Re: Born Again American

On Feb 6, 6:32 pm, anyth...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
On Fri, 6 Feb 2009 13:10:21 -0800 (PST), Shy Picker



<ShyPic...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
On Feb 6, 3:44 pm, hans <anybutb...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Feb 6, 12:41 pm, normandra...@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

On Feb 6, 11:23 am, Shy Picker <ShyPic...@xxxxxxx> wrote:

On Feb 6, 10:28 am, hans <anybutb...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Feb 4, 10:14 am, Shy Picker <ShyPic...@xxxxxxx> wrote:

This is one of those videos of folks all around the country singing
and playing the same song. All the vids like these that I've seen so
far have all been done well and this one is excellent IMO.

The song is about the current economic melt down.

http://www.bornagainamerican.org/index.html

David

"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long
plastic
hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs.
There's also a negative side." - Hunter S. Thompson

Nice song about equality and liberty and what now seem to me to be
platitudes. Gov't is letting them down. But I don;t get any clear idea
from anyone what the gov't should be doing. My main man Obama has
really failed to explain to the country WHY this bailout should work
to increase jobs, secure small businesses, etc. Rush and co just
complain that organized gov't is limiting and evil (end of  thought).
Free market is how we got here but his ilk of entertainer don;t
benefit from admitting that. So, this song basically does nothing for
me. Nice production value. Brittany usually has that too.

And this whole born-again stuff. The illusion that any of our problems
can be addressed by following the documents written by the FFs....
(sigh). A new thought is needed to address the fact that our country
is not currently influenced primarily by independent-minded
individualists whose abiding interests are freedom and liberty for the
next guy. Could we take off the rose-colored glasses and see the CEOs
and the ghetto rappers and the talk show shock jocks and the tax-
evading congresspeople for what they are... opportunists. Go ahead,
sign the pledge. But then what? That's what I'd like to hear a song
about.

hans

I guess I just didn't get into it quite that deep. I just thought it
was a good song with some emotional content and a well done
production.

As far as the real problems we face with the economy, if we pull out
of this one, we will do it the way we always do. We have to start
taking care of things here. Start buying American products a little
more. We don't have to go all crazy about it but try a little harder.
I heard that someone said that the stimulus package will make China's
government rich through Wal-Mart.

One of the things that Obama wants the government to do is stimulate
the alternative energy industry. I think it is possible that the
alternative energy industry could partially replace the dotcom bubble.
This time, tho, people will be investing in an industry that actually
makes something.

David- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

David,

You included one little word in there that I don't hear people mention
much, at least in this context: "if".  There is absolutely no
guarantee that we are going to come roaring out of this in something
like a fifties-style boom economy.

We may be living in a VERY different country/world four years from
now.  And virtually everyone with any knowledge on the subject seems
to believe that the US started the dominoes falling.  One foreign
leader said that when all the pieces are put back together, rules and
procedures will be put in place to prevent the US from being in a
position where it can bring down the world.  We'll see I guess, but
first we have to find all the pieces.....

We live in interesting times....

Norman (Interesting... And Scary) Draper

Wouldn;t it be important that we prevent any country from bringing the
world down?  Not really sure what regs could do this but the global
market is sure to suffer. OTOH, I am not sure that the global market
such as it has been developed is good for anyone other than the
business owner that saves money by outsourcing or buying outside of
his local market. I am certainly not into protectionism but I dont see
the world acting as a single market in a way that benefits everyone. I
think part of what has made the current financials uninterpretable for
the smartest biz folks is the expansion of business to very distant
foreign markets whose currencies have no obvious relative value to our
own. It just seems to me that if we are going to take 1-2 steps back
and try to reorganize, simplifying the market within which we do
business is likely to be helpful.

hans

hans

I gotta agree with ye.

I just heard today that the biggest manufacture, the only real
industry really, in the small town just South of where I live is
moving out and relocating to Mexico.

At some point, business that move their manufacturing to countries
where they can get cheap labor won't be able to bring those things
they manufacture back here and expect us to buy them no matter how
cheap they can make them. Without jobs here, we will have no money to
purchase their products.

