Extreme couponing is nuts!!

I've been sucked into watching the "Extreme Couponing" show a few times which, by the way, usually is on before or after one of those hoarding shows. Most of the people featured started couponing after some sort of financial distress (Thank you, recession!). They go buy hundreds of dollars worth of groceries and pay eight bucks for it. After seeing a few of these shows, all sorts of questions pop in my head. Usually, they have a basement or garage full of these groceries and some have shelf units scattered throughout the house in every available spot. It kind of looks like the hoarding shows, only neater and cleaner. Why would you need 123 bottles of mustard? The first indicator of erratic behavior is the lengths they go to in getting the coupons. Sitting around the table clipping coupons is one thing, but digging through dumpsters or getting the leftover Sunday paper inserts from the newspaper office is extreme. Some actually pay to have boxes of coupons shipped to them from companies who specialize in collecting them. It seems that the average time spent each week accumulating these coupons is 35 to 40 hours. Maybe having a job would be better use of their time. 400 bottles of Wisk in your closet won't pay the electric bill unless you sell them on Craigslist! Couponers take advantage of stores doubling and tripling coupons to get the item cost down to near nothing. What irritates me is that they will clear a shelf of an item on sale whether they need it or not because it works out to being free. I guess it's just too bad for someone else who wanted to buy the sale item. Some of the stuff the cameras show in their houses have expiration dates. How will you eat 100 boxes of cereal before they go bad? One or two of the people featured did take their excess and donate it to food banks. One guy bought a whole pallet of Total cereal on sale. I don't know how he got the store to order it ahead of time. Usually the sale is for whatever they have in stock and when it's gone, that's it. He kept a few boxes and gave the rest to the food bank, but he was one of the few. Most of them keep all they get. The show doesn't really explain whether or not they continue buying a particular item after they just bought 100 of them but that's TV for you. Kind of like Yahoo! news articles. Let's leave out part of the story. Anyway, there has to be an underlying psychological problem driving this. It's more than the thrill of the chase. Since there are hoarding shows adjacent to these shows, when you watch one, you can see the similarities of dysfunction.

Watching HGTV

We like watching HGTV just so we can sit there criticizing other people's behavior, opinion, and sense of style. Some of them crack me up. They will walk through a bedroom and comment on how small it is when it is already bigger than what they currently live in. Another sticking point is the whole "2 sinks in the bathroom" deal. I don't think I have ever lived in a house with 2 sinks in 1 bathroom. Whirlpool bathtubs or "spa tubs" as they are called, apparently are another big wish list item. Never had one. I would think it would take forever to fill up and just be a big waste. The last one I saw was being used to store excess clothing! People complain about traffic noise, wallpaper, size of yard, and amount of renovation needed all the time. The one that gets me the most is the guy having to fix or renovate something and complaining about it. Now, in all fairness, I think remodeling is a hobby. I don't know what these guys would be doing if they didn't have to paint, replace, or otherwise change something in the house. What would you do? Watch TV? Play golf? Xbox? I guess everyone has their own take on this.

We watched a "House Hunters" episode last night where the couple was downsizing because the guy had lost his job in banking. Judging by some of his comments, he must have been in construction at some time because he was always commenting on how he would have to re-do something. They had 4 kids. They were looking for a 5 bedroom house with a budget of $400k. That doesn't sound much like downsizing to me! They were looking at 4000 sq ft houses with granite counter tops and all the bells and whistles. I did find out that they were moving out of a 7500 sq ft house so I guess you could call it downsizing.

The House Hunter Internationals shows are even more irritating. It amazes me how someone would want to buy a house 6000 miles away that you would have to fly to in order to get there. How much does it cost to fly 4 people from Dublin, Ireland to Rio once a month? I can't believe how small some of the houses and apartments are in Europe. No wonder they are always sitting outside a cafe somewhere! They can't fit in the house. We apparently have it made in the US with big rooms and actual yards. (disclaimer: I never lived in a densely populated urban area - you know - like big cities)

I think HGTV played a large role in the housing crash. They had all these shows about flipping houses and appraising houses to see how much equity one could borrow against for renovations, additions, or new boats. Even after the crash, they still have people buying houses with no money down. The ones that piss me off the most are those who consistently low-ball houses and then can't understand why they didn't get the house. I had someone low-ball me once and I told my realtor that the guy could kiss my ass and that I wouldn't sell him the house, no matter what. Since selling the house was in my realtor's best interest, he smoothed things over and I did sell the guy the house but he was still an asshole!

