Posted on 04/04/2005 10:46:18 AM PDT by ex-Texan
The average American in the year 2005 lives a fragile existence, in a struggle for survival that can be ended by missing a few paychecks. The carrot at the end of the stick which was formerly known as "the American dream" has been replaced by a whip that can best be described as the "American nightmare" * * * You no longer work to achieve a better life for yourselves and your children. You work to keep a roof over your head, and you pray that you don't lose it. You became a slave when fear replaced incentive as your motivation to work, but I still suggest that you work while you can, because if the company you work for can't send your job overseas, the U.S. government is allowing 2000 people per day to enter this country illegally, because they're willing to do your job for less.
It doesn't matter if you're a "white collar" or "blue collar" employee. If you're an American, you're too highly paid. There are billions of people who want your job, and your government is doing all they can to see that you lose it to them. You see, we're not really American citizens anymore. We are viewed by the government as "consumers" and "tax payers." Now we're just anonymous faces in the "global village," because our government has sold our nation to foreigners and international bankers, and the new bankruptcy law has doomed the American citizen to a life of debt slavery.
Government will insist that illegal immigrants are only doing jobs that Americans refuse to do, and you'll probably believe it, because if you're watching the "Mainstream Media" that endorses this nonsense, you probably still have your job.
Illegal immigrants are doing jobs that Americans always did, and every unemployed American I talk to cannot find a job anywhere. And just like the European immigrants that flooded this country before the economic depression of the 1930's, today's illegal immigrants also have no gripe with a government that has allowed them work for high wages in America, and send billions back to their homeland. Nor do they care very much about our constitution, bill of rights, or way of life. They're only here for what they can grab, and our government has welcomed them with open arms, because they're grabbing it from you.
You're already working much longer, and much harder, to achieve a much lower standard of living than the previous generation, and 25 percent of working Americans no longer even get a vacation. The Social Security retirement age has been raised to match the life expectancy of American males, so apparently, you're also expected to work until you're dead. When you do finally get a vacation, they only trip you'll be taking will be in a pine box, and that's only if you're one of the lucky ones. Most of us will only get the state-issued canvas bag that gets tossed into the pit with all the others.
If you don't mind the fact that you'll be working until you're dead, you might also want to consider the fact that you'll get nothing for your labor, because this nation's economy may be about to crash like a freight train, and when it does, everything you've worked for will vanish. After the depression gets ugly, and your family has made the adjustment from three meals per day to three meals per week, the newspapers will blame your hunger on "the economy," as if it were some magical force that uncontrollably ruined a couple hundred million lives. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Politicians and international bankers can manipulate national economies at will, much in the way the media manipulates your mind, and a decision has been made to impoverish Americans, because global government requires that everyone in the world have an equally low standard of living. Simply put, we're being robbed of all we've worked for, because our government wants us to be poor, hungry, and docile, dependant upon them for our existence, and in fear of them for our lives. The government of the United States is intentionally destroying the economy of the United States, because the politicians and the international bankers they work for have decided that the American way of life, and catering to the demands of the American constitution, is simply too expensive.
Regardless of how wealthy you think you are, you actually have no real money at all. The "federal reserve notes" that are in your wallet, and your bank account, aren't really money, but are actually only paper on a debt that can never be paid, not even by combining all the assets and labor of every American alive today. Any loan-shark with a third grade education will tell you "that paper's no good," and naturally, the foreign investors who allow us to float this debt, have come to the same conclusion.
What is commonly known as the "U.S. dollar," represents a debt that is owed by the U.S. federal government, to the federal reserve bank. The federal reserve bank happens to be the privately owned entity that lent the money that's represented by the paper in your wallet. The federal reserve act signed away everything you own, and the fruit of your labor as collateral on this debt, and as foreign investors are becoming increasingly unwilling to invest the $2 billion per day needed to cover the interest, our creditors will want to collect it.
"baloney. In america in the 1960s, my father was able to get a job out of college, have a wife who did not work, a new car, buy a home, and support 2 children - all on one income. and even workers who did not have college were able to do the same. know anyone who can do that today? today, we have college grads in their 30s still living with their parents."
This is indeed true.
I didn't carry a balance for a couple of years and they switched me to some other card. I dropped it.
MY dad & mom bought a new ranch home in '58 when he was just starting out. My Mom did not work. We lived very comfortably with 3 kids. They also had 2 cars.
I don't beleive your argument. We may have more today but it takes more debt and 2 incomes.
Excellent advice. I would add: Marry someone who is frugal, and stay married.
Voluntary indenture it may be, but slavery it's not. Problem is, we've been taught by the liberal leftists societal engineers to ignore taking person responsibility for our behaviors.
Quote: Believe me I know this... I do real estate, and I'm going to make lots of money buying up the houses that get foreclosed on when all these folks with zero, or paper appreciation equity suddenly disappears when those bubbles do pop. All these foolish folks thinking "I gotta buy today".. most of them are going to wind up taking a bath by being underwater for 8 years or more when the values fall.. or are just going to end up losign the houses if they can't manage to wait out the down cycle before they are forced to sell.
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I agree 100%. A real good friend of mine sells real estate. He said 10-20 years ago when people where upgrading to a new house they had 20-50K in equity or more in their old house.
