oops I Goofed the last paragraph was mine.

Yes I'm getting hit very hard by all this but my thoughts are for my kids & grandchildrens futures. I've had my shot win or lose. right now It's very tenous but were getting 3 squares a day for the time being.

Jerry

Never got this Hate the Rich mentality. Heck, I wanna be one of them. I don't wish they were one of me. Dishonest rich people? Sure. Dishonest poor people, hell yeah. Makes no difference. But to be down on those who are successful just never made sense to me.

Heck, I've never made over $40000 a year in my lifetime. That's why I rent, don't own. But one thing I can say is I have no debt. 0. Anything that gets put on my credit card gets paid off the next month in full. I have a few dollars in CD's, and a few dollars in Roth IRA. I don't even know how to think about losing $230,000 per day. Holy Moses!

But I am loving my life. Not getting rich here in Nashville, but keeping my head above water and playing some great music, and a little not so great I must add. So the economy hasn't really done anything to me one way or the other as far as I can tell, and that thrills me to no end. Lol. Sometimes the simple life ain't so bad.

But if I ever do make my fortune, I sure do
n't want everybody complaining about the fact that I'm one of the "rich
". Geez, all that does is smacks of envy. Raise taxes on people who make over 250k? That's rich? Damn. Why should I try to earn 300k per year if i actually get to keep more of my money by earning 249k?

I don't hate the rich just the dishonest.
But a poor guy can go to jail for stealing milk...when was the last time you heard of a CEO, that stole millions, was going to jail?

They say wall street has lost 93 trillion(?,) or was it billion dollars, who has it all?

Beside losing a hell of a lot on paper in our investments, both stock and real estate, I haven't felt it directly yet. However, on the horizon here's what I hear. First of all, at church, which accounts for close to half of my income, they are in the hole $60,000 so far for the year. If this trend continues, there will be cutbacks on staff. Also, I was listening to talk radio this morning and a lot of people who are depending on interest payments, ect for their assisted living payments aren't getting them right now. If this trend continues, those facilities could lose clients and then their budgets will be cut, and as we all know, music is usually the first thing to go.

Bottom line, this could bite us all in the ass real soon.

Joe

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Songman55
Joe Ayala

I don't hate the rich either, I'd love to be one.

But during the Reagan, Bush I and Bush II regimes, the upper 2% (filthy rich) who financed the republican campaigns got much richer while the other 98% of the population got much poorer.

In other words, the richest people in the world are financing the republican party so that the republicans can pass laws that steal money from the general population and give it to the richest 2% of the people. That's thievery.

BTW, all the major oil companies and banks are the major contributors to McCain's Campaign.

And don't blame the Arabs for the oil prices.

Exxon and other oil companies are posting record profits after record profits.

If my local baker has a shortage of flour, he makes lower profits (same with other businesses)

And the republicans have watered down the Anti-Trust laws (the ones that split up Standard Oil many years ago) and allowed oil companies to merge.

Consider:
Exxon, Mobil, Esso (all standard oil)
Texaco, Chevron (standard oil), and Shell
BP, Amoco (American Oil Company also Standard in the Midwest). I knew a woman who worked for BP (after they ate up Gulf oil) and she got her paychecks from Standard Oil of Ohio. (British Petroleum???)

Now you know where the real oil cartel is. Standard Oil. And thanks to the republican nuking of the Anti-Trust laws, the banks are now merging too. Hmm, and we the people are bailing them out for the second time? Both under Republican Administrations? What could be better? Make bad loans and let the taxpayers pay off the loans.

Anybody who votes John McCain and his trailer trash running mate (who was quoted in our paper saying we should go to war with Russia) needs his/her head examined. You are asking for more economic disaster and more lost lives of our honorable servicemen and women.

See http://www.johnmccainrecord.com - admittedly it is a Democratic viewpoint, but all the claims are backed by reputable sources.

Note: I am not a democrat but independent and I definitely consider myself a moderate. But looking at the people financing the campaigns (and will be owed favors) and the voting records of the candidates, I will not be voting for very many republicans this term.

Notes

[This message has been edited by Notes_Norton (edited 10-10-2008).]