Why Georgia Power is our friend, NOT!

I was sitting in my van today, waiting to pick up my granddaughter from school and got bored. I started reading the insert in my Georgia Power bill envelope. They were letting me know that they were increasing rates by 10% in order to pursue greener technology, improve delivery, and blah, blah, blah. They went on to say that, even with the rate increase, their rates were still below the national average so it was ok. Guess what? Our salaries here in South Georgia are also below the national average, so it does impact our budgets negatively. We aren't getting 10% raises anytime soon, either. They are an industry pretty much unaffected by the recession and their employees make good money with plenty of benefits, too. Further down in the article, they go on to say they are also adding an average 3.5% to pay for construction costs related to 2 nuclear power plants they are building for the next 4 years. So, we basically are getting a 13.5% increase in our bill. Another item in the newsletter was a program they started to help us get rid of our old refrigerators and freezers sitting in our garages and basements. Their theory is that each one uses about $100 per year. They will pick up the old fridge and pay $35 to boot! They are partnered with an appliance recycler who does the actual pickup. I have several problems with this. First, if I have an extra fridge in the garage, it's holding beer or fish bait or something. It's not empty. If it was, it would be for sale on Craigslist! Second, Georgia Power stated they don't pickup non-working appliances. If the recycler is only picking up working appliances, they aren't tearing them apart. They're selling them to the budget used appliance stores for resale. Sounds like a hell of a racket to me. How stupid do they think we are?

Odd thoughts

Well, not really odd thoughts. Just a collection of unrelated stuff thrown together.

• When money gets tight, the term "tighten our belts" is used. I just realized where that came from. I bought a belt the other day. I haven't worn a belt in 30 years, but in the last 2 years, I've lost about 15 pounds. Not that I needed to but that's the recession for you. I decided it's cheaper to buy an $8 belt than $100 for new pants.

• I was riding down the road the other day and was behind a car with a GPS stuck to the windshield. It was obviously a local car. I was thinking that, in Atlanta or Tampa, it might make sense to have one if you went to different unknown places. In a town of 40,000 people, unless you have a really bad memory, why would you need one? Especially if you are just driving to work. I guess it's the "gadget factor" striking again.

• I had to replace the fuel tank straps on my van last week. It lived in Delaware for 12 years before moving south and has a lot of undercarriage rust. I don't know why undercoating isn't an automatic thing up north. No one had them in stock, so I called the 4 main parts stores to find out who could get them the quickest. Note that there is only one company making them so everyone had to get them from the same place. Here are my results. I stopped by NAPA first. They said all they had was a universal kit that you just cut off what you need. I told them that their website listed the correct parts but they weren't interested in trying to look them up. I called Advance Auto Parts. Note that it's Friday. They said they could have them by the following Wednesday. I called O'reillys and they said they would have to email the warehouse to find out when they could get them. They said to call back between 4 and 6 pm. Autozone was my last call. They said if I order them before 1 pm, they would have them the next day (Saturday!) It's pretty bad to have one part with 4 different answers. Needless to say, Autozone got my order.

My New year's Day Post

Another one of those binary days! Well, when I checked my Mega Millions ticket numbers, I realized that it being 2011 didn't change my Lotto luck. Who needs $242 million anyway? After a time, I would run out of crap to buy. If you bought Aaron Spelling's house, you would still have enough to buy 54 Bugatti Veyrons at $1.7 mil each. My granddaughter was trying to wrap her head around the vastness of the sum. I explained that she could buy an ice cream from school every second of every day for 7 years and 8 months. I'm glad to see 2010 go. It was just an extension of 2009. I'm hoping things start really turning around since the experts declared the recession over last year and the government claims that the economy is improving. You know those guys are always right! I think it will be different. The economy can't stagnant for too much longer. It is shit or get off the pot time for our government. Speaking of governments, the increasingly common practice of party jumping after an election is bullcrap.For someone voting along party lines, it's like stealing a vote. If you get elected on a particular platform, you are there because the majority of voters agreed with you. To jump ship because the nerds became the cool kids shows a lack of real commitment to your beliefs. Y'all have a happy New Year ;)

What has Congress done for us lately?

