BANKS SUCK!

What can you say for someone who would hold your cash and pay you 1% to 3% interest, then lend that same money out at 15-30%! Would you say this is a good deal? A fair deal??
from CNN Money:

In 2007, the top 12 card issuers earned a combined $19 billion from credit cards, according to The Nilson Report. A year later, amid the financial meltdown, profits for those companies fell more than 65 percent to $6.32 billion. The plunge was largely because defaults ballooned as unemployment soared.

FICO Inc., the company best known for its credit scores, projects the average card will generate less than $100 a month in revenue within three years, down from $200 a month before the law.
That helps explain why the industry reacted so aggressively to the latest credit-card legislation.

SUPPORT CREDIT UNIONS and co-ops that use deposits to help borrowers, not gouge them!

Financial Reality: US vs THEM!

I realized (at this old age!) that the world is not a happy playground-- never mind war (we got enuff), but the everyday world really is US vs THEM: the US includes yourself and those like-minded FOR THE SITUATION: your allies shift along with the enemy. But the obvious longterm conflict I see so clearly now is: BANKS and OIL COMPANIES vs middle class consumers ("US"). These guys really are trying to suck our wallets to fill theirs!
And it isn't just a demand-market thing (they got it, we need it, we buy it for their price)... it's freakin' PREDATORY. How can anyone justify working for a bank , credit-card company, or oil pumper/refiner knowing the harm they are doing to our economy? It's almost like the "good Germans" who supported the Nazis!

I'm Back...and boy was I right.(again)

Following the banking/bailout debacle (Obama no help), the stock market roared right back. ONLY NOW, in mid-January 2010, are investors realizing what TWO YEARS OF DOUBLE-DIGIT UNEMPLOYMENT will mean; everyone has been so busy applauding how we survived that they ignore all the suddenly-jobless-and-poor people piling up. Congress "secretly" elongated unemployment compensation so that affected workers DON'T SHOW UP in regular unemployment numbers. I think we are on the momentary lift of a crashing airplane, just before it hits ground. Trying to better my nest, but my past overspending and inelastic income are destroying my IRA and quadrupling my taxes!

Depression Watch

"All that I've said has come true with a vengeance..."-- Bush bails and leaves Obama holding the sack of feces!! My only hope is that history will show this was GOP/Bush's fault. The whole party needs to be marginalized until it represents something other than elitist monied interests.

Bush *FINALLY* gets it...

"Today's job data reflects the fact that our economy is in a recession," Bush said.

DUHH!!

IT'S OFFICIAL: Recession since Dec'07

CNNMoney reports:
The National Bureau of Economic Research said Monday that the U.S. has been in a recession since December 2007, making official what most Americans have already believed about the state of the economy .

'NUFF SAID! I was right, Bush was wrong...and bad...and thankfully gone. Now if we could just ditch the Fed!

I'm Back...and boy was I right...

Events of past six months bear out my recession prediction. Fed and the Bush Treasury screwed up big-time, and all Americans will pay the price for years to come; most affected will be the foreclosed and bankrupted, but individual taxpayers and 401K/IRA retirees also got whacked.

Thank Heaven the electorate realized it needed Obama more than four more years of GOP mismanagement!