28 posts tagged “money”

Pay for your porn people!  The porn industry now needs a bailout.  So, since everyone wants, needs, asks for, gets, a bailout -- I'd like one.  But, everyone is greedy.  They ask for billions.  I'll be nice.  Just send me a check for a  million.  The way housing prices are dropping in Cali I can probably buy a house for that and maybe have enough left over to live off for a year.

Business news:
Starbucks profits fell 97%, I know I know you all hate Starbucks.  Sorry I love them.  The store we go to is full of nice people who always say hi, etc (customers and employees).  The employees know our names and drinks.  They start making them as soon as we walk through the door.  And a good percentage of the time their employees will tell us our drinks are on them... hmm maybe we're why their profits are down. heh.

Mervyn's is running commercials announcing everything is on sale because they're going out of business by order of the Bankruptcy court.

GM's stock is valued at $0 and they're as close to going under as can be without having gone under already. 

DHL is in the crapper too.  Axing jobs and express shipping.

Today was a bad day for business news.

Politics:
It was a more interesting political day.  No not the Obama / Bush meeting... Terry McAuliffe turned in papers to run for Virginia Governor next year.  Ohh there will be an interesting election to look forward to besides CA's Governor one in 2010. 

http://www.whatwecouldhavedonewiththemoney.com/

So I don't watch that *cough* fair and balanced news network... But I do watch the YouTube news and politics section fairly often.  So I know that last week they were all freaked out about a certain magazine cover, so much so that they called for people to unsubscribe to it!  It was an insult to women.  Etc etc etc.  Well both Brian and myself wanted to decide for ourselves.  When we went to get my meds this weekend we happened to notice the cover even though it's been partially covered by paper  (maybe it always was?).   We grabbed the magazine and stuck it up to our faces real close like, looked at it, each other, the cover again, each other, and finally we both just said  "That's it?"  They got freaked out about THAT cover?  That's an insult to women?   Wow... Yeah sooo ugly.  OMG I almost couldn't stand how disgusting she was!!!  They're sending a horrible message to women with real issues if they'd make such a huge issue about how ugly she was on that cover because knowing what an issue they made of it, I had that damn cover up to my face examining it closely and barely noticed the flaws even though they'd told me ahead of time what they were  and had they not said anything I wouldn't have noticed at all.   I'd hate to see what they'd say about women without make up etc not all spruced up for a cover shoot.  The fact that the pic wasn't airbrushed doesn't bug me, the fact that they'd insult her so much and go off on horrible she looked when she looked fine to me does.  They've sent a horrific message to women about looking normal in doing so.  Never thought I'd have to defend Palin and against Fox News no less... but yeah. 

Now if you'll excuse me, back to bed and my Blick Art Materials catalog!  See I'm not used to having money!  By some fluke, I'm going to have about $100 in my PayPal account  vs the usual $5-$20 that's there.  So I figured if I can be patient then around Nov 5th or so I can spoil myself as a late Bday present to myself. I planned to buy a binder to keep safe the few sketch pages I wanted to keep out of my sketch books, but see art stores and catalogs are evil.  Even a fake bad artist such as myself can't just spend say $5 or $10 there.  So when I calculated how much would be in my PayPal account not long after my bday I realized... oooh! ;)  I do my part for the economy, even though I'm broke as can be! heh.  And we pay my bills on time.  Ooh I want those pens... did I say $100 was enough? hrmph.  Damn catalog.  I need to play AND win the lottery, screw a house, I could spend that much on this catalog.  Have you seen how much a few pencils and a decent pen can cost?  

Remember how John McCain said something about Chicago politicians... I forget what it was but I'm pretty sure it showed the same disdain he tends to show for us Californians.... Well Sheriffs are elected officials are they not?  If that makes a Sheriff a politician, well here's a Chicago politician he might want to look up to...

Sheriff refuses to enforce eviction notices.  It seems that a lot of people have been paying rent.  Good right?  You pay your rent, you get to keep living in your home?  WRONG.  They've been paying rent to people who for some reason couldn't pay their mortgages but who didn't bother telling their renters BTW you're screwed I'm losing this house or apartment or whatever.  So innocent people, about 1/3 of the evictions that the sheriff's office were getting, were for people who had no idea or notice that it was coming.  See when you lose your house the bank has no interest in playing landlord so if there are tenants in it, they just tell them to get the hell out.  Well the sheriff in Chicago realized that there are laws in Illinois and to kick someone out of a home they rent, you're supposed to give notice.  So, the sheriff will resume carrying out evictions when these tenants are first given the 120 day notice required by state law.  HA! 

This sheriff deserves a medal.

The dow just closed at below 8,600.  -678.91 today

News people are trying to find a way to spin it positively.
Gas prices are down, so consumers have more cash in their pockets.
Holiday season is here but no one has any money to spend.
Nice spin. 