Today when they come in they have zero equity because they have spent their equity on boats, vacations etc. In many cases they owe more than the house is worth. i.e. 110% equity loans from Ditech etc.
40% of all mortgages are now arm's and when they come due 5-6 years from with higher interest rates watch out for a housing bubble burst.
Also over the last 5-8 years people have been taking equity loans and buying hi ticket consumer goods which has helped the economy immensly. Now the money is tapped out.
My real estate friend is worth about 125 million and you don't get that way by taking dummy pills. When he says something bad is coming down the pike I tend to agree.
I've been thinking the same thing over the last year. The wife & I bought old houses to fix for rentals. Running the numbers quit making sense because of the speculation and cheap money. Last one I looked at was for a run down duplex that needed 30K in materials and a couple months of labor. It only rented for a maximum of $2300 combined but sold in a week as is.
A lot of new buyers also bought with ARMS instead of locking in rates under 5.5%. I suspect there will be a period of reckoning.
Factually incorrect. Median income in 1965 (in 1965 dollars) was just about $7000 a year. An average three bedroom home in the same time period sold for about $7000 to $15,000 in good neighborhoods.
In other words, the average home cost one to two years annual salary.
Median income today is $51,000 dollars. Average home price is $170,000 to $250,000 dollars in good neighborhoods. In other words, the average home today costs the equivalent of three and a half to five years' salary!
The only reason more people own homes today then back in 1965 is that credit is easier to obtain today, and both spouses work, but our real standard of living (hours we have to work to buy things) is actually going down in many areas. We just don't realize it because it's so easy to put it on the card and finance it over time.
Rummyfan it has always been difficult. I bought my 1st 3 houses in the DC area before the wife & I made 65K between us. 1st interest rate was 11% and the 3rd was a 7 year lock 8% ARM. It was tough and we didn't have much left over at the end of the month. Had one person not paid the rent it all would have crashed.
What kills is the consumer debt. We had none. No student loans, car notes, or CC's.
Do some more digging... get rid of new construction McMansions from those numbers and you find a true median. Trust me there are homes for sale in nearly all markets of the country for 1 to 2 years of annual income. There are pockets of insanity like DC, Cali etc.. but most of the country doesn't fit this category. in 1965 you didn't buy a house that was 4 to 5 times your annual income with zero down on an ARM... Trust me on this. Folks are debting thesmelves into failure going out and buying beyond their means and not willing to wait for it. yes some markets are insane, I won't deny it, but they are the exception not the rule. There are pleanty (MOST) of markets where 1 to 2 times the median household income can buy you a house in a decent neighborhood.
Oh,you want the truth, devide the MEDIAN SQ FT per house today against 1965 numbers and you will see what I am talking about.
There's also more stuff to buy. Back in 1965, there weren't nearly as many gadgets. There will still many homes that didn't even have a television.
You got that right. I bought a condo in '97 and it's appreciated 150%. The next set of townhouses down the street from me are newly built and selling from the low 400s. BTW, I refinanced last August and paid off all my credit cards. Now I am debt-free, except for my vehicle.
Roger Jolly??? ROTFLMAO!!!
Quite a melancholy view. Noticeably short on facts and figures, though. Here's a few items I scratched from the latest Business Week article on the economy:
From the Mortgage Bankers Association: past due mortgages are at a ten year low.
From the Federal Reserve, the financial obligations ratio, ie payments for mortgages and other installment debt as a percentage of aftertax income, has fallen from last quarter and also from the same date two years ago. The ratio of income required for non-mortgage debt has dropped from 6.62% to 5.83%, a nine-year low.
Delinquency rates for auto loans, leases, and personal loans have declined sharply in the last three years, according to the authors, and delinquencies on revolving credit, including bank cards, has edged downward over the past year.
Business expansion has resulted in a 6% growth in wages and salaries over the last year, the fastest pace in four years.
All is not lost.
Perhaps it is baloney in the general sense, but I know I could do it. I make a fair, but not extraordinary income, have a modest house, used cars, and in about five weeks, two kids. If we cut out the unneccessary crap and child care expenses from the budget we could do it. My wife works because she wants to, but a lot of her income is absorbed by expenses we wouldn't have if she didn't. Heck, even now money is tight in our family because we put alot into long term savings, and have a fifteen year mortgage. I ain't that special. If I can do it, others can too.
Those college kids are just lazy and being coddled by their parents! I graduated college in 1994, by the time I GRADUATED I had been living on my own for nearly 4 years... no not in a dorm, and not subsidized by my parents.. I worked full time and went to school full time!.. I married my wife, we bought a house, we have been raising a family and have been doing so since 1995 on ONE INCOME! Don't give me this hogwash you can't do it, that's BS!
You can't afford a top of the line place? You don't live in a top of the line place, you rent a cheap place and save your money and then when you have done that enough you buy a house... Why kids have this idea you graduate college and go out and buy a house 3 months after you graduate in the same neighborhood your parents own, is beyond me! It took your parents 35 years of hard work to get where they are, and you expect it to come to you in 35 days? Insanity.
jack,
Fact is $60 a month will retire you a millionaire.. don't waste time trying to convince "victims" their perception of reality is skewed, they aren't worried about facts.. only about their perception of things. $60 a month folks.. that's all it takes... and most folks retire broke... and its the systems fault....
Be serious.
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