The Truth Behind The Auto Bailout

Rehab for CNN

Are you wondering why the economic crisis hasn't really been a focus for the media. It's because it's not a visual story and they can't explain it in under 4 minutes. Here's and article on Boing Boing that I found really interesting because I used to work in local television. Link

A moment of silence...

For the wives of Wall Street investors that have to use scratchy toilet paper and can't get their nails done anymore. Here's the L.A. Times article.

Interesting Reading: Dr. Housing Bubble

The current median income of an American household is $46,326. As you can see from the above chart over the past 40 years the top 10 percent of households have seen steady gains (the chart is based on 2003 dollars) while the other 90 percent of our population has seen virtually stagnant growth. That is why most American families may have more money on a nominal level but are actually poorer. What this graph displays is a disappearing of the middle class.

Stagnant wages are also part of the global market landscape. It is hard for American workers to compete with low wage nations yet our insatiable appetite for consumer goods has also led to this downfall. Look at the stock price of Wal-Mart. While the stock market is tanking they are up 14% on the year.

Although many like to beat on the global drum of keeping jobs here in the country, silently Americans are still voting with their pocketbook and buying foreign goods. It is hard to blame the middle class since they are being pinched from every different angle. The economic condition of many reflects this struggling sense of uncertainty.

link

Fuck the Mortgage Companies

Here's the situation: The mortgage companies gave loans to people who couldn't necessarily pay them back, then sold the loans to other companies packaged with some other loans that would be paid back. This happens a couple of different times and then the last company tries to collect and there isn't any money. The government has decided to bail these companies out with our money. Fuck that. That isn't capitalism. Anyone who makes poor business choices should not get bailed out. Small businesses don't get bailed out if they don't succeed. Many Americans have failed at their dreams and don't expect someone to just hand them cash and make it all better. Well, one sheriff in Illinois is letting the mortgage companies that don't have correct information on their paperwork do their own dirty work. Here is the story: Link

Government Bailout

I think I'll stop paying taxes if they choose to bail out those companies. Capitalism is about the government keeping their hands out of companies that make bad decisions. I will not give them my hard earned money just so they don't have to pay for their fuck up!

Sub-prime Mortgage Crisis Explained by Stick Figures

click the picture for the link

Balance Billing: Medical Shisters

I just read this article in Newsweek that hit really close to home for me when I dislocated my elbow last year. Everyone should know their rights when it comes to insurance and doctors. We pay so much money to insure ourselves and end up getting screwed anyways. Here is the Newsweek Article and Here is the Link to the Texas Department of Insurance Balance Billing Section. As a consumer, you must fight for your rights. I don't want to be preachy but the only person that cares if you get screwed is you.

Repost from my Barak Obama blog

I'm an Obama supporter, I thought I'd share this on here.

An interesting thing happened to me on July 4th, 2007.

In the twilight hours I found myself in the Emergency Room - without health insurance. I was in-between jobs, literally. I left my job June 27th and I was to start at a new company on July 9th. I had only been unemployed a total of a week and a half.

I fell and dislocated my elbow. My boyfriend and friends rushed me to the emergency room. Luckily, I didn't need an ambulance, the hospital was only minutes away.

My arm must have looked bad. The E.R. attendants swiftly whisked me away to a room and injected me with pain killer within minutes of arriving. "Great!" I thought in a haze of drugs, "this is the fastest emergency room care I have ever had.Little did I know the horror was about to begin.

After only three hours, my boyfriend and I were in the billing office dreading the amount of money we were about to fork over. We had some money in savings and used it to pay half, I put the rest on a credit card.

That total came to $1542.

We marveled at how much money we had to spend, but we were happy that my injury was not any worse. All we had to worry about paying for was the follow up visit, right? Wrong.

It's now July 17th and the bills start to roll in. The hospital sends me a bill that says I owe $864. I call, and say this can't possibly be right. Enquiring minds want to know. Why am I getting a bill? I thought it was paid. I asked the person on the other end of the phone "Why am I getting a bill?"

