Its fun to call Dick Cheney "Darth Vader", but its not accurate.
As the canon dictates, Vader once was a good man. Was once a idealistic boy.
He was misled and corrupted and the "good" in him dashed.
I don't think Cheney ever had good in him (prove me wrong). Methinks him as a creature of insidious habit and motivation (I defy you to prove me wrong). This makes him Palpatine, no question.
By no means does this make Bush Jr. Darth Vader, he lacks both the strength and the vision. Simply put, he is merely General Grievous. A placeholder.
He couldn't make it through the Texas National Guard, theres no way he could become a "Darth"!
Rumsfeld is Count Douku, or Darth Tyrannus if you prefer.
Which brings us to the current crop of upstarts; those who seek power to spread peace & order throughout the republic, or to continue to strengthen a dark empire.
Hilary Clinton? Leia? Maybe 20 years ago. Today she is more like Mon Mothma.
Barack Obama comes off as one part Luke Skywalker & one part Han Solo.
I can't tell if there's any Lando in there at all. Not yet, anyway.
And McCain? Greedo. No question about it.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Monday, February 4, 2008
Karma
"One moment in the second quarter stood out: when the Pats blew an easy third-and-1 from their own 42. For the first three months of the season, back when they were the Big, Bad, Invincible Pats, that would have been two-down territory for them -- they would have thrown on third down and maybe even tried to make a big play. If they didn't get it, they would have banged it past the chain on the next play. This time? They played it safe, ran Maroney to the left side, lost two yards and quickly sent out the punt team while every Pats fan turned into the confused wife from "Airplane" who couldn't understand why her husband had ordered the second cup of coffee.
Who were these guys? Where was the team I watched for the past few months? Why aren't we attacking these guys? Why did we stick with our January cold-weather offense when we're playing indoors?
And right as I was wondering about all this stuff, Tom Petty started playing "Free Fallin'."
- Gregg EasterbrookESPN.com page 2 02/03/08
------------------------------------------
"Belichick's TIE fighter is probably still tumbling around in deep space"
-Patrick Hruby
ESPN.com page 2 02/03/08
------------------------------------------
The 5 Stages of Patriots Grief 02/04/08
Monday, January 28, 2008
Who's it gonna be?
Politically speaking that is.
I do know this; none of these Republican, spineless, Ronnie Reagan-idolizing, shumucks should have a ice cube's chance in Hell.
Please, if Limbaugh (bloviating fool, that he is) can't find a silver lining with this post-Bush crop of disasters. What hope do they have?
Bush & Palpatine (nee, Cheney) have screwed the pooch so bad, that they destroyed their own party. WOW!
Those two are only successful in failure. Every single policy they've set up has been a disaster.
Social Security is the only thing they tried to screw with and didn't, cause the "Boomers" still know how to read and bend the ear of their representatives.
Amazing. They would've destroyed the whole program before Bush left office. Wall Street is all f'd up today, and they would've took S.S. down with them.
Amazing this dope got a second term. But its important that he did, because the bonehead populace would've forgot what he's accountable for and blamed everything on John Kerry.
Then we would really be up shits creek in 2009.
I stand by what I said when states were in such a hurry to move up their primaries, and close the book on this so-called administration.
That all these Democratic contenders should band together and take positions in a dream team type of administration. There is plenty (PLENTY!!) of shit to fix.
I would love for Obama to be president. A black president would go light-years long regarding our bad image with the Persian world. Maybe. Its a nice thought, even moreso that he's clean of any improprieties and involvement of the evil D.C. and foreign power prokers.
That for only the second time on my lifetime social & political progress is actually within reach.
Bill Clinton was great to have around, but he blew it when he got caught getting blown.
And we lost Al Gore because of it.
Hilary wouldn't be the end of the world, and John Edwards brings plenty to the table.
I may vote for him in the 02/05 primary just to have him continue educating the masses on the points no one else is bringing up cause of all the pissing matches going on.
Costly distractions that they are.
I do know this; none of these Republican, spineless, Ronnie Reagan-idolizing, shumucks should have a ice cube's chance in Hell.
Please, if Limbaugh (bloviating fool, that he is) can't find a silver lining with this post-Bush crop of disasters. What hope do they have?