The current sitting Congress is patting itself on the back, claiming to be the most productive session since 1966, and complaining that the voters don't appreciate that fact. 1966 was when Medicare and Medicaid were created. There is a list on Yahoo! outlining their accomplishments that follows. Be aware that I am paraphrasing on the list and some of my opinions may not necessarily be based on actual fact (isn't that how the news works anyway?)
1. Making college loans more affordable
For who? The only way to do this is to come up with a way to get a job after college that pays more than minimum wage so you don't have to live with your parents for 10 years.
2. Cash for clunkers
We as taxpayers had the opportunity to pay $4500 each for 690,000 Ford Explorers that were subsequently crushed.
3. New consumer protections in the credit card industry
They did make some inroads into the screwing over that we put up with on a daily basis by the banks. Unfortunately, the banks seem to be one step ahead of Congress. Oh, the latest round of credit card rules do not apply to business credit cards. Who thought that up?
4. Making it easier for women to challenge pay discrimination
No opinion here. I'm sure somewhere in this country, some guy is making more than some woman doing the same job.
5. Increasing federal regulation of tobacco products
How much more regulating can you do? It's already almost to the point of needing a prescription to buy cigarettes. At that point, we will then need to decide whether we want tobacco or weed!
6. Cracking down on waste in Pentagon weapons acquisition
I busted out laughing when I saw this one. How do you gauge cracking down percentages when waste is over 50%? Weapons spending is one of the biggest pork-barrels in DC.
7. Making attacks based on sexual orientation a federal hate crime
They should have done this years ago but at least it's done now.
8. Giving businesses tax incentives to hire unemployed workers
Too bad there aren't tax incentives for us under-employed workers who took giant pay cuts 2 years ago with no end in sight.
9. Tax credits for first-time homeowners
All this did was continue the process of buying a house without putting any real money into it, which is what caused most of the recession to start with, along with the added benefit of costing taxpayers billions.
Of course, there is the whole healthcare revamp, which I haven't seen any evidence of yet, as well as the stimulus package, which all Republicans are claiming as failed in their election ads. How do they know it failed? What would have happened if there wasn't one?

Spinning the numbers

I watched Clark Howard on HNN the other day and he was reporting about Toys-R-Us opening "popup" stores (in malls, I guess) for the holidays and how they would be hiring 10,000 people to work in these stores. I got to thinking of how our leaders would spin something like that. "Oh, we created 10,000 jobs!" Don't mention that those jobs are only for 2 months. By the way, I think Toys-R-Us sells mostly crap. I tried to return something without the receipt once, and they said they could only give me credit for the lowest advertised price within the last 6 months. Turns out, the product I was trying to return (because it was a piece of crap), was offered free if some other product was purchased. So, it was only worth $0!

Speaking of jobs, when they announce that unemployment numbers went down it might just be because someone's unemployment ran out but they still can't find a job. But hey, Toys-R-Us is hiring! The downside is that if they have a choice between a brand new college degree and an older, more experienced non-grad, they will pick the younger one every time. That's why common sense has disappeared in the marketplace.

Back to numbers. Economists are bitching about the halt in foreclosures by the leading mortgage lenders. Less foreclosures mean less sales as the houses sit in limbo. What is so stupid about the whole thing is that a bank foreclosure counts as a home sale. So, if home sales are up in November, it could be just because foreclosures are up. How does that make any sense? It's just the way our leaders spin the news.

This just in! The courts in Vladivostok, Russia just seized a woman's pig for payment of a debt. She owes a bank $432 and a court survey determined that the piglet was her most valuable possession. I'd hate to see what her house looks like!