The debate was pretty much what could be expected for those of who watch politics except McCain's mortgage thing apparently.. I'll get to that in a minute, but first....

Taxes:
All of the fact check places say Obama didn't vote to raises taxes 94 times, why does McCain keep using that?  In fact they say using the method he used to get that number he voted to raise taxes more?   Obama doesn't seem to fight back much though that attack doesn't seem to hurt him much, are voters actually educating themselves?  Let's be honest here... we're in wars and McCain / Palin talk like we're gonna war Iran, Russia, etc as well.  We're gonna bail out everything.  AND we're gonna cut taxes on EVERYONE? AND pay off our debts?  *blinks*  I really DON'T understand finances it seems.

Earmarks:
Earmarks came up a little, I saw yesterday that Bear DNA earmark McCain likes to joke about.... he voted for... why does he use something as a joke he voted FOR?

Health care:
Obviously my #1 personal issue is health care.   In response to the question about health care McCain answered that it is a responsibility, Obama that it's a right.  To me, McCain's answer implies that I don't have health care because I'm erm irresponsible then?  First off he needs to quit saying he wants to give a $5k tax break to every American so they can buy insurance.  From his own website "$2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for families".   Unless he doesn't know his own plan or only considers Americans the ones who marry, it's NOT $5k for EVERY American and saying it is, is a lie, when I say it'd be $2,500 for me in my posts on the subject, I'm telling the truth.  I know his plan better than he does and I've not even read it all? :P 

Having worked in a hospital when I quit working allow me to tell you that you kind of already have a right to health care -- hospital emergency rooms cannot deny you care no matter your ability to pay. No insurance?  No job?  Already owe then tens of thousands of dollars?   No problem. Costs a ton more than going through doctors etc but they won't see you without cash up front.   I'm sure I've told you about UCLA.  And it keeps getting worse there.  The doctor I saw the most there?  She told me they kept  getting more and more patients in their system because more hospitals keep closing and more people keep losing their insurance so the hospital systems are their only choice.  If health care is a responsibility it's one that a large percentage of the population can no longer meet.   Why not?

McCain's personality problems:
I had to go look for this video on YouTube.  I was watching tv this morning and in the background they had a clip of the end of the debate, no sound, no commentary... Wait... was that Obama going to shake McCain's hand? DId he refuse and point him to Cindy's hand instead?  Was easy to find the video, it's a top YouTube video.  It WAS McCain blowing him off and refusing the shake.  *blink* Combine that with the not looking at Obama, and pointing to him and calling him "That One" during the debate, sorry that is disrespectful, not Senator Obama, but THAT ONE, point.... WTF?

The recent yelling of "Terrorist" by his followers at his rallies and "KILL HIM" at Palin's rally... and... well it's not looking good for McCain / Palin on the personality / culture / race thing except among their base.

One of two of these things alone could be brushed off as a fluke.  They keep happening more and more often.  Black communities are starting to speak out.  People like me are starting to notice.  I'm starting to believed they're encouraging it.  I went from seeing McCain as grumpy old man, to hints of racism, culturism (is that a word?), whatever you want to call it.  

In fact, I even thought it was odd that when answering the question posed by a black man in the audience, he gets to the part about how the Freddy / Fannie thing was so you can buy a house and live the American dream.  Usually they keep that kind answer directly to who they're talking to, no?  Instead he turns to the last guy he was talking to and says it's so that guy could buy a house.  I actually, while watching it was like eh?  I am not used to them ignoring the person they're answering to make the answer about others they've already talked to, so it stood out. 

Obama also stuck around to shake hands, take pics, talk with those in the audience, C-Span apparently announced to people getting their feed that the camera wasn't stuck on Obama but that McCain had left as people thought they were giving him unfair coverage or something.  While McCain tries to paint Obama as not like us, I think it's gonna backfire.  If McCain didn't already look out of touch with a lot of us, he's starting to now.

McCain's Mortgage thing:
Ok this is apparently the big story of the debate.  *blinks*  See this confuses financial idiots like me. We're buying up bad debt... right?  Isn't this mostly from the mortgage thing?  Now we're supposed to spent $300 billion on top of that?  To buy up mortgages of people close to losing homes because they haven't yet refinanced to fixed rate mortgages?  Aren't there already things in place for people to refinance their current mortgages?  Including some gov't thing that will help them find a lender or something, even Bush was talking about that yesterday from a paper company (I was totally thinking wow he's at The Office, heh). So is this supposed to be a more direct bailout (sorry if you add tax cuts for toy arrow companies it's called a rescue plan) for those truly trying to do the right thing and pay their bills instead of wall street?  If so why wasn't THIS sort of thing the initial plan?  Ugh, I don't get this at all.  If they can already refinance to fixed rated why does the gov't have to do it?  I'd probably trust my bank to refinance my home loan before I'd trust the gov't to do it.  So confused.  And didn't dems suggest something kind of like this anyway and no one liked it? Or no?