02.20.09
Posted in Current Events, Money, Politics at 1:55 pm by Administrator
CNN.com had an article about who would and would not be bailed out by Obama’s give-away to people disinclined to pay their mortgages. In the piece Joe Martinez, who is part of what is wrong with our country at the moment, proclaims that “there’s just no point to stay here,” because the value of his home is “never going to come back.” Prior to that point in the story it is explained that the $600,000 house that Martinez bought 2 years ago had fallen in value to about $450,000. Martinez has a fixed rate mortgage and can still afford the payment but stopped paying a couple of months ago in hopes of being able to have the balance of his loan reduced by the Hope for Homeowners program (this is a program that should be scrapped if he is successful). I posted something about some people in a similar position last march.
After only two years he’s certain that he will never recoup the money he put into the house. Joe, I hope that the bank sues you for the money that you should have been paying on your mortgage and that someone gives you the kick in the balls that you deserve.
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02.13.09
Posted in Current Events, Money, Politics at 2:09 pm by Administrator
Chuck Schumer says that Americans don’t care if the government wastes money as long as they get their cut. He’s right, but that’s probably because forty-something percent don’t pay any taxes so they don’t have any skin in the game.
“A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.”
– Alexander Fraser Tytler
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02.09.09
Posted in Current Events, Politics at 10:29 pm by Administrator
President Obama spoke tonight about how the spending bill currently circling the bowl in the Senate would save us all from certain doom. He repeatedly claimed that the bill would “save or create” 4 million jobs. As it turns out there is no need to spend $800 billion.
Just today I saved 100,000 peoples’ jobs. That’s right, and according to estimates that I made on my lunch hour, I may be able to double that number tomorrow. Of course because it is impossible to determine exactly how many jobs were saved, my estimates are impossible to disprove. When you go to work tomorrow, remember all of the trouble I went to. You’re welcome.
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02.06.09
Posted in Current Events, Fun Stuff at 2:15 pm by Administrator
When I was in graduate school at the University of Illinois, I worked in a lab with three other guys — one Israeli, one Chinese, and one Korean. The gentleman from Korea, “Sam”, was a terrible driver; in the 18 months or so that we worked together he wrecked his car three times and received multiple tickets additionally. Every time something would happen, the Israeli guy would half seriously, half jokingly proclaim that all Koreans were terrible drivers.
Sam often spent weekends visiting friends who lived within a couple hours’ drive of Champaign (I don’t know for sure, but I think he was just about the only one in his circle of friends who had a car). Among the most regularly visited friends was a young lady who was a grad student at Indiana University; she, as it happens, was also Korean. After a couple months of feeling stranded in the big town of Bloomington, IN she decided it was time to become a licensed driver herself and Sam volunteered his car for the test. After two attempts at the driving portion of the test, the young woman had had no luck and at that point was required to wait three months before trying again.
Being two reasonably bright folks who also happened to share the same last name, Sam put her name on a couple of his accounts to indicate her residence in the state of Illinois (is that considered mail fraud?). After a couple of weeks, utility bills in hand, the young lady was finally able to pass the test in the state of Illinois. Of course obtaining a license in the state of Indiana would then only require a written test which she passed with flying colors. After relaying the entire tail to us one morning and enduring some additional teasing, Sam admitted that driving was quite a challenge for most Koreans. I remembered that story this week when I saw a report of the South Korean woman who failed 771 driving tests.
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Posted in Current Events, Money, Politics at 1:31 pm by Administrator
Peter Schiff says that the result of the “stimulus” being debated by the Senate will be an “Unmitigated Disaster”. I’d say that just about sums it up.
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