The recession is over!! Woohoo!!

Jay Leno informed me the other night that the recession is over and has been over since June 2009. Holy crap! It ended and I didn't notice! Wow, I've been living like the recession is still going strong. How embarrassing! Everyone is probably laughing at me behind my back for driving a dusty old piece of crap and hanging out at the laundromat. Seriously, a group of egghead bean counting professors from the National Bureau of Economic Research made this claim and based it on a bunch of GDP, GDI, and IIP indexes and reports. I think if they're so damn smart, why aren't they all millionaires? Anybody can sit around and make up bullshit but these guys are supposed to be the experts. One guy who doesn't think the recession has ended is Warren Buffett. Since he is a bazillionaire, I would tend to believe him more than those other guys. I just hope our elected rulers don't use the NBER report to pat themselves on the back although it wouldn't surprise me if they did.

Laying in bed thinking about stuff

I couldn't go to sleep fast enough last night and when that happens, my mind thinks too much. I'm going to write it all down and hopefully remember everything I thought about. I started thinking about US companies moving production lines to other countries and how many products we buy that are made in foreign countries. What drives companies to shut down US operations and move? At face value, it looks like lower wages in other countries. They are so much lower that supposedly products can be made there and shipped back to us cheaper, thus making the company more money. What's odd about that thinking is that many foreign car manufacturers are doing the opposite. They are making their cars in the US. One would think that building a Honda in Japan and shipping it here would be cheaper and would make the price lower but that's not the case. Many times, Hondas were more expensive, as were other foreign makes. Now, they are made in the US, with no affect on the price. Why is that? Unfortunately, the current recession tends to make us look for the best deal, regardless of where it was made. Our stores don't help much either. Most times, there aren't US made alternatives to Chinese products. Look at Walmart. They used to promote the whole "made in USA" thing but good luck trying to find something there that is made in the USA now. You would think the Chinese own Walmart! If only we could get to a position where stuff was made and sold in the US like it used to be. Unemployment would drop and our huge trade imbalance would lessen. It would keep more money in the US where it belongs. Putting people to work would settle the housing market, too. Where did our pride in US manufacturing go? I guess US manufacturers have to move jobs overseas to compete with importers. Why can't we impose more tariffs to level the playing field? Congress isn't much help. They are all so deep in foreign pockets that we can't get any legitimate legislation to settle the trade issues. I wish I could find out what kind of margins the US companies are dealing with. Somebody is making the big bucks and it ain't the peanut farmers.

Would you use a $1 coin?

I run across some oddball stuff occasionally and today it is the Coalition for the $1 Coin. This is a group that is pushing to get rid of paper dollars, replacing them with coins exclusively. The claim is that it would save money and be better for the environment. The group's members include the National Bulk Vendors Association and PMX Industries, who makes the coin blanks. The vendors association would save money by not having to swap out the paper dollars. The vendors also claim that they spend a billion dollars a year just fixing machines with jammed dollar bills in them. How many people would be out of work if they couldn't be repairing vending machines? PMX Industries would have work. Note that PMX is owned by Poongsan, a giant Korean conglomerate supplying copper products around the globe, including ammunition. Just what we need, more of our money going to a foreign company. The General Accounting Office (GAO) claims that the US government would save $522 million a year because the coins are more durable. Their claim is that it cost 3 cents to make a paper bill that lasts 21 months versus 16 cents for a coin that lasts 30 years. They supposedly would have to make 17 paper bills to match the coin's lifespan. Drag out your billfold. Check out the dates on your dollar bills. I did. I had 3 bills, 2 dated 2006 and one dated 2003. That's more than 21 months and they aren't worn out yet. The "green" aspect probably can't be verified. I don't know which is worse on the environment, copper mining or paper production. They are both recyclable. The fact that this idea is being pushed by private industry is no surprise. The government's involvement is tainted by the fact that they allow influence from private business to sway their decisions. Just the physical aspect of a dollar coin is a problem. They weigh more than a paper dollar. Shipping costs would be higher. Americans haven't had to carry yet another coin in their pocket. We already have 4 normally used coins, not counting half dollars which nobody uses. If you ever wandered around with a bunch of pesos in your pocket, you would know what I mean. Dope dealers would have to hire extra help, just to carry their cash around. The US government savings of $522 million works out to about $1.74 to me. I would rather pay that to not have a big fat pocket full of coins.

