0.7 percent.<< And as for the motrgage mess, it was the GOVERNMENT that caused the changes in the rules that allowed a lot more "under-qualified" applicants to get approved! <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_policies_and_the_subprime_mortgage_crisis" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...e_crisis</a> >>Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are government-sponsored enterprises (GSE) that purchase mortgages, buy and sell mortgage-backed securities (MBS), and guarantee nearly half of the mortgages in the U.S. A variety of political and competitive pressures resulted in the GSE taking on additional risk, beginning in the mid-1990s and continuing throughout the crisis and their government takeover in September, 2008.[40][41] HUD loosened mortgage restrictions in the mid-1990s so first-time buyers could qualify for loans that they could never get before.[42] In 1995, the GSE began receiving affordable housing credit for purchasing mortgage backed securities which included loans to low income borrowers. This resulted in the agencies purchasing subprime securities.[43] In 1996, HUD directed Freddie and Fannie to provide at least 42% of their mortgage financing to borrowers with income below the median in their area. This target was increased to 50% in 2000 and 52% in 2005. In addition, HUD required Freddie and Fannie to provide 12% of their portfolio to “special affordable” loans. Those are loans to borrowers with less than 60% of their area’s median income. These targets increased over the years, with a 2008 target of 28%.[44] In 2004, HUD ignored warnings from HUD researchers about foreclosures, and increased the affordable housing goal from 50% to 56%. In addition to political pressure to expand purchases of higher-risk mortgage types, the GSE were also under significant competitive pressure from large investment banks and mortgage lenders. For example, Fannie's market share of subprime mortgage-backed securities issued dropped from a peak of 44% in 2003 to 22% in 2005, before rising to 33% in 2007.<<
Originally Posted By ecdc I'm not quite as disillusioned as the editorial, but I'm getting close. I am so sick of hearing about bipartisanship. Screw bipartisanship, just get the damn thing done already!
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder Darkbeer, since you have no opinions of your own, quit posting here, will you? I'm running out of recipes and pretty soon I'm just going to resort to name calling again because it's just too damn easy.
Originally Posted By ecdc <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/13/dean-there-will-be-primar_n_258813.html" target="_blank">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...813.html</a> This is more like it. Howard Dean: >>I do think there will be primaries as the result of all this, if the bill doesn't pass with a public option," Dean said, in a phone interview with the Huffington Post.<<
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo Interesting stuff. I am sure the president appointed someone who he felt could get the job done. Sadly that has not transpired, and hopefully he will not make the same mistake. About the credit card companies, we have the same problem here. The interest rate has been cut to 0.5% to help get us out of this. The banks have not passed this on to us, and on top of it, credit card companies have in some cases have been raising their interest to 32% (mine's at 18%) and dropping customers with higher debts with no notice. THis is aweful. But it does take 9 months to do this stuff Obama has insisted on. From modelling and planning, to process change, to communication and stakeholder management, and into business as usual. It takes time. Here in the UK, government often give 3 or 6 month windows, and the timing is too short, so some of the initiatives are late or fail. Therefore I applaud Obama's administration for being more realistic. We have had 8 years of the last admin running America (and the world) into the ground, coupled with the biggest INTERNATIONAL economic crisis we have seen since the war. I am willing to give him time. Remember during the election, pundits were warning it would take 2 - 3 years to sort out all the legistaltion Bush passed between the election and inauguration. We can change. But change takes time and effort.
Originally Posted By DVC_Pongo Sometimes I wonder if the more things change, the more they remain the same. *sigh*. Will we ever save ourselves from ourselves, both as individuals and collectivly? Probably not, but we still must try.
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo Well sometimes as society we get it right - e.g. setting up public schools. And sometimes we get it wrong - the Star Wars programme. But we do not know unless we try.
Originally Posted By mawnck >>We have two cards with low balances with them. One was 2.99% interst, the other 3.99%. We just got letters on both cards saying the rates were getting raised to 11.99% plus whatever prime is.<< Both my AmEx Blue cards just sent me the same letter (one of them is going up to 17%). I've never carried a balance, so it makes no difference to me, but I'm keeping a sharp eye out for the letter that says my grace period has been eliminated.
Originally Posted By wahooskipper The following sums up my feelings about Obama: The following summarizes the specifics of what Obama likes and dislikes about any of the health care proposals out there:
