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Bucks (PA) couple struggling as debt crisis hits home (Spoiled American Alert)
The Philadelphia Inquirer ^ | 9 FEB 2008 | Harold Brubaker

Posted on 02/11/2008 12:17:41 PM PST by 2banana

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In an interview last month, Frank, a quality-assurance manager at an electronics company, said a steady stream of credit-card offers and increased borrowing limits were "ruining this country. Ignorant people like me are what's getting sucked into it."

And you are a quality-assurance manager!!!

To catch up, they took a second job in December delivering newspapers from 2:30 to 5:30 a.m. They work together. Frank needs Joan, who sat quietly during an interview paging through a training manual, as the navigator.

In Texas during the last bust - grown men fought over paper routes.

They switched from Comcast Triple Play for $160 a month to Verizon FiOS for $110.

WOW - they are really tightening their belts now!!!!

Help with the mortgage might be coming. A Philadelphia lawyer, Robert P. Cocco, said he found a violation of the federal Truth in Lending Act in the Salamones' loan documentation and sent a letter this month to the current servicer, Wilshire Credit Corp., demanding that the loan be rescinded. The originator misstated the annual percentage rate as 10.3 percent rather than the actual 10.6 percent, according to Cocco.

Like that really makes any difference. Lender - OK, we rescind the loan, PAY UP the balance due. Rescinded doesn't mean you get the money for free, no matter what your lawyer told you.

Joan said there is one thing she enjoys about delivering papers in the middle of the night. "It's nice to see the deer outside. It's really pretty," said Joan, who brings carrots and apples to feed them.

If you shoot them, you would save on the food bill...

What a bunch of SPOILED AMERICANS

1 posted on 02/11/2008 12:17:54 PM PST by 2banana
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To: 2banana

Yup

Gosh I borrowed all this money and now they want me to pay it back


2 posted on 02/11/2008 12:20:47 PM PST by AppyPappy (If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem.)
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To: 2banana

At least they own up to their mistakes and are trying to do right the thing and pay off their debts. Spoiled? Maybe, but I have a lot more respect for them than those who simply walk away and blame “greedy banks” for extending them credit.


3 posted on 02/11/2008 12:22:30 PM PST by VegasCowboy ("...he wore his gun outside his pants, for all the honest world to feel.")
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To: VegasCowboy
At least they own up to their mistakes and are trying to do right the thing and pay off their debts. Spoiled? Maybe, but I have a lot more respect for them than those who simply walk away and blame “greedy banks” for extending them credit.

I agree - but they are never going to make it. I give it 6 more months before the "Jingle Mail"

4 posted on 02/11/2008 12:24:55 PM PST by 2banana (My common ground with terrorists - they want to die for islam and we want to kill them)
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To: 2banana
WOW - they are really tightening their belts now!!!!

Allow me to note this "how far they have fallen" tidbit, which apparently has significant meaning in Philadelphia:

fish sticks were on the menu one Sunday night last month

5 posted on 02/11/2008 12:27:23 PM PST by jiggyboy (Ten per cent of poll respondents are either lying or insane)
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To: 2banana
The Salamones changed car insurance, even though that meant taking business from a family friend. That cut their monthly bill to $130 from $180. They switched from Comcast Triple Play for $160 a month to Verizon FiOS for $110

Wow, really tightening the belts there. How about cancelling your internet instead and going to the local library and getting it for free? Dolts.
6 posted on 02/11/2008 12:29:38 PM PST by steel_resolve (If you can't stand behind our troops, then please stand in front...)
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To: 2banana
Frank, who still smokes a pack of cigarettes a day, said during an interview in their living room, which they painted blue and rag-rolled to give the walls texture.

Blue and rag-rolled? They need texture? Oy!

7 posted on 02/11/2008 12:30:09 PM PST by rhombus
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To: jiggyboy

I consider that a luxury in my house!


8 posted on 02/11/2008 12:30:20 PM PST by Adammon
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To: 2banana
"I'm not an Oprah victim. I don't blame anybody," he said.

Spoiled people usually blame anybody, but themselves.