Bush & Palpatine (nee, Cheney) have screwed the pooch so bad, that they destroyed their own party. WOW!
Those two are only successful in failure. Every single policy they've set up has been a disaster.
Social Security is the only thing they tried to screw with and didn't, cause the "Boomers" still know how to read and bend the ear of their representatives.
Amazing. They would've destroyed the whole program before Bush left office. Wall Street is all f'd up today, and they would've took S.S. down with them.
Amazing this dope got a second term. But its important that he did, because the bonehead populace would've forgot what he's accountable for and blamed everything on John Kerry.
Then we would really be up shits creek in 2009.
I stand by what I said when states were in such a hurry to move up their primaries, and close the book on this so-called administration.
That all these Democratic contenders should band together and take positions in a dream team type of administration. There is plenty (PLENTY!!) of shit to fix.
I would love for Obama to be president. A black president would go light-years long regarding our bad image with the Persian world. Maybe. Its a nice thought, even moreso that he's clean of any improprieties and involvement of the evil D.C. and foreign power prokers.
That for only the second time on my lifetime social & political progress is actually within reach.
Bill Clinton was great to have around, but he blew it when he got caught getting blown.
And we lost Al Gore because of it.
Hilary wouldn't be the end of the world, and John Edwards brings plenty to the table.
I may vote for him in the 02/05 primary just to have him continue educating the masses on the points no one else is bringing up cause of all the pissing matches going on.
Costly distractions that they are.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
She turned off my lights, man.
Sucked the air right out the room.
When she left, that is.
I miss the way her hair would bounce, when she walks. When she turns to look at me, with her smile. HER smile.
Her voice... speaking my name. When she called me "Honey", I could taste it.
A beautiful tone curling around my ear canal- burning through my nervous system like an all consuming fire.
Her gaze a sultry, dark supernova of passion.
She made me believe I could do anything. And I wanted to do everything for her.
The fact that she was with me blew my mind. The fact she even existed in this terrible world... made me believe that it could be a better one. And I wanted to live there.
Man, I wanted to die there.
She was everything... and now she's gone.
She took only what belonged to her, but she took everything.
She told me it wasn't my fault, but also that there was nothing I could do.
She couldn't stay.
The sun had set.
What brings me to this is my latest brush with happiness, 8 months worth, and the cold lifeless reality since.
Early in 2007 I found my true love. A beautiful, sexy, talented, dark & sassy intelligent lady we'll call "Simone". "Simone" was the twin sister (twin Geminis. Yes, I know..) of the longtime girlfriend of another old friend of mine. She'd moved to L.A. a year earlier to reconnect with her sister and further their jewelery business. Her sister always said we should hook up even way back when we all lived in NYC, but we always passed like ships in the night.
Well many years later both of us end up across the country and we finally hooked up, and right away it was a love that you could see and feel a real future emanating from. I had six years in L.A. ripping me to shreds, plus the fallout of a failed engagement back in NYC that I jetted this damn town for still radiating off me. (I was more broke up about the return to L.A. than the actual breakup.)
I was determined to do anything I had to to keep this woman in my life. Her stats were off the charts: Liked Star Wars, didn't hate sports, slightly geeky, beautiful, sexy, was graceful (even if she didn't think so), humorous, amorous, & smart.
She'd cast her presence around me adorned in pink, or in darker hues, skirts, or in jeans, her dark hair cascading down over her shoulders, or wrapped atop her head.
She was with me and I still had a crush on her.
Once I had asked her if she'd like to go to Comic-Con in San Diego with me, she replied "I'll go anywhere with you."
*crush*
And man, did I ever want her to.
She was a vision. Even when she slept, she had the most peaceful looking sleep. Sometimes I would come into the darkened bedroom to see her lying languid on the bed, her body turned the way pulp artists would draw femme fatales when they had their wiles turned up to eleven.
She has this tattoo on the back of her neck that spelled out 'faith' which would usually be the first thing I'd see in the morning light.
She'd tell me that she felt safe with me, and I would start lifting weights and ponder getting back into Karate. My senses heightened like some battle-hardened warrior of legend, I would scan everyone and everything around us for signs of potential danger when we went out.
I wanted to protect her. I never felt so alive.
I was Spider-Man, Daredevil, and Batman all at once. She was Mary Jane, Elektra, and Talia.
