[American Preservative]

SV (Silicon Valley) to RV (Recreational Vehicle) ping.

[EggsAckley]

Boo-Hoo-Hoo
I know a couple over there who have got to "cut back." Their sacrifice? Their season tickets and posh penthouse private seats for the Sharks game. LOL!

[struwwelpeter]

Carole grew up in a privileged and artistic home in Los Angeles, but her now-deceased parents didn't make the wisest investments.

Oh, that's right! It's not enough just to put the kids through college and make their first home down payment. You've got to set them up with an annuity and bequeath a tidy sum. Otherwise you "didn't make the wisest investments."

Shoot, I don't plan on dying with more then fifteen cents in the bank. Now that's financial planning.

[irv]

This article reads like fiction. "Clark" and "Carole" sound like what journalists euphemistically refer to as "composites" also known as people they made up to make the story better.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I'd bet money (if I had any) that I'm not.

[Carry_Okie]

Imagine what this would be like if they had kids.

[SamAdams76]

Carole grew up in a privileged and artistic home in Los Angeles, but her now-deceased parents didn't make the wisest investments. She has worked for long stretches selling real estate and as a secretary-receptionist. The first few years of her married life with Clark were spent digging out of a financial crater left by her mother's final (and protracted) illness.

"Even in the best of times, we never lived extravagantly," she said. "Extravagant to me was redecorating our bedroom in the apartment with linens and curtains from Stroud's."

Oh cry me a river! I'm so tired of hearing stories about these privileged kids getting a dose of the real world and thinking that they are some kind of martyrs.

What does it matter that her parents didn't make good investments? What does that have to do with her? My parents didn't have two nickels to rub together (and still don't) and I've never gotten a dime from them since the time I went in the Marines at age 17. I've never allowed that to be an excuse in my life.

Decorating with Stroud's. Whoopee doo. What's that, some kind of yuppie emporium? I've never heard of Stroud's in my life. When we need curtains, my wife goes to Wal-Mart or Sears and we never felt as though we were making sacrifices.

[oct11]

This is the story of a couple who've slammed hard into that reality.

to share their story only if they were identified by...nicknames they call each other: Clark and Carole

Yes something doesn't seem quite right.

Can the people, facts and circumstances in the story be independently verified? Do they all relate to the same (real) people, or is this a composite?

Very strange...

[Welsh Rabbit]

Said Carole: "It got to the point where we didn't have enough money to even think about moving from here."

If this is an accurate story(which I doubt), I don't see how they can afford not to move.

[CounterCounterCulture]

This can't be happening. The Democrats run the state and the Bay Area. Oh wait, this must all be Bush's fault somehow. < /SARCASM >

[Red Jones]

bump

[Alouette]

I've heard a lot of these "down and out in Silicon Valley" stories. I understand that the cost of housing there is the highest in the country. So why don't these people move somewhere else where the cost of living is more reasonable?

Yes, the IT industry has taken a bad hit, but there are areas of the country where IT is tied in to another major industry and it is still possible to find a decent job and affordable housing.

[The KG9 Kid]

I've gathered enough true stories from friends and acquaintances to write a book about this place. Silicon Valley, San Francisco, the whole 'get rich' .COM scene, rags to riches, riches to rags, rags to riches to rags, etc.

If I ever sit down to write it, I think I'll entitle it: 'Eject, Maverick! Eject!

I might miss this place a little when I finally leave. At least, it hasn't been boring.

[Old Professer]

"Basically, we just become 12 years old," said Clark.

Judging by the long list of "ineptitudes" here, I would say they have stayed 12 years old.

[balrog666]

Once distracted by VCRs and mega- cable, they now watch local television on an old black-and-white set

BWAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHA! What utter crap! No reason to read further than the opening paragraph.

[VOA]

They offered a bigger salary, better benefits and, of course, future stock options. Clark jumped...

The wages of greed are...
(I'm a little sympathetic to these folks...but their mention that finally they
were so low on cash they couldn't even move from the Silicon Valley area...
they probably could have retired to other areas of the country, found "treading-water" jobs,
and live decently off some of their 401(K)s.

[CIB-173RDABN]

Oracle guru Larry Ellison calls it "the worst in the history" of America's information technology industry.

---

Two points:

This is an unpaid polictical ad for the Democratic party deguised as a article.

I will gurantee you that we will see a lot more of this type of article as we get closer to the election and the Democratic talking point it is the economy stupid campaign.

[CIB-173RDABN]

Carole and Clark were scraping the bottom of their savings. Delinquent a payment on their $2,300-a-month rent, they asked for another month's grace. Five years of tenancy and on-time checks meant nothing. They had to be out by December's end.

---

They did not have a plan in case things went bad. The $2,300 a month rent should have been the first to go. They could have moved out to the central valley and and rented a house for way less than half that, but then they would have had the commute, but it would preserved some capital.

I never expect to make a $120,000 a year. However, in my budget book I have a list of items that can and will be cut if I should lose my job. These are items that make life, but are not neccesities (such as bottle water, lawn service and cable tv). If you have no money coming in, it is like being cut, the rule is stop the bleeding.

[manfromlamancha]

Who cares about a bunch of materialistic silly-ass clowns who can easily get a job in the San Joaquin Valley, but probably think it is beneath them. So, they become the trailer trash of Silicon Valley. I just don't care...

[537 Votes]

Meanwhile, illegal immigrants are sneaking across the border from Mexico -- crowding Americans out of jobs we need to survive, soaking up welfare, burdening the civil infrastructure, driving uninsured cars -- and then returning to live like kings in Mexico, where the cost of living is much lower than in the U.S.

But I don't say this to express pity for the couple described here. They probably voted for Clinton and Davis, and they deserve what they're getting. So this article is really a story about how what goes around, comes around.

[aruanan]

Down & Out In Silicon Valley - Like striking it rich, being 'almost homeless' can happen to anyone

Hmmm, except for such mindless activities as playing the lottery and happening to have a rich relative die and leave one a pile of swag, I was under the impression that "striking it rich" usually involved quite a bit of hard work.