Got yourself in trouble financially?Too bad for you.Don't expect help from Uncle Sam for your faults

[patrice]

It isn't the taxpayers' fault that your jobs keep disappearing and your paycheck, which you expected to sustain debts that are proportionate to those sustained by the masters of our economic system, has declined by some $10,000. or more a year AND you have no prospect of changing this situation.

You gambled and lost, too bad for you that you didn't know what the game was, don't expect U.S. to do anything about that.

.....................

I'm not putting a sarcasm emoticon on this because it isn't sarcasm. It IS the way that some people actually think.

[meegbear]

1. Like "Joe The Plumber" ...

or "Joe The Reporter" or "Joe Whatever The Fuck He Is Today". Whining about people "living off his taxes", but when he did, TWICE, that was different.

[pipi_k]

17. He,and everyone else like him...

fuckheads.


Even people who don't pay income tax end up paying taxes of some kind or another.

Excise tax, sales tax, property tax, cigarette tax, gas tax, whatever.

[Uben]

2. You have to stick your neck out....

.....sometimes if you want to get ahead. You don't always win those situations and should be prepared if something goes awry. The government is not in the business of bailing people out of debt, as well they shouldn't be. They should not be bailing out private businesses either. We all fail at some point in our lives. The true measure of a person is how they cope and deal with those failures. You aren't judged on how many times you fail, but how many times you succeed.

[patrice]

3. The Government should manage for those who need it the most. That doesn't include everyone in

need, but what the Government SHOULD do for those with problems, rather than picking up and doing it for them, is to manage the things that ARE beyond our capacity, e.g. outsourcing jobs on the American tax dollar. Seeing to it that our food, water, air etc. don't give us health problems that impact our abilities to pay our debts. Creating the types of transportation that are MOST appropriate to our cities' needs. Protecting at least to some reasonable degree our investments.

[Uben]

5. Yes, government should oversee these things

...but, everyone should be prepared to do what they have to do to get by. If you are not elderly or handicapped and are counting on the government to get by, I suggest you make other plans. Money is going to get even tighter than it is now before it gets better.

I have recently began conducting estate liquidations to earn extra cash. It's hard work but it pays well if you plan it out. I earned $4K this month on one sale, working nights and weekends to set it up and conduct the sale. It's not that much, but an extra $4K will go a long way for a lot of folks.

[LeftishBrit]

10. Estate liquidation?? Yes, that might be one of the few businesses to do well in a recession!

I wouldn't like to think of THAT as the next growth industry, however.

[Uben]

12. Actually.....

...most estate liquidations are the result of a death. A lot of working families do not have the time or organizational skills to execute an estate sale. And, a lot had rather pay someone like me to go through the estate, cull the trash, group the items that will sell, price them, display them, advertise, organize, and staff the sales, and they still get half the proceeds. Sometimes it's just too hard to go through a loved ones things so soon after their death. Every thing is a memory to family members.

Believe me, you earn your money!

[pipi_k]

18. I can just imagine...

after my MIL died in 2005, the three kids and their spouses went through her mobile home, keeping what we wanted and then trying to get rid of the rest.

How much stuff can someone cram into a mobile home, people ask...

OMG

there were stacks and stacks of paid bills going back to 1970 (when she and her husband bought the mobile home). Gifts people gave her that she never used...just put away for God only knows what reason. Clothing with tags still on them. A couple of small garden sheds packed full of useless crap that had been rained on and made into condominiums by small critters.

Don't get me wrong..it was fairly neat and clean, just lots of stuff.


Actually, one of the more poignant things we found were a pair of beautiful satin pajamas that she wore on her wedding night in 1936, neatly folded and boxed, with a piece of paper inside noting the date.

Those made me cry...

[PassingFair]

4. I was thinking today, that during the Clinton years...

my husband PAID MORE IN TAXES than he now
makes in a year.

I had to get a "real" job to pay the
outrageous, only partially deductible
health care premiums we had as a family
and a family business...

The only people who seem to have made
out during the Bush years are the
"investment classes" and contractors
who were allowed to over-develop, both
domestically here and militarily abroad.