When life's ocean got choppy for her, I had no problems handing her the invitation to stay with me. I'm no commitment-phobe. I've never had a problem with the idea of staying with one woman. I had a girl breakup with me once not only because she couldn't believe I wasn't like the "others" that girls are supposed to be mindful of, but she thought I was marriage material and she wasn't ready. Not that I had even suggested it, we'd only been seeing each other for a couple of months anyway.
But, "Simone" was completely different. A geeky, feminine, street-smart woman. And all into me.
Not so much anymore.
When she left, that is.
I miss the way her hair would bounce, when she walks. When she turns to look at me, with her smile. HER smile.
Her voice... speaking my name. When she called me "Honey", I could taste it.
A beautiful tone curling around my ear canal- burning through my nervous system like an all consuming fire.
Her gaze a sultry, dark supernova of passion.
She made me believe I could do anything. And I wanted to do everything for her.
The fact that she was with me blew my mind. The fact she even existed in this terrible world... made me believe that it could be a better one. And I wanted to live there.
Man, I wanted to die there.
She was everything... and now she's gone.
She took only what belonged to her, but she took everything.
She told me it wasn't my fault, but also that there was nothing I could do.
She couldn't stay.
The sun had set.
What brings me to this is my latest brush with happiness, 8 months worth, and the cold lifeless reality since.
Early in 2007 I found my true love. A beautiful, sexy, talented, dark & sassy intelligent lady we'll call "Simone". "Simone" was the twin sister (twin Geminis. Yes, I know..) of the longtime girlfriend of another old friend of mine. She'd moved to L.A. a year earlier to reconnect with her sister and further their jewelery business. Her sister always said we should hook up even way back when we all lived in NYC, but we always passed like ships in the night.
Well many years later both of us end up across the country and we finally hooked up, and right away it was a love that you could see and feel a real future emanating from. I had six years in L.A. ripping me to shreds, plus the fallout of a failed engagement back in NYC that I jetted this damn town for still radiating off me. (I was more broke up about the return to L.A. than the actual breakup.)
I was determined to do anything I had to to keep this woman in my life. Her stats were off the charts: Liked Star Wars, didn't hate sports, slightly geeky, beautiful, sexy, was graceful (even if she didn't think so), humorous, amorous, & smart.
She'd cast her presence around me adorned in pink, or in darker hues, skirts, or in jeans, her dark hair cascading down over her shoulders, or wrapped atop her head.
She was with me and I still had a crush on her.
Once I had asked her if she'd like to go to Comic-Con in San Diego with me, she replied "I'll go anywhere with you."
*crush*
And man, did I ever want her to.
She was a vision. Even when she slept, she had the most peaceful looking sleep. Sometimes I would come into the darkened bedroom to see her lying languid on the bed, her body turned the way pulp artists would draw femme fatales when they had their wiles turned up to eleven.
She has this tattoo on the back of her neck that spelled out 'faith' which would usually be the first thing I'd see in the morning light.
She'd tell me that she felt safe with me, and I would start lifting weights and ponder getting back into Karate. My senses heightened like some battle-hardened warrior of legend, I would scan everyone and everything around us for signs of potential danger when we went out.
I wanted to protect her. I never felt so alive.
I was Spider-Man, Daredevil, and Batman all at once. She was Mary Jane, Elektra, and Talia.
When life's ocean got choppy for her, I had no problems handing her the invitation to stay with me. I'm no commitment-phobe. I've never had a problem with the idea of staying with one woman. I had a girl breakup with me once not only because she couldn't believe I wasn't like the "others" that girls are supposed to be mindful of, but she thought I was marriage material and she wasn't ready. Not that I had even suggested it, we'd only been seeing each other for a couple of months anyway.
But, "Simone" was completely different. A geeky, feminine, street-smart woman. And all into me.
Not so much anymore.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Birthday weekend, part two
As big on my list as Dallass getting knocked off in the playoffs was, the spread mom put out for dinner was epic.
If you've seen "Antowne Fisher" you'd know.
Every dish I like was prepared: Mom's trademark fried chicken was first up, seasoned perfectly as always (served with honey is also an option, but that may be a bit much for some. One might start selling off personal items like a crackhead for a second serving, if he's not careful).
