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March 29, 2008 at 4:06 am #586641
TheHouseMemberDamn, y’all have too much time on your hands. I’ve been gone for a week and there are like 1000 new messages.
Thought I’d weigh in:
Key and Lock Benefit – I’m in and will try to attend. Not sure if anyone asked, but isn’t there something called insurance that covers this kind of stuff?
EV Concert – F’n incredible! I even drove by Kenyon Hall one of the nights and noticed that there were alot of folks. I thought it was a school function. Wish I could have been there, but it looks like I did secure a poster (no, I will not auction it and I am getting it insured).
Trader Joes – don’t need them. We have one in Burien and Whole Foods/Metropolitan Market kicks their ass in selection.
Earth Day – Live every day like it is Earth Day and you don’t have to celebrate another Hallmark Holiday…this is getting to be too much like Valentines Day.
Weird News of the Day – WTF? This is stuff that even Barnum couldn’t dream up? Glad to see that we’re glorifying people with psycological issues.
Housing – Home Prices Dropping are like the stick market dropping…doesn’t hurt you unless you are selling right now. I suggest everyone BUYS right now…it is the time. Also, stop blaming the mortgage industry for people AGREEING to sign adjustable rate mortgages….it was a choice!
Recession – The press loves this word. Stop buying into the hype. Educated consumers can easily ride the small wave we’re seeing right now.
Make love, not war to a terrorists back side.
March 29, 2008 at 5:43 am #620371
JanSParticipantHouse…he didn’t have fire insurance…yes, in hindsight, we can all say…but, he should have. He was in a brick bldg, and got his liability insurance and others except fire. It wasn’t in the budget. He never expected someone to toss a molotov cocktail in his business…
so…the fundraiser…and it’ll definitely be fun…just neighbors helping out neighbors…glad you’ll try to make it :)
March 29, 2008 at 5:43 am #620372
AnonymousInactiveHouse – Love your post. You were truly missed. Jealous you got to go to the concert, I wouldn’t auction the poster either.
Spoke with Mike (PSL&K) personally. He did not have insurance that would cover this (and you know my guy, he is an insurance attorney, so it was gone over with a fine tooth comb) Exploring other avenues in this general area.
Again… you’ve been missed. Glad to have you back (and, yeah, I know that I have too much time on my hands!)
March 29, 2008 at 8:44 pm #620373
JoBParticipantHouse…
now that was an attention getting post…
earth day.. how about living it every day and letting the world… and your children who remember hallmark moments like this… know you think it’s important…
If we are making assumptions about people with psychological problems.. i have to admit that i secretly assume that republicans have severe psychological problems… too bad they don’t get press: ;->
I am not into recession “hype” .. but am sure paying a lot for food and gas these days.. and they aren’t discretionary spending.
We are able to ride it out.. but i worry that those who have already been making choices between food and medicine will have to begin making choices between making it to their jobs and eating.
a trader joes in the high point would do a lot of good…
again.. some folks find the Metropolitan Market affordable only for special items… and some only for their free coupons.
Many high point residents could use an affordable market within walking distance in their neighborhood that doesn’t stock mainly junk food.
Think of it.. helping people to make healthy food choices…
And it would bring some much needed jobs and commerce into the neighborhood.. all to the good.
I am out of time. Plants trump controversy every day for me. I am off to meet plant people at cafe Lardo:)
Welcome back:)
March 30, 2008 at 12:15 am #620374
soclwrkrinmotnMemberPerhaps we do have a lot of time on our hands, perhaps not. Speaking for myself, I have next to none. And this is my first time response, I think…so I need to let fly, although I know I am echoing some folks already.
Key and Lock Benefit – I am sure the guy had insurance, but in a brick building with a not so flammable business…come on, ese…would you plan for being fire bombed by the neighborhood kids? Fire insurance is pretty expensive.
EV Concert – You do know he donates a lot of $$ to organizations serving homeless youth…
Trader Joes – don’t need them. I have to concur, but I don’t think Metro Market or Whole Foods or PCC offers anything…they are almost out of my price range…
Earth Day – Live every day like it is Earth Day…yep, it seems we agree on some things.