David

I don't think we're going to see dust-bowl conditions, but we are all
going to be forced to live within our means. Fortunately, apart from
the mortgage (which has come down £300 in the last 5 months) we've got
no other real debt apart from current expenditure, and that could be
reduced.

There will be fallout. What's bugging me is that the people who
created this bubble (and drove it along - the banks, are all making
sure they get as much as they can out of it (particularly at executive
level) before someone - in our case, Gordon Brown - realises that we
actually own the damn banks and start throwing their weight around.

What bugs me more than anything is that all the supply companies who
rely on J.I.T. ordering aren't getting the temporary lines of credit
they are used to in order to supply the demand thay have, so more and
more companies are going to the wall not because they can't sell
anything, but they can't fill the orders. I'm not talking about people
making cars or interestingly expensive hospital equipment here, I'm
talking about small manufacturers who land a decent order whick will
keep the workforce on for another month - the widget-makers, the
cast-iron forgers, the specialist steel smelters who work on far lower
capitalisation (and, dare I say it, welders) than the major outfits
but on who many people in any community rely - that's where it's
hurting people.

People complain about housebuyers not being able to get credit, but
most housebuyers have somewhere to live anyway - they can postpone
their move anyway and just ride it out (assuming they have jobs to go
to), but unless the banks loosen up with credit lines to small
businesses then the employment situation will only get worse, and
considering that (in the UK) the government (and therefore the people)
own 70% of RBS - the biggest bank in the country), we should be
telling them what to do, not listening to their mealy mouthed excuses
about 'consolidating their positions'. Consolidation means making sure
THEY are safe, not making sure the man in the street is safe - ie,
protecting the profits of the board and the shareholders.

As far as I am concerned the shareholders have enjoyed the goods
times, and they can start eating grits in the bad times just like the
rest of us.

Of course this is different in the USA, where the stock market is
right in the face of most people - you guys have a lot more invested
in it than we do in the UK through the (401?) pension system (ours is
much more conservative and at one remove from the customer), but the
bottom line is that the banks have screwed up with their overreaching
ambition and they should not be rescued - they're a business like
evrything else and if they *** up then I don't see why people like
the head of RBS should get fired on a £650k pension having failed
utterly.

Anyway, I could go on. Dylan at Newport is on BBC4!

Pete

I think you've got it right. We have the same problem here with
companies not getting the credit they need even after the first big
bail out. That really pissed a lot of folks off. Now the Government is
going about the new bail out the way they did with the auto companies.
Hearing about the company executives still giving out hundreds of
millions of dollars in bonuses when their companies are losing
billions is pissing off a lot of people including the folks in charge
of distributing the bail out money.

I have a bank as my biggest customer. They are a small outfit of one
main office and about 10 branch banks in the other small towns in the
area. A few years ago, this bank stated aiming their business more
towards servicing other business and helping them control their cash
flow. I noticed that well before all this economic down turn, they had
already started making it harder for their non business customers to
get loans for cars and homes. They don't seem to be going through as
tough a time as a lot of other banks.

We don't have a lot of debt either. Penny's doctor bills are almost
paid off. A little over two years ago I had to add on a new living
room so we could turn the old living room into a bed room so Penny
would not have to go upstairs anymore. I had a local contractor do all
the framing and exterior work and I did all the inside work including
the electrical. I was able to pay the contractor in cash (about $12k)
and put about $5k on credit cards for the supplies I needed to finish
the inside. I am so glad we don't have a mortgage or car loans right
now and the credit cards are almost paid off.

Penny did lose about a third of her retirement since the downturn
started. Her income form disability insurance will stop when she
reaches retirement age and she will need it. I finally moved all of
her funds that was still in stocks to the money market fund. So far,
that part of her retirement fund has always made money.

This old Hillbilly is going to start a big vegetable garden next
summer. I haven't raised a garden in years so I am looking forward to
some fresh veggies.

Now I'm gettin' hungry.

David
.