Banks whining about home equity defaults

I read these financial articles every day and there are always a few that piss me off. Today's article is from the NY Times concerning the high default rate on home equity loans. Unfortunately, the NY Times doesn't allow comments on their site (I guess they don't want other opinions) so here I go! When home equity loans are involved in a family's struggle to recover from this recession, they usually wind up being settled for 10 cents on the dollar or less. There are those quoted in the news article that act as if the homeowner intentionally set out to screw the bank by getting the loan. One real estate lawyer implied that it was "immoral" to bail on the loan. While there are people who should have known better than to over-extend themselves, most were banking on their house continuing to increase in value. The banks they borrowed from were also banking on this. It's obvious now that this was flawed logic. Unfortunately, when the market tanked, the borrower was the one on the hook. Defaulting is simply putting the lender on the hook, too. Since it is the banking industry's lending practices that got us in this mess to start with, they deserve being on the hook. The banks were also fully aware that in a foreclosure, the primary lender comes first, with the second lender getting crumbs at best. As for the homeowner, a bankruptcy screws your credit for 7 years, but if you are in a financial bind to start with, you don't need credit anyway. Cash and a debit card can get you a long way. I just get sick and tired of all of the news articles and stories that trash the borrower. I always root for the underdog! The borrowers don't have a voice at all. Writing your politician of choice does no good at all. They are too busy trying to see whose ass they can kiss or what perk they can get. Read the NY Times article here.

How the super-rich think

I read this news article the other day that discussed a conference call Bill Gates and Warren Buffett had with other billionaires about giving away their wealth. Apparently, Gates and Buffett are saying they will give away at least 1/2 of their money before they die, and they want others to do the same. Why do you suppose they are doing this? Look at Buffett. He's like 80 years old and worth $62 billion net! Now, he decides to give some money away? Why didn't he give some away years ago? For us common folk, $1 million a year would keep us in high cotton. What can you do with $62 billion when you're 80? Not much! Bill Gates is just as obnoxious. He's worth $58 billion. He does do some charity work (all highly publicized), but I'm not sure how much good it does to give hand-cranked netbooks to natives in Rwanda. I heard he gives to American high schools but all I see are a bunch of computers running Windows badly. Multiply the problems you have with Windows Anything by 50 computers in a classroom. I wouldn't want to be that teacher! These guys are scared to give all their money away. That's why they only pledged 1/2 of it. They don't want to end up like the rest of us. When my bank balance drops below $80k, I start sweating! (not really! (alternate comment ) I wish!) My point is, give it all away, or at least 90% of it. They can survive on what's left. New York City Mayor Micheal Bloomberg actually said that it didn't make sense to leave it all to his kids because it might screw their lives up being members of the "lucky sperm club". I know a couple of members of that type of club and know that, if their parents were alive to see how they conduct business and treat people now, they would kick'em square in the ass!

Dealing with today's economy by making the right choices

These days, there are those of us who must make choices based on our current economic status. Sometimes it is just a matter of which oil to put in the car or if the cheaper blue jeans are a better deal. Sometimes it is buying groceries instead of paying the cable bill. I have noticed a couple of people who have made their own economic choices that appear to be pretty darned selfish if you ask me. There is the guy whose kids used to go to private school. Not a snooty private school, just a really good Catholic school. The kids now go to public school. He now drives a Land Rover. Another is the owner of a large commercial construction company. As most people now, this business sector is experiencing 25% unemployment and reductions in sales up to 90%. I am acquainted with an employee (recently let go) who actually worked with this guy's father-in-law in the original company. But, he's getting older, and when cutbacks started, he was on the list. I think the company's employee list was reduced by at least half. The owner of this construction company is going bird hunting in South America.
For these guys, personal priorities override any potential effect on the people around them. Their way of dealing with a sour economy is to screw up other people's lives and livelihoods so that they can maintain their lifestyle.