Followed by a perfectly done casserole of sweet potatoes, and as always, the ridiculously tasty collard greens, and this nameless medley of a dish consisting of kielbasi sausage, pineapple, and chopped peppers in a tangy tomato broth that has haunted me since I was a kid.
It's the only sausage dish I like. Mom claims she pulled it out of some magazine back in the day I've seen some of those recipes and they all look like something you dare your family to eat and never speak of it again. This is not that dish, boyo.
The last thing she smacked me upside my head with was her classic deep-dish apple pie.
Oh My God, just stick it straight into my veins!
She hasn't pulled that off in years. Only a Tastykake apple pie can be considered an acceptable alternative, and there's still a considerable distance between them. Like a light-year.
Its the kind of treat that has the kids sitting there confused after they eat a slice a la mode, cause their little bodies & brain pans are unleashing endorphins they won't experience again until they get their first "munchies" attack after their first joint.
After I woke the next afternoon, clutching the containers of leftovers I liberated (I don't remember anything, post pie. not the first time that happened. there was that family reunion dinner back in '79...), I shook off the lingering effects of "the itis" and went about what was left of the day.
Thirty years plus seven, goddamn. What keeps me humble all this time is the flashes of recall I get about shit from my past. All the jerky, awkward stuff I put myself through. The missteps I've made personally, professionally, etc. We all have them, but mine feel like they happened yesterday. But then I think "who else would remember that?", and relief would wash over me when the realization that not only am I million miles and "life miles" away from those who would still hang me for my missteps, but that I never even made any lasting impact that anyone other than myself would consider worth remembering among that group.
Its all in my mind. I'm well into my third decade of existence, I got a whole new batch of insecurities on the table these days to obsess over.
Thank god for that.
If you've seen "Antowne Fisher" you'd know.
Every dish I like was prepared: Mom's trademark fried chicken was first up, seasoned perfectly as always (served with honey is also an option, but that may be a bit much for some. One might start selling off personal items like a crackhead for a second serving, if he's not careful).
Followed by a perfectly done casserole of sweet potatoes, and as always, the ridiculously tasty collard greens, and this nameless medley of a dish consisting of kielbasi sausage, pineapple, and chopped peppers in a tangy tomato broth that has haunted me since I was a kid.
It's the only sausage dish I like. Mom claims she pulled it out of some magazine back in the day I've seen some of those recipes and they all look like something you dare your family to eat and never speak of it again. This is not that dish, boyo.
The last thing she smacked me upside my head with was her classic deep-dish apple pie.
Oh My God, just stick it straight into my veins!
She hasn't pulled that off in years. Only a Tastykake apple pie can be considered an acceptable alternative, and there's still a considerable distance between them. Like a light-year.
Its the kind of treat that has the kids sitting there confused after they eat a slice a la mode, cause their little bodies & brain pans are unleashing endorphins they won't experience again until they get their first "munchies" attack after their first joint.
After I woke the next afternoon, clutching the containers of leftovers I liberated (I don't remember anything, post pie. not the first time that happened. there was that family reunion dinner back in '79...), I shook off the lingering effects of "the itis" and went about what was left of the day.
Thirty years plus seven, goddamn. What keeps me humble all this time is the flashes of recall I get about shit from my past. All the jerky, awkward stuff I put myself through. The missteps I've made personally, professionally, etc. We all have them, but mine feel like they happened yesterday. But then I think "who else would remember that?", and relief would wash over me when the realization that not only am I million miles and "life miles" away from those who would still hang me for my missteps, but that I never even made any lasting impact that anyone other than myself would consider worth remembering among that group.
Its all in my mind. I'm well into my third decade of existence, I got a whole new batch of insecurities on the table these days to obsess over.
Thank god for that.
Birthday weekend, part one
Well. That was refreshing.
I watch every single playoff game every year. This time around I was really pushing for Jacksonville to shock the universe and upset the Pats. Close they came (as close as four other teams came this year after 16 weeks of play), but no “doobie”. Every week since November, every adversary to face the Pats have taken a tip (apparently thats all anyone can take) from the last team to face them and lose. Ever since the Eagles played them, everyone else has really been focusing on their “D” while their offenses have tried playing keep up. The Jags had them step for step until they left for the half, and Belichek broke out secret playbook “#1XPostseasonWeek2Delta” and that was that. Valiant effort nonetheless Jags.