Everyone else got HOSED.

[Uben]

6. I got news fer ya!

The investment class folks took a helluva beating under Bush. If you invested in houses, you got hosed......in the market, you got hosed. I personally lost over 50% of my portfolio. The only ones who made out are the government contractors. They got FAT!

[patrice]

7. I lost about a third of my "portfolio" (not a word I use much, because I'm not wealthy)!

IRAs that I couldn't pull out without penalty. I will always wonder if the penalties would have been less than what I lost in the market.

[PassingFair]

11. Only at the end....

"The investment class folks took a helluva beating under Bush."

Only if you were out of the loop.

LOTS of criminals got out before the
markets crashed back down....

Remember when the DOW was over 14,000 in
2007?

[Coyote_Bandit]

8. Ummmm......

If somebody is selling you something then you should suspect that they are not necessarily protecting your interests. They're trying to earn a buck. After you sign on the dotted line the payments are your responsibility. That means you must protect your own interests. Buyer beware.

Nobody should expect the government - or anybody else - to bail them out. Folks are responsible for their financial decisions. There is no obligation to rescue somebody who makes a poor decision - and there is no entitlement to anything.

[nebenaube]

13. No...

Our decisions were made under the same expectations that everyone else was operating under. If we can bail out the banks, we can cancel the consumer debt. No one is going to recover a dime of it anyway!

[Coyote_Bandit]

15. Peer Pressure

is poor justification for bad decisions.

I personally am acquainted with someone who is a well-educated professional working in the legal system bringing in a nice income who signed a mortgage without understanding the payment terms. She and her husband live in a home that is over 5000 square foot. What responsible person would borrow several hundred thousand dollars or more without understanding the payment terms?

I also know a 50 something single woman who lived a very frugal lifestyle for many years and saved her pennies. When she bought a home several years ago she bought one that was small by modern standards and in need of some repair and sixty years old. She paid cash, owns the home outright and did many of the repairs herself. She's not well educated and earns less than $30,000 annually (before taxes) working as a receptionist. Why should she be asked to subsidize someone else's excess and irresponsible consumption?

[patrice]

14. Though I might agree generally, yours is a rather absolutist POV.

Entitlements are something for nothing. I agree that most of the time there are no entitlements; whatever I expect to receive is the result of something that I have agreed to give.

Re absolutism: What about those who are unable to engage in the relationships I affirm above? Do we just let them die (preferably NOT in the streets because that would cause social panic) shall we just warehouse them until they are no longer a problem, because there are NO entitlements?

Later . . .

p

[Waiting For Everyman]

9. We should expect to get bailed out of mass criminality that was allowed.

Abso-fuckin-lutely.

The mass number of people damaged by this didn't "take risks", they were ripped off, while government stood by and did nothing... worse than that, enabled it. (One example: Bush shutting down all 50 governors' cracking down on predatory mortgages, more than a year before the crisis.)

We should expect our localities to be bailed out of the damage that banks have done to our neighborhoods and cities. Whoever does the damage PAYS for it.

And just as "basic premise", we should expect for the basics of life to be affordable... otherwise, looking after ourselves is not possible, is it? It's a f-ed-up joke. Well we're not laughing. All of this was intentional, and criminal.

And yes, it should be compensated. And it better happen fast, or what's left of this economy is going under. Those who think as the OP suggests can put that in your "moral hazard", and consider it on your way down the black hole which will result from that kind of attitude and agenda.

[pipi_k]

16. More people to blame...

All those unpatriotic traitors who said they would leave the US if Bush "won" (and I use that word with the taste of puke in my throat) in 2004.

If they had gone to China or India, they could have had jobs right now. Working for $1.50 an hour...what a deal!







using the :sarcasm: just in case...

[Johonny]

19. I agree with you

But more depending on cause. A person in debt do to medical condition is vastly different than a person that sold their house to themselves to buy a new SUV or lied on a housing loan to buy a house a peak market value they could never afford with an honest loan application. Then their are the people who's only gamble was the luck of the draw into which socio-economic bracket they were born into. Safety nets for those that lose jobs and those born into poverty are in general good for society.