Retirement at 60?

The French are going on strike to protest the push to raise their retirement age from 60 to 62. What a bunch of cheese-eating whiners! The government says it will save $30 billion by doing this and that it will keep their pension fund from going bankrupt. I don't see how anyone could retire at 60 or even 62. What the hell are you going to do all day? Assuming that you can afford to continue paying bills after retiring, there is only so much golf or fishing you can do. Will you wind up being one of the people wandering around Walmart for hours? I could see wanting retirement at 60 if you spent your last 40-45 years digging ditches 6 days a week. I would want to retire, too! I suspect that a fair amount of us can't retire at all. If you were lucky enough to have a government pension or your employer didn't go belly up and screw you on a private plan, you might be ok. Finding retirement money in this Great Recession is tough. My retirement plan is to work until I can't and hope and pray that I can afford to live on Social Security, if it still exists.

Well qualified buyers?

What is a well qualified buyer? I see these car ads on TV that spout all this bull about 0% financing and huge discounts to "well qualified buyers". How damn arrogant can they get? For the rest of us peasants, car ads are just a nuisance anyway. I don't know anyone who, after watching a car commercial, rushed out and bought a car. I think the people who need the low interest and discounts are the ones who don't have a bunch of cash sitting around. The only people I know who took advantage of 0% are people who could have bought it outright.
The ads are also misleading. They show a car with all of the leather and "must have" gadgets speeding down the street while they tell us that prices start at $21,000. You have to quickly read the fine print to see that the actual car you are watching is $38,999.
We have local mobile home ads that do the old bait and switch. I saw one last night that claimed they could sell someone a 28 x 80 doublewide for $34,999. They don't tell you that they are already figuring in the $8000 tax credit. They also don't tell you that the one they are panning through during the commercial is not the $34,999 one. One other thing to consider is that the mobile home price works out to about $19 per square foot. Current new construction on a reasonable quality house is in the $100 per square foot range. You have to wonder how good the deal really is.

Tidbits from the business news

Reading through the business news this morning, I ran across a couple of stories that required my opinion (in my opinion!).
Mr. Geithner, fearless leader of our Treasury, has acknowledged that giving banks deemed too big to fail large amounts of our tax money while ignoring our personal economic meltdowns is "deeply unfair". Of course, these banks are now in decent financial shape, making money while the rest of us are still foundering in the recession. Part of our personal financial problems come from the fact that the banks we "rescued" own the credit cards that are jacking interest and fees into the wild blue yonder. Have you ever seen the Chase commercials where you can pick your payment amount and loan duration? Every time I see it, I wonder just how much that flexibility is costing the card holder. Geithner went on to discuss the unemployment numbers. In true government fashion, the numbers don't reflect the number of unemployed workers who, after a year of job seeking, said "Aw fuck it!" and sit home watching Dr. Phil.
Oil prices are on the rise. Again. It would be great if this was a result of a recovering economy but it's not. These greedy assholes are betting that we are in a recovery position and are driving up prices. Demand and inventories are not supporting this position, yet the trading goes on. It pisses me off to have to pay $3 a gallon for gas just because someone is gambling on the market.

The healthcare bill passed!