Weird News of the Day – Yeah, we are glorifying folks with psychological and organic brain issues…like our so called commander in chief. Otherwise, unless you are a clinician, be careful who you diagnose. I am not pregnant, but I am a guy, who happens to be transgender, quite of sound mind, work as a clinician on my off time, and ese, I do take offense to this. If someone wants to have a baby, the baby is wanted and loved, can be cared for, and then who are you–or anyone else for that matter–to judge?
Housing – No. Mortgages a choice? Not so much. Too many people have a choice that is no choice: sign this mortgage, or refinance, or just be without a house. (and in the long run, they will likely be without the house any way.)
Recession – And what of the folks stranded working in the service economy? Their wages going down, being laid off…and well…can they ride that out?
Yep, I am one of those left-wing radicals…I guess I just had to say m’piece.
March 30, 2008 at 12:59 am #620375
beachdrivegirlParticipantWelcome Soclwrkrinmotn. And House, I have to say you were missed. And yes I do have much time for the blog these days and I am just wondering when they will block my internet access while @ work…
March 30, 2008 at 1:33 am #620376
charlabobParticipantLet me second the welcome, soclwrkrinmotn — it’s good to have a fresh voice and POV. Come back soon and often.
March 30, 2008 at 2:24 am #620377
JayDeeParticipantDear House:
Check out the Trader Jo…I mean “Racism” discussion. The site mentioned is entertaining, even if my own ox is getting gored. I have way too much in common mentioned in that thread, and here I thought I was a country club republican (the extinct species of Republican, the social-moderate, fiscal conservative type) to be considered the white liberal stereotype skewered by that site. Not that I endorse that site, or any views endorsed by it…But I did chuckle a bit…I think you might like it too. For some reason.
Welcome back. JayDee.
March 30, 2008 at 2:42 am #620378
TheHouseMemberWelcome, Soc. Here is an education in how ese is actually used. I hope that you’re of Latin descent.
1. esé
The one you are refering to. Should only be spoken by Mexicans, Cubans ect. Otherwise it’s like saying nigga when your white.
With that out of the way, please add your name to the list of folks that disagree with me. I look forward to the witty banter.
As for elaborating on your responses on transgender, they’re way to heavy for WSB. I’m not trying to change the world, I simply stated my opinion on the “News of the Day”. Whether you agree or not, we’ll both sleep well this evening!
March 30, 2008 at 3:25 am #620379
soclwrkrinmotnMember*falls out of chair laughing*
I assure you, I am a nice Chicano/Native/White guy. (We might dispute over my use of the term “guy,” but someday we can meet at EBB and we can dispute in person. I love a heated debate.) But I was raised by my Chicano side of the family, and you don’t have to tell me about cultural appropriation…Seattle is full of it!
Too heavy for WSB? Naw, never. Can’t believe that.
But, heck, on day like this, what else can we do but sleep? We shall sleep well, and live to debate another day.
March 30, 2008 at 6:01 am #620380
AnonymousInactiveJaydee – Another Republican on this site? Why haven’t you spoken up sooner? Maybe you have. Did I miss it?
March 30, 2008 at 6:18 am #620381
AnonymousInactiveNR, don’t be an agitator! We don’t need any more Republicans getting comfortable here:)
March 30, 2008 at 6:22 am #620382
JanSParticipanthehehehehe….
March 30, 2008 at 11:46 am #620383
SueParticipantHouse, I agree with you totally on the housing issue – this is one of my big soapbox issues. I think way too many people put more energy into the mundane things in their lives than they do into buying a house. “Somebody” tells them it’s a good idea to get involved in real estate or they “must” have a house, and they blindly sign stuff without understanding it. When my apartment proposed going condo, we were offered the chance to buy. As a renter for 22 years, I didn’t know a thing about real estate. I took the time to learn, and to ask questions if I didn’t understand something.
I can truly see how easy it is to get suckered into some of these bad loans – when they told me my payments (mortgage/interest/dues) would be $2600/mo. on the fixed mortgage, they also said I could pay “only” $1700 if I went with 5 year adjustable, interest-only. That’s a big difference and makes the place look a lot more affordable. And it’s easy to believe you’ll be in a better place financially 5 years from now and buy into it. But once I educated myself how it all worked, versus my own situation, I decided the risk was too high.