If it wasn’t for the presence of the mighty, mighty Directv, I woulda thought the Seattle/Green Bay game was archive footage from the ‘70s (remember pre-global warming winters?). I see the Super Bowl matchup now, NE v. GB. Farve (as Leonidas) vs. Belichek’s Persians. A game that should be played in the snow, or some other harsh element.
“Pats vs. Packers Live at the Coliseum on the ice planet of Hoth!!!!”
A few friends of mine love their Chargers, none of them live in San Diego, but I was happy for them.
Dungy’s is a great guy & coach n’ everything, but I guess the football gods only have room for one Manning each year. Still, I wouldn’t bet on Eli if you paid me, but dammit if I wasn’t pleased they beat Dallass. It was definitely the more acceptable outcome.
Any Dallass win is unacceptable, unless it benefits the Eagles benefit somehow, and even then I’m uncomfortable with it.
And its a damn good sight to see them get bounced out on my birthday, some things just have to go right in this lifetime, dammit!
Oh, and Terrell’s weepy post game performance was just like him! I guess on your third (and possibly last) chance at being a good teammate you’d better start acting like you give a damn about team chemistry, but way to overdo it ya shumuck! Now he’s upset about the treatment of his QB? Jeezus, what a high-maintenance disaster he is. I always knew he’d end up in Dallass someday, even though I always got a kick outta his antics whenever he played against them, but he screwed up badly when he got kicked outta Philly. He, Westbrook and McNabb woulda been what the Pats are today. Philly fans woulda lost their damn minds watching them score every year. Super Bowl trophies lined up and down Broad Street for freaking years, man!!
May he never see another Super Bowl up close again.
What a Maroon.
Still, the Packers should roll this weekend. They’d better. This years Giants DO NOT belong in the big game anymore than Dallass did. They are the last, best hope to beat New England. Golden Boy Favre vs. Golden Boy Brady.
If its a Pats blowout, it’ll be a damn shame.
I watch every single playoff game every year. This time around I was really pushing for Jacksonville to shock the universe and upset the Pats. Close they came (as close as four other teams came this year after 16 weeks of play), but no “doobie”. Every week since November, every adversary to face the Pats have taken a tip (apparently thats all anyone can take) from the last team to face them and lose. Ever since the Eagles played them, everyone else has really been focusing on their “D” while their offenses have tried playing keep up. The Jags had them step for step until they left for the half, and Belichek broke out secret playbook “#1XPostseasonWeek2Delta” and that was that. Valiant effort nonetheless Jags.
If it wasn’t for the presence of the mighty, mighty Directv, I woulda thought the Seattle/Green Bay game was archive footage from the ‘70s (remember pre-global warming winters?). I see the Super Bowl matchup now, NE v. GB. Farve (as Leonidas) vs. Belichek’s Persians. A game that should be played in the snow, or some other harsh element.
“Pats vs. Packers Live at the Coliseum on the ice planet of Hoth!!!!”
A few friends of mine love their Chargers, none of them live in San Diego, but I was happy for them.
Dungy’s is a great guy & coach n’ everything, but I guess the football gods only have room for one Manning each year. Still, I wouldn’t bet on Eli if you paid me, but dammit if I wasn’t pleased they beat Dallass. It was definitely the more acceptable outcome.
Any Dallass win is unacceptable, unless it benefits the Eagles benefit somehow, and even then I’m uncomfortable with it.
And its a damn good sight to see them get bounced out on my birthday, some things just have to go right in this lifetime, dammit!
Oh, and Terrell’s weepy post game performance was just like him! I guess on your third (and possibly last) chance at being a good teammate you’d better start acting like you give a damn about team chemistry, but way to overdo it ya shumuck! Now he’s upset about the treatment of his QB? Jeezus, what a high-maintenance disaster he is. I always knew he’d end up in Dallass someday, even though I always got a kick outta his antics whenever he played against them, but he screwed up badly when he got kicked outta Philly. He, Westbrook and McNabb woulda been what the Pats are today. Philly fans woulda lost their damn minds watching them score every year. Super Bowl trophies lined up and down Broad Street for freaking years, man!!
May he never see another Super Bowl up close again.
What a Maroon.