When I heard that on the news last night, I had the same sick feeling as when Bush bombed Baghdad. Here we go again! We need to come up with something other than a 2 party political system. Throw some moderates in there. This current government hokey-pokey (put your left wing in, pull your left wing out, put your left wing in and you shake it all about) is driving us into national bankruptcy. The government is already spending $600 billion a year on healthcare costs. They just added $90 billion a year to that. Their proposed method of paying for the increase is to tax insurance companies $40 billion a year and cut $50 billion a year in payments to Medicare providers. Do you think the insurance companies are going to sit back and eat $40 billion a year? Hell, no! They are in it to make money for the shareholders, not to be a "good Samaritan". Same goes for the providers. Healthcare costs are just going to go up $90 billion a year. I'm not suggesting that I have a better idea, although there are some areas I have an opinion on. It's just that, every time the government decides to step in and fix something, we get screwed somehow. Look at the last 2 attempts at reining in the credit card companies. All you have to do is read some of the news stories about the end results and you realize that we caught the short end of the deal.
The public option is out. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. On one hand, having some "non-profit" competition might drive costs down, but who ever saw the government run anything efficiently?
Requiring me to buy health insurance is in. I guess they are going to hold a gun to my head to make me buy insurance. I sure hope they have a clue as to where the money is coming from to pay for it. Thanks to the greedy assholes that run our banking system, I'm under-employed. Ultimately, they created the recession. I don't have health insurance. My employer got rid of our health insurance years ago. I guess it ate into his travel budget :( Health insurance other than group insurance is unaffordable. I make too much for Medicaid and I'm too young for Medicare. Look at car insurance and how it is mandatory. I have to pay high premiums because some other asshole doesn't know how to drive?
I suppose there is one thing about the passage of the healthcare bill. Maybe now they will shut the hell up about it and move on to some other fiasco-in-waiting to fiddle with. Just remember, the only way we can punish them for their stupidity is to vote them out of office!

One reason why the economy still sucks

I was getting ready for work this morning and saw this CNN crawl: "Banks pull another $1 billion from small business lending". Of course, CNN does not continue on with a 2nd sentence explaining the 1st one. They just throw one unrelated thing after another up on the crawl and expect us to figure it out. So I googled it. As it turns out, most of the "big" banks have in fact continued to reduce the amount of money they loan to small businesses. According to the CNN article, it looks like some of their record profits are being used to increase "compensation expenses". That's bankspeak for bonuses and pay increases. The thing that pisses me off is that most of these banks took TARP funds because they were deemed "too big to fail" and went whining to the government. Most have paid back the TARP funds, which was taxpayer money to start with, but now our leaders are using that paid back money to fund other interests. That's like loaning your brother-in-law $100 you couldn't afford to lend and, when he paid you back, you went and bought a boombox because the money was kinda sorta gone already! This kind of stupid shit is going to come back and smack us in the ass if someone in DC doesn't wake up and rein it in. Here's the link to CNN's article: http://tinyurl.com/ycosbs6

Update on Obama's public works initiative

There's an AP news article out today http://tinyurl.com/yje9nlf that critiques the government's push to increase road and bridge building to combat the rampant unemployment we face today. The article states that there has been no discernible change in the unemployment rate in areas where these projects have started. I have always felt that the bulk of the money spent on these projects has been for equipment and materials and not labor. Getting these types of projects off the ground is truly like watching our government at work. It all moves at a snail's pace. Check out my blog of 05-11-09. I told you so!! The industry that needs the most help is anything related to wood construction. That whole industry is stagnating. It was a year ago today that my boss/company owner called me into his office and proceeded to cut my income by 50% and subsequently sold the company. He said he didn't want to lose any money :( A year later, I'm still here but not any busier. Every contractor and developer I talk to says that there is no financing available. Putting people back to work is the key to improving our economy. I think the whole "green" deal like solar panels and biofuels is great but most of the proposed projects are bogged down in red tape and, believe or not, waiting on financing approval!

My New Year's Day post

I figured with a date like 01-01-10 that today would be a good day for a post since the date is so binary. We are all a Twitter because someone got up in our Facebook because we are bustin' our Picasa trying to Flickr! There, got that out of the way. I'm glad to see '09 go. It has been a suck year as years go. The economy tanked; ours collectively and mine personally. But, we made it through alive with just a few cuts and bruises. I'm hoping 2010 will be an up year and there are indicators that it will. The news says consumer confidence is rising and unemployment is falling. Let's hope that holds. Oh yeah, Tebow ain't playing for the Gators anymore! We started off with our youngest grandson in the hospital and we weren't sure if he was going to make it. Now, he's 25 pounds of squirming, chattering happiness. If someone doesn't believe in miracles, just look at TJ. Those are my random thoughts for the day. Everyone have a wonderful day hanging out with your faves.