People are free to make their own decisions about what risk they wish to take with housing, but then they need to also take the personal responsibility to deal with it and not expect handouts if it goes bad. And I don’t blindly accept ignorance here – when you make a decision this big, you need to understand what you’re getting into. I work in the legal field, so I was fortune enough to understand what I was reading. If I wasn’t, I would have hired someone to do it. If someone can’t afford to hire legal/financial people to assist them with such a huge decision, then they can’t afford to buy a home.
March 30, 2008 at 4:15 pm #620384
JoBParticipantSue..
there is a lot to what you say…
and in this state.. at least people will have a reasonable chance at knowing what they are signing…
but it isn’t the same everywhere.
nor are we all as well schooled as you and i…
And there’s that dream… the american dream.. of home ownership.
it’s all a gamble anyway.. even those of us who have incomes … know what we are signing.. and negotiate a great deal.. we can’t know what the housing market will do.
We barely escaped huge losses when we sold our house in Minnesota… six months ago…as it was we didn’t come close to breaking even..
it was a nice house.. we had done everything possible to market it… we had a great mtg… (wish i could have transplanted house and mtg) …
our move just didn’t time out well for the housing market.. six months earlier it would have been a very profitable transaction. two weeks later and we would have lost more… or perhaps still been sitting on a mtg for an empty house not yet sold.
My ex is still sitting on a condo he bought 20 years ago at the top of the housing market in Denver… it had just began to look like a good investment again when the housing market tumbled this year.
It has been a great home base for him for his career in flying.. but not the investment he had imagined. And.. not the home he wants to retire in.
it’s a gamble…
i just want all of us to have a reasonable chance at figuring out just what kind of gamble we are taking.
March 30, 2008 at 4:25 pm #620385
charlabobParticipantCould somebody please explain to me why bailing out Bear Stearns, for example, a company that knew the risk involved, took it on, and refused to help other companies in the same situation is moral and helping homeowners, who bought into a false dream, isn’t? I’m not interested in debating the internals of the world of high finance; they really aren’t relevant here.
The question is quite simple: everyone, right left and center, seems ready to pile on the “undeserving” homeowner or the “foolish” person who didn’t bet on a job with a future.
I’m just wondering why corporations always seem to be deserving and people never are.
I look forward to reading the responses — these questions aren’t as grumpy as they sound — just very blunt because I’ve been watching Sunday morning talking heads television and it makes me, um, tense :-)
March 30, 2008 at 4:31 pm #620386
JoBParticipantcharlabob…
i don’t think bailing out Bear Stearns helps a single homeowner.. unless you count those who still own their homes.
it is possible that it may help stop the slide in property values to not have more homes dumped on the market at fire sale prices… but only if restrictions were placed on them as part of the bailout and i doubt that was the case.
it could help those of us with IRAs to consider tho.. if it manages to help prop up the stock market.. which rises or falls with “confidence”.
i don’t have much confidence in that either.
The problem in a nutshell is that we have been paying huge amounts out in corporate welfare… ok .. we call it incentives and bail outs… but aren’t much interested in individuals…
All the more reason to elect a democrat and at least increase our odds.
March 30, 2008 at 4:45 pm #620387
charlabobParticipantJoB, bailing out BS (!) absolutely didn’t help homeowners (unless you’re a firm believer in trickle down economics and I haven’t felt any drops for years.) Because of the deregulation that started with Reagan, we’ve had no regulatory control, especially over the “new financial institutions”, such as hedge funds.
Now the Repugs are scurrying around to try to make it look like they’re doing something — giving the Fed power to “investigate” without any regulatory or enforcement power.
Sadly, some of the employees of BS are about to lose their jobs and see much of their retirement disappears because it was invested in BS. Shades of Enron. And the deal might still fall through because the big kids are fighting to get bigger pieces of the pie. Original offer – 2.25; now upped to 10.25 and the FED isn’t necessarily willing to back that. Oh, yeah, and the CEO of BS sold stock at 10.50 before he went off on his golf and bridge vacation — three days before black Friday.
Corporate welfare, incentivizing offshoring and tax avoidance — these are all just acceptable –but g-d help us if we propose increasing the number of kids who get subsidized health care because some of them might be UNdeserving.
Yup, electing more Democrats will help — electing *a* Democrat at the top won’t, unless (s)he has a supporting cast. And if either of our leading candidates brings back Robert Rubin, I will just scream!!!