9 posted on 02/11/2008 12:31:30 PM PST by BallyBill (Serial Hit-N-Run poster)
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To: 2banana
"We just deal with it," Frank, who still smokes a pack of cigarettes a day...

Hey Frank, quitting smoking would save you around $2,400.00 a year.

10 posted on 02/11/2008 12:33:37 PM PST by trumandogz ("He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and it worries me." Sen Cochran on McCain)
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To: 2banana

$75 a week for groceries? He should quit smoking and dump the cable. That would free up some funds to pay off his debt.


11 posted on 02/11/2008 12:33:58 PM PST by ThisLittleLightofMine
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To: 2banana

$360,000 in 2003?

Ya know, people should do some serious thinking before they borrow A THIRD OF A MILLION DOLLARS!

Then, that just wasn’t enough!
They turn around and go for 425,000!!!

A buddy of mine had a nice six acre spread near the Sierras in CA. Nice three bedroom house, very nice landscaping, the whole place was fenced with alot of oak trees.
He fell for the same kind of thing, refinancing, then refinancing again to cover the other loan, three or four iterations.

He only paid 75K when he bought it. Lost the whole dam thing.


12 posted on 02/11/2008 12:34:04 PM PST by djf (I think McCain deserves a chance. After all, he is on R side!)
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To: 2banana

They are just trying to be like President Bush and our Congress.


13 posted on 02/11/2008 12:36:40 PM PST by trumandogz ("He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and it worries me." Sen Cochran on McCain)
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To: 2banana

10.3% interest on a $425,000 loan, and an adult signed the documents agreeing to that?


14 posted on 02/11/2008 12:37:46 PM PST by AbeKrieger (There is a special place in Hell for Lyndon Johnson.)
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To: 2banana

Actually, I missed something before I posted. They have a lawyer who is trying to get them out of their mortgage because the APR was mistated by 0.30%? While I wouldn’t argue with them getting the mortgage holder to reduce their rate to the disclosed APR, rescinding the mortgage for a clerical error is just silly. Maybe they are spoiled.


15 posted on 02/11/2008 12:37:57 PM PST by VegasCowboy ("...he wore his gun outside his pants, for all the honest world to feel.")
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To: 2banana
Cash from the first three refinancings - $160,000 in 1997, $230,000 in 2000 and $360,000 in 2003 - went mostly into home improvements including kitchen repairs, a new roof, a new furnace, vinyl siding, new windows, a new outside staircase, an upstairs addition, and hardwood floors for the living room.

Over $700,000 in home improvements or is this the amount they refinanced? Even if that a difference of $200,000. That's alot of repairs.

16 posted on 02/11/2008 12:38:10 PM PST by ozarkgirl
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To: jiggyboy; 2banana
fish sticks were on the menu one Sunday night last month

WOW - they are really tightening their belts now!!!!

Unless they're using the apples & carrots to lure the deer close enough to quietly off one of the antlered rats for the freezer, that is an awful waste of the food budget.

And unless they bought cheap Alaskan pollack, and used day-old bread from the local “used bread store” (bakery outlet LOL) to bread it themselves, they paid way too much for that extravagance.

17 posted on 02/11/2008 12:38:37 PM PST by ApplegateRanch (If Liberalism doesn't kill me, I'll live 'till I die!)
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To: 2banana

I’d love to hear Dave Ramsey’s take on these idiots.

I know what he’d say, but I just want to hear it.


18 posted on 02/11/2008 12:39:44 PM PST by gunservative
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To: ApplegateRanch

When I was a kid, I knew we were having money problems when mom started buying powdered milk.


19 posted on 02/11/2008 12:39:56 PM PST by trumandogz ("He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and it worries me." Sen Cochran on McCain)
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To: AbeKrieger

Nice self control!

Oh wait! Its the lender’s fault suckering those people into borrowing money!

Was it the waterboarding? Car batteries on the testicles? Listening to Hillary speak for 72 hours straight?


20 posted on 02/11/2008 12:41:06 PM PST by whitedog57
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