etc.
Posted on 10/12/2008 8:59:55 PM PDT by bornred
An inflatable gorilla beckoned from the roof of Don Brown Chevrolet in St. Louis, servers doled out free bowls of pasta and a salesman urged potential customers to "come on up under the canopy and put your hands on" a new set of wheels.
But sitting across from a salesman in a quiet back room, Adrian Clark could see it would not be nearly that easy. This was the ninth or tenth dealership for Clark, a steamfitter looking for a car to commute to a new job. Every one offered a variation on the discouragement he was getting here: Without $1,000 for a downpayment, no loan.
...
"I think we're undergoing a fundamental shift from living on borrowed money to one where living within your means, saving and investing for the future, comes back into vogue," said Greg McBride, senior analyst at Bankrate.com.
(Excerpt) Read more at biz.yahoo.com ...
etc.
How do you do it? You walk to work. Jobs are too far away? Move into a town with jobs. Grab a bunch of friends and rent an apt together. Hell, I lived in a tent for a while. Some of the best times of my life, too.
Maybe find a girl with a car and convince her you're not a loser long enough to make use of her car to get to work. Hell, I had a job picking fruit where they gave you a bed and you could sleep right there.
How far we've fallen. You sound so pathetic and lame. When the settlers travelled west in the wagon trains, you know what they did when they ran out of food? They ate the family dog and used the fat to grease their wagon wheels.
Grow a pair.
Evidently you were put here to whine and bitch like a spoiled child with no sense at all. You're doing a bang up job of it.
I’m comfortable with libertarian and conservative websites - but I can’t even take websites like DU(H) in small doses. The private sector does great things when it is unfettered and moral individuals step up to the plate.
Nobody should give anybody anything, and the nothing-down financing of the past to just about anybody for anything was wrong and totally ridiculous. The $1,000 down bit is just a way for a dealer to eliminate risk while retaining a huge upside. You sell a $500-$1,000 junker for $1,000 down and if you never see another dime you at least break even and if the payments are all made on time you hit the jackpot.
You can oppose usury and still support capitalism - Dave Ramsey does it on a regular basis, and nobody has ever questioned his conservative credentials. What I don’t understand is the attitude that someone who wants to be economically productive should have to remain unproductive because $1,000 of car financing (to be repaid through proceeds of employment) is viewed as a handout or evidence of an entitlement mentality.
I have missed out on thousands of dollars of earnings and more than a few jobs because I don’t have a car, so this is a sore point for me.
You will find that "things" have very little to do with why you were put here.
Old Skool says the ONLY thing you buy on credit is your house. The rest you do on your back. Period. And you live well within your means. By and large, as the current dilemma seems to be proving yet again, Old Skool Rulez Rules.
So you never buy that brandy new jetski. Go down to sears and buy the biggest box of Craftsman tools they have ($1500 bucks). Then the next time one of your buddies stacks up his jetski into a dock, you can buy it from him for $200 Take it home and stuff it in your garage and fix it. Viola! Brandy new Jetski, and no payment.
THAT is how a dirt poor redneck gets a yard full of toys.
I don’t go to DU and wouldn’t go there if someone paid me. (And considering how much I need money, that’s saying something.)
Never did I suggest more government or higher taxes. The private sector is helping people become more productive where moral individuals are getting involved. No government needed, just less judgmentalism.
I am coming at this from the perspective of a low income person with financial constraints to becoming more productive. And I thought becoming more productive was a good thing which should be encouraged in the private sector.
I’d just like to know how someone is supposed to be productive and all that if they can’t get to a job.
NONSENSE. My last business, a painting company, was started with a 1974 chevy blazer my partner and I pooled our money for ($400 bucks), a grip full of paint brushes, one 5 ft step ladder, and ONE contract. In two years it was making a quarter million a year, and employing 6 workers.
You are wrong. If there is no work, you must make your own.
“I think we’re undergoing a fundamental shift from living on borrowed money to one where living within your means, saving and investing for the future, comes back into vogue,” said Greg McBride, senior analyst at Bankrate.com.
This was the first comment that hit my sore spot. (More generally, I’ve read a number of things on Bankrate that have hit my sore spot.) I’m still trying to figure out how someone earning minimum wage is supposed to live within their means (this part I can do) AND save and invest for the future. (My solution is to let people privately invest the taxes extracted from their paychecks for Social Security and Medicare.) If I knew how to do all that I could write a book and make a fortune.
Would you like a job making at least 40 dollars an hour?
I love my 2000 CRV. :)
That was hard, especially during Feb and March (brrr). But I’m assuming you didn’t have a really long walk. At least I hope not considering where you were.
Good job getting rid of the extended maintenance. That’s one of those not-worth-it extras dealers try to sign you up for. Dave Remsey gets calls from people who signed up for it and found they owed too much.
Credit for productive enterprises is usually a good thing and should not be discouraged.
Unfortunately there has been entirely too much credit extended for frivolous purposes, on the speculation that borrowers would continue to have incomes capable of sustaining the debt and/or their mortgaged homes would continue to increase in value.
Minimizing the latter and expanding the former would increase growth and wealth.
The clothes came out perfectly dry, don't know how that happened. My boss exclaimed I had dedication when most everyone else with a car, called in that day.
Now THERE is a plan. (If you have teenage kids and a business, you can put them to work and there are great tax and financial advantages.) Plus your kid(s) get to learn a skill.
$625/yr in 1952 for car insurance? That is mind-boggling. I remember attending a parochial high school 20 years later and paying $600 a year on a half scholarship.
$625 in 1952 would be about (I think) $4000 or so today.
Ouch.
So how do you escape a menial dead-end job when you are older and have no marketable skills?
” (If you have teenage kids and a business, you can put them to work and there are great tax and financial advantages.)”
There wasn’t any tax advantage, I started off at 75 cents an hour same as any other apprentice and the taxes, deductions, etc were the same as any other employee.
“”I think we’re undergoing a fundamental shift from living on borrowed money to one where living within your means, saving and investing for the future, comes back into vogue,” said Greg McBride, senior analyst at Bankrate.com.”
Is this really such a bad thing?
Yeah, I see where that happens. But I think that generally, $1000 credit on a $1000 beater that is tied to employment does not constitute excessive or frivolous credit.
I guess my problem is that I just want to earn more money and I’m not interested in skipping or scamming, and while I can see the concerns involved - that once you extend even minimal credit (and especially when the credit is minimal), you effectively lack recourse in getting back all the money you are owed and making a profit - I’m not enjoying the idea that I should be denied an opportunity to earn more money because other people are deadbeats, or that others who legitimately seek credit to get ahead should be out of luck. The subprime scam and the bailout really soured my attitude - we who didn’t cause the problem are paying for all this while the miscreants are getting handouts instead of the time they deserve.
I really want to see people prosecuted here instead of bailed out. They have caused huge problems and should be held accountable.
GAG! BARF! I think I’ll stick with my menial job here!
That was a scary thought. Brrrrr.
Nope, but beater cars for work transportation are something the private sector can do - and something that is done when moral individuals step up to the plate. Voluntary credit for productive enterprises is not an entitlement or a handout.
Lars Larson likes the idea and I agree with him. (Which is hardly a surprise since I mostly agree with him.)
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