Barney Frank and Charlie Rangel, heads of House and Senate finance committees, have the most realistic plans to help the economy. They start with lowering corporate taxes and closing the loopholes.
I’m just suffering an attack of fed-upness, as I admitted before, because individuals have to prove “they did everything right,” before they “deserve” consideration and corporations just say “gimmee.”
March 30, 2008 at 6:44 pm #620388
ErikParticipantThe Federal Reserve, which is not a part of the U.S. Government – it’s a privately held consortium of international bankers with the charge of creating and loaning the U.S. money for a nice profit, can do as it pleases.
They have decided, along with their fellow European FEDs (Bank of England, Bank of France, Bank of Germany) that it’s important to save the large banks so that we can keep the illusion of a stable monetary policy afloat.
They’ve had a history of creating the problem then coming up with the solution to it. Look at today’s headline of how the FED will become a new financial super-cop. This is giving all the keys to the fox so they can keep us hens even more penned up. Greenspan can be blamed for the present problems for luring so many into the trap by dangling ultra low interest rates to entice the hordes into the game.
Some interesting or scary reading is about how this country has wrestled the pressures of trying to keep a central bank from taking over and finally succumbing in 1912 with the present Federal Reserve and the non-ratified Income Tax we all love to pay to cover the interest on this money.
Past presidents that have tried to float their own interest-free greenbacks in defiance of the central bank (Lincoln and Kennedy to name two) somehow had shortened presidencies, so their policies were quickly scrapped once the successor took over.
Congress can try all it wants to change the rules but the facts are that we are in debt to these banks and they have the control.
In short, this is why I don’t identify with being a D or an R because I feel our problems are much deeper.
March 30, 2008 at 9:27 pm #620389
beachdrivegirlParticipantErik, thanks for that. I had never heard that before and now feel more educated.
March 30, 2008 at 10:01 pm #620390
TheHouseMemberErik, thanks for expaining to the everyone out there. You did it better than I could have since I would have interjected comments about how the media enjoys using emotional terms such as “bailout” to fuel the left’s position on our current leaders.
Here is a good article from the LA Times that explains it as well.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-leonard-thornberg28mar28,0,3127741,full.story
Charla and JoB, I’d like to see the world through your eyes for just one day. I’m sure the skies are a deep purple and the trees psychedelic pink. Perhaps your lack of clarity and reasoning comes from taking one too many tabs in the sixties?
Love me!
March 30, 2008 at 11:57 pm #620391
JanSParticipantah, yes, the 60’s…you should have been there…enlightening :)
March 31, 2008 at 3:15 am #620392
JoBParticipantTheHouse..
i can’t speak for Charla, but i took no tabs in the 60s.. or the 70s.. so let’s not quibble. I doubt Charla did either.
We were mom’s .. as strange as it may seem to you that anyone would have been doing anything but drugs and rock and roll.
We had kids and jobs and mortgages and responsibilities.. oh my:(
I don’t wake up and see the world in psychedelic colors.. but i do wake up and see the world as a place with other human beings .. and realize that my world will actually be better if their’s is too.
yes house.. even yours:)
i bet Charla feels the same way… though she would never admit to waking up optimistic:)
For me, a sense of community is what makes life worth the struggle it can sometimes be.
you should try it some time.
it’s not Jonestown pink kool-aid you know.
March 31, 2008 at 3:58 am #620393
charlabobParticipantYup, JoB is right, and she’s welcome to speak for me as long as she gets it right (which, with one glaring exception, she almost always does.)
I found Erik’s post interesting and informative. The current proposals gives the FED investigative authority, but no enforcement or regulatory power — otherwise it’s spot on. We may come to different conclusions — but that is what makes life interesting.
I’m actually going off to read and understand more about the history of the Fed and monetary policy.
JoB, I’m more optimistic than you know — I never think “nothing can be done” and, as the late Warren Zevon, said, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”
Sometimes my inability to suffer fools, gladly or at all, gets in my way..there are way too many of them in the world for my taste. JanS and JoB, I salute your immense patience and humor, you are much better women than I. :-)
March 31, 2008 at 4:08 am #620394
JanSParticipantCharla…in a word…nah…:)
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