Svart said:
I have no love for any of those banker/trader/investor types and haven't since I've been out in the real world. They typically make huge amounts of money off of the needs of people less fortunate. Now that they are being brought down to the level of the common citizen, they whine and cry about losing their cushy lifestyles while the rest of us look on.
Unfortunately this also spills onto their spouses and flames. For someone to have a need to go to a support group because their significant other is now poor/jobless is just crazy to me.
I'm sorry that people lose their jobs but I'm not sorry for the recession. Housing prices, gas prices, food prices, etc, were WAY too high and only going up. This recession has reset things to the norm once again I think. You can't always keep increasing profits, there will come a time when the market is saturated with something and you just can't go up anymore.
I've never been able to afford dining out all the time. Heck, I've never been able to afford a vacation aside from the day trip. I can't imagine having someone in my life that would complain about not eating out or not going on vacation. It stuns me to read that there are people who can't enjoy life without this stuff.
Exactly....I've thought the same thing as people probably are hurting....think about this for a moment, remember back in the 90's?? Now that I look back in perspective, no sane/rational person can tell me that the majority of folks from the "little" to the "big" showed any fiscal responsiblity when it came to money management.
Maybe im a "closet Marxist/Communist" and dont even realize it LOL...but I would ask myself time in and time out "how hell do these companies (retail/dept stores) stay in business???"
Think about it...if you happened to live or lived in areas such as the "Booming areas" such as Arizona, Nevada, S.Florida when all this madness began; was it called for to have one "stripmall" after one stripmall in a 10mile radius??? 2 Home Depots, 4 different banks, KidRUS, Specs, Blockbuster Music, Blockbuster Videos, so on and so forth...now how did they make money??? It seems like now if you look at it they made money off of all the credit stupid people used to buy all this crap that they really didnt need.
Now before I get called a Nazi/Conservative...I'll use the talking point well "they got mortages that they couldnt afford"....but all thanks to preditory lenders for creating a culture of "braindead consumers" all while "independant" processes of corruption went on in the highest levels of Wallstreet.
As people were conditioned into buying and spending themselves into oblivion, wallstreet fatcats were riding the gravy train and thus with the right ingredients ...BAM!!! we have now what we have.
So NOW let me ask the question....the economic model/system that took place, was it something that could of been possible to persist??? Was what we have seen the "Free Market"??? or was it "Consumerism/Preditory Capitalism, "Laize Faire"?? Just asking a rhetorical question....
Now would it be unrealistic to say if people in the US actually applied some kind of common sense money management, (not that I am Christian or anything) but Dave Ramsey is someone that I think everyone should know about for there are some of course can take his money management ideas out of context, he has real common sense ideas towards money management and if everyone took his advice we wouldnt be hurting as bad as we are right now.
Also, is unrealistic to say that we can go back somewhat to the days BEFORE corporatism took over?? during the days when a person knew how to change a flat tire and most US citizens were "rugged" individuals?? I believe so, with the modern spirit of DIY which I've discovered thanks to this site;we certainly can!!! Just so as many people can wake up and realize the economic model of yesterday had no real connection with "reality.