Still, the Packers should roll this weekend. They’d better. This years Giants DO NOT belong in the big game anymore than Dallass did. They are the last, best hope to beat New England. Golden Boy Favre vs. Golden Boy Brady.
If its a Pats blowout, it’ll be a damn shame.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
change? spare change, maybe.
The last time i attended a job fair was a few years ago in NYC at the Jacob Javits Convention Center. The crowd was so large It looked like a major recording artist was personally handing out concert tickets to four times what the house could actually seat. Eventually, they had to shut the fair down hours early because of the massive swarm of job-seekers. Those who couldn't get in we're instructed to leave their resumes in marked boxes by, what was now, the closed doors of the convention center halls. No doubt these "in boxes" became trash boxes when it was all said and done. There were simply too many people looking for work. What else is new?
My father is 83 years old with a recent history of medical intervention, and a long history of complications due to diabetes. I picked up his latest round of prescription meds recently to discover that five (FIVE!!!!!) of his prescrips ran him up for almost $400. And like most of this nation's elderly, he's living off savings and a severely battered and constant politically jeopardized social security system. Not to forget that his s.s. payments are as "trickle-down" as it gets, and if he could still work, his paycheck would kill his s.s. payments if he earned more than he got back from the government based on what he earned for himself back in the day, anyway.
My brother is pretty successful right now, but he has zero money management skills, and keeps repeating that I need a credit card as some sort of fix for my own broke ass problems.
I tell him constantly that credit is the last thing I need. The credit companies and the banks are our worst enemies right now. The only way they make money is by keeping the rest of us broke!
As incredible as it sounds, its true.
If you get money from a loan shark, it doesn't matter if you pay them back in full or infrequently. They will hound you and use you for their own ends until you drop. They will claim entitlement for their methods, and it doesn't matter how much you borrowed or paid back. You would be lucky to get out alive, even if you don't get your extremities broken in the process.
The banks, credit companies, and the so-called consolidators work the same way. They may not break your actual legs, but they'll sure break your financial ones.
Banks use a credit agency known as ChexSystems to see if "it's safe" to allow you or I to have a bank account. If you have had an overdraft of any amount in the past for any reason, and it had been overlooked for simply unpaid, this will stick out like a tumor on your record. And you are blacklisted for at least five years, simple as that. You must wait out the mark on your head to get out from under it. If you've ever tried to live and collect your paychecks to pay your bills and get on with life, imagine how hard this becomes when you cannot even get your paychecks CASHED!!!
If you live in a place where you there's no other entity to help you in that matter(and charge you a hefty surcharge on top of it), no check cashing businesses, not even a liquor store to do this, and if they do exist they still have rules on what kind of checks they do cash.
This happened to me in "the big city", I was working my dream job as a broadcast engineer helping construct the studios & broadcast centers for major television networks and bringing home the best pay I've ever seen, plus overtime. (Yes!! UNION RULES!!!)
But because I had a $20 overdraft at a bank 4000 miles away, no bank would see me... or help me fix the problem.
So there I was, broke but not broke. I had a $2200.00 paycheck burning a hole through my pocket with white hot intensity, and I had no place to put it. Check cashing stores couldn't help simply because the check was too large, and if they had they would've taken at least a $150 cut.
By contrast, the credit companies literally lend you money at some ill interest percentage to pay back, with the theory that you'll keep spending so you'll keep having to pay it back. And if you don't (or can't), they'll just take your shit. Unless you're really savvy, and just use your card to buy food. I've never seen repo men raiding a fridge for that bottle of applesauce Visa said you brought from the "Shop N'Bag".
And this government recently changed the bankruptcy laws against us. Not that bankruptcy was anything anyone wanted to go through, but now it's been written so that your climb out of any sort of debt is all but impossible...unless you're rich, of course.
The credit (and now mortgage) companies we're allowed to make their services more attractive to those seeking "the american dream" as rates they could "afford", but when the jobs started breaking out for overseas pastures, and businesses were not using their tax cuts to create more jobs people went broke... or more broke depending on who you are. This caused the mortgage crisis. With the rising cost of... EVERYTHING, people simply couldn't keep up, and a once sweetheart deal of home ownership became a coffinnail.
Here's the twist: If the company gets bailed out of the crisis, who bails out the person who paid into the system?
As goes the mortgage crisis, now