Well, the amount you paid was an estimate, there could be more charges that weren't in the system at the time you left the hospital. Do you have any health insurance?" the account representative asks.

"No, I was in between jobs." I said.

"I can send you an itemized bill." the account representative states.

"Yes, I would really like to see that."

I'm going to receive that in 7- 10 days.

Next day. The mail comes. I receive yet another bill. This time from the Doctor of the Emergency Room.

$1542 with a disclaimer, "THESE CHARGES ARE FOR THE EMERGENCY PHYSICIAN'S SERVICES AND ARE NOT INCLUDED IN YOUR HOSPITAL BILL."

What? I start to laugh and cry at the same time. This has got to be a joke or a scam. I call.

This time the account representative is sympathetic to my non-health insured plea. She tells me the hospital can offer me discounted services and she can then apply them to my account to reduce her charges. She said she'd suspend my account and give me time to talk to the hospital.

I still haven't gotten my bill for the follow up visit.

My current total is: $3811 with no discounts as of yet.

All this leads me to ask, who is policing health care? Why is it so outrageous? Who can help? I have been donating to Obama's campaign for the last couple months. I have never given politics any money before. I never had a strong reason to believe in someone as a political leader. I had always had a job and health insurance. For a short week and a half, I had neither and the system failed me. This leads me to wonder, what about the poor? Thousands of people go through bankruptcy with this nightmare we call "Modern Medicine". I long for the days of the town doctor, who made house calls and just wanted you healed. Now all we have is faceless corporations trying to turn a profit for their shareholders. Does the modern hippocratic oath involve a payment clause?

Recession or Recalibration of Funds?

What is the definition of recession? I checked it out on wikipedia:

"A recession may involve simultaneous declines in coincident measures of overall economic activity such as employment, investment, and corporate profits. Recessions may be associated with falling prices (deflation), or, alternatively, sharply rising prices (inflation) in a process known as stagflation. A severe or long recession is referred to as an economic depression. Although the distinction between a recession and a depression is not clearly defined, it is often said that a decline in GDP of more than 10% constitutes a depression.^[2] A devastating breakdown of an economy (essentially, a severe depression, or hyperinflation, depending on the circumstances) is called economic collapse."

Why is everyone so surprised that our economy is taking a downturn? We are vary reliant on oil. Our culture has promoted the use of it without consequences for decades. Now, larger percentages of our income are being devoted to fuel costs and everyone is surprised Americans aren't spending with abandon. Bush's "Stimulus Package" is a joke. He funded part of it with a LOAN from China. I saved most of mine because I'm concerned with what is to come.

I am three generations down from depression-era ideas. I have always heard stories about my great grandparents and their fastidious scrimping, saving, and hoarding of everything that came into their possession. Reuse, recycle, and repurpose wasn't just a "green earth" fad. It was a necessity. They did it for the war, their country, and their soldiers. The government created propaganda around these ideas. People proudly participated because they believed in their country and it's place in the world.
What is the difference between then and now? We are in a war with an open-ended budget that no one wanted except Halliburton and its benefactors. A war that has alienated us from many countries and led America to look like a war-mongering, greedy, and spiteful overlord. Bush wanted retaliation for 9/11 and used it to mask his greed for oil. He thinly veiled his war with ideas of "freedom, liberating and democratizing" Iraq and searching for weapons of mass destruction.
Recently, the senate reapproved the bill that rebuked America's rights to make it easier to spy on Americans for fear of terrorism. Our telecommunications can be tapped by our government with no warrant. Way to go!
What would my great grandmother have said about this? How would she tell me to save money? Would she have supported this war? Why didn't Bush ask for the country's support? All these questions will never be answered. I'm so sad, our country has been defiled. Luckily, they haven't taken away my freedom of speech yet.