I'd say I'm in the bottom 98 percent for sure. But I haven't gotten poorer the past 8 years. I've got richer, though far from rich. Very far, but still.
If all the oil companies decided not to make any profits, if they were just like OK, we'll break even this year, how many free gallons of fuel would each person get who uses fuel? Would every American, European, Asian, whatever, get onefree tank, and then we'd be right back where we were? I mean, the numbers might sound huge regarding the profits, but think about the massive scale we're talking about here. Think about just how many gallons of fuel is used in a day. I don't have much problem with rewarding those who provide the life giving blood to the globe. Think of what they're providing. Oil runs everything. We don't need new guitars, but we need oil.

Rory, although we are far apart in our politics, I certainly admire and respect your music and musicianship. Not too many country players with your skill, and respect for other musical forms (ie.jazz). Also, one of the few (from what I've heard) real musicians on this board. But.......on your post above, given the downsides such as the effect(s) on the environment, the security implications (with our dependency on foreign nations), the finite supply (we own 3% of the worlds oil reserves but use 25%), etc., etc., shouldn't we be trying to lessen our dependence on oil and looking for alternate energy sources? Your thoughts?

chas

Well unfortunately, I'm right in the line of fire in this economic crisis. I work for Merrill Lynch in New York. My company was acquired by Bank of America as a preemptive move to protect it's solvency. My 401k has been decimated, my employee stock purchase plan has been decimated, and I face job termination when the two companies merge and decide who's redundant and who's not. My mortgage is more than my house is worth.

I ride the train everyday to NY city and each day I see less and less employees who were layed off from their jobs.

Do you think I have a keen interest in this years presidential and senatorial elections???

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Al Giordano
Visit us at ARRANGER WORLD! http://www.arrangerworld.com

Korg Pa2xpro, Roland VK8-M, DW Collectors Series Drums, Roland TD-12 Vdrums, Roland SPD-S.

Chas,

Sure, let's explore alternate energy sources. I got no problem with that. But, we're a long way from going off oil. In fact, we may never go off oil.
Ethinol has proven not to be a very viable source, and I'm the son of a farmer and grew up in ag country for crying out loud.
People with windmills running the electricity in their homes, it's providing what? 30%? Plus they still need oil anyway for half or more. How many wind turbines would it take to power 30% of a department store? A school? And still, you'd need oil for 70% of your energy.

Did the government invent the steam engine, the combustion engine? If not, then why should it be the government's job to invent the next source, be it wind, solar, nuclear, etc. If some enterprising souls can invent something that actually works, then it will catch on and become integrated into our society. There are enough environmentally conscious people out there to make that happen. But for government to be responsible for subsidizing all these ventures that are failures, doesn't make much sense to me.

And, this unintelligent claim about us sending 700 billion per year to our enemies for oil. First off, I didn't know Canada and Britain were our enemies.
Second, it's not like we're just handing them money. "here, have a present!" We're getting something for that money; something called oil, which runs the world. If our middle eastern oil supply does run out, they cut us off or whatever, we better be able to get our own damn oil in a freakin hurry. We know that works. Better not be farting around with unproven alternate energy sources.

So yeah, let's work on alternate energy, no problem, but let's not kid ourselves that we can be oil free in 10 years and other such idiotic claims that fly around out there.

I don't disagree with you there. I think the technology may be there but whatever the solution, it's implementation, which would probably include a complete revamping of the infrastructure ie. delivery systems, etc., could not be implemented in ten years, probably not even 20. However, that window has to have a start point.

Where we (respectfully) disagree is that I don't have a problem with the government lending a hand (including a little R&D cash to universities and (I know, blasphemy) large corporations) to accelerate the process. This would include a major commitment to education to produce more scientists and engineers by making college more affordable. I DO believe that technology holds the key to lessening our dependence on oil, wherever the source. Neither drilling nor praying is going to cut it. Of course, as a national attitude, we could start right now with a little old-fashioned conservationism. Do we really need a 451hp C63 Mercedes to haul around (usually) 1 person to the store for a quart of milk? Only in America, baby. Even now, Ford has a small diesel on the market in Europe which gets 65mpg but it's not cost-effective to market it in America. What's wrong with this picture. I'm starting to think we don't WANT to help ourselves out of this energy crisis. Obviously, someone, somewhere is profiting from a situation which may not be in America's (or even the World's from an environmental point of view) best interest.

Rory, good thoughts. I enjoy these types of discussions and hearing other's points of view, even if I don't always agree with them.

chas