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Forums - General - Tough economic times - How is it affecting your life style?

TheRealMafoo on 26 February 2009
akuma587 said:

So are you telling the government to give states' money with no strings attached?  And if those states aren't getting more money for that policy in the future, what is stopping them from getting rid of that policy?  Its not like the federal government can just come in and indemnify states.  The extent of their power is cutting off funding.  They can't really cut off funding as an incentive if they aren't going to provide that funding in the first place.  Nothing is stopping a state from changing its policies back.

Not to mention this is an extremely small provision you are talking about, mostly unemployment coverage.  Governors who are complaining about this are taking every other dollar allocated to them without saying a word.  Its like complaining when someone gives you a cupcake for free and you got pink icing instead of chocolate icing.

If they don't want it, no one is forcing them to take it.  Are you complaining that the federal government is setting standards for how this money is used right after you were just complaining how the government has not set enough standards for something else?

I never said the government didn't set enough standards, I said the government needed to do nothing in the first place. If the government had just stayed out of the home loan business, there would have been no sub prime lending (or very little).

States get a lot of money from the Feds. If they go back on the policy, they will deduct it from other funds they receive.

Now.. for the line that floored me....

"Its like complaining when someone gives you a cupcake for free and you got pink icing instead of chocolate icing."

This is the kind of thinking that just gets to me. IT'S NOT FREE!!! A better analogy is:

"It's like someone took 5 pounds of flower and 3 pounds of sugar from you, bakes a cupcake with it, and gave you pink icing instead of chocolate"

The money belongs to the people of the United States. Taking it just to give far less of it back, is not free.

 



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FaRmLaNd on 26 February 2009

Not affected at all. My video ventures are actually doing a lot better then they were doing a year ago. I get more work and more money.

So I'm not being hit at all it.



NJ5 on 26 February 2009

So far I'm doing fine. The company I work at is laying people off, but most likely not in my department. The only fear is that I get replaced by someone from another department, who would otherwise have been laid off. But this seems unlikely too since the project we're doing is already suffering delays, replacing people would only make it worse.

Due to this slight uncertainty, I'm putting off buying a house and still living at a rental room. And I'm putting off some potential purchases too (new laptop).



My Mario Kart Wii friend code: 2707-1866-0957

Esmoreit on 26 February 2009

I'm not quite hit at the moment. I'm spending way less on entertainment and food but that is because I moved out of the house - a few weeks prior to the crash. Other then that I'm not affected. Like Kasz I'm very fiscally/cost conscious and I'm not afraid to lose my job.

I think it will affect me in a couple of months though. I will get my masters in consultancy and I doubt any firms will now be hiring juniors. I'll probably be either doing the job I'm doing now untill firms are re-hiring again, or just try and find some project work (which, off course is a lot more risky but in my experience more fun)



The Doctor will see you now  Promoting Lesbianism -->

                              

Lostplanet22 on 26 February 2009

So far I am not affected by it and so far no one in my family got affected.



 

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bardicverse on 26 February 2009

So since Bank of America is struggling, I benefit from the recession. I owed them $10,000 in credit card debt, was put on a payment plan, and paid $1,500 so far. They are offering to settle at $4500, so I'll have paid about half of what I owed



Moongoddess256 on 26 February 2009

hooooolllly shit bardic. How did you rack up that much of a debt? I avoid any form of debt at all costs. Even if it means not seeking medical treatment when I need it haha. All I have is my car loan (which is a fairly low amount since I paid 1/3 of the cars cost in my down payment) and I pay my credit card off in full every month. I only use it to get the rewards points.



[2:08:58 am] Moongoddess256: being asian makes you naturally good at ddr
[2:09:22 am] gnizmo: its a weird genetic thing
[2:09:30 am] gnizmo: goes back to hunting giant crabs in feudal Japan

bardicverse on 26 February 2009

LOL MoonGoddess, that's only PART of the total. I'd say my high point was about 30,000 in credit cards and car payments. I got it down to about 18,000. With the new offer and my current cards, its about 12,000 left

How? Starting a business and buying stuff for it, moving across the globe twice, and building a recording studio for the most part =)



akuma587 on 26 February 2009
TheRealMafoo said:

I never said the government didn't set enough standards, I said the government needed to do nothing in the first place. If the government had just stayed out of the home loan business, there would have been no sub prime lending (or very little).

States get a lot of money from the Feds. If they go back on the policy, they will deduct it from other funds they receive.

Now.. for the line that floored me....

"Its like complaining when someone gives you a cupcake for free and you got pink icing instead of chocolate icing."

This is the kind of thinking that just gets to me. IT'S NOT FREE!!! A better analogy is:

"It's like someone took 5 pounds of flower and 3 pounds of sugar from you, bakes a cupcake with it, and gave you pink icing instead of chocolate"

The money belongs to the people of the United States. Taking it just to give far less of it back, is not free.

 

To the state government it is free.  You are getting into a completely different issue outside the one we are talking about.

 



We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.  The only thing that really worried me was the ether.  There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke

It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...."  Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson

TheRealMafoo on 26 February 2009

There is no such thing as free money. First, the states have to do something to get it (bend there policy's to congress's will), and second the money came from the people of the states to begin with. How in the hell is that free? If the people of... say... Oklahoma are taxed for 1 billion, and 500 million is "given" to the state, that is not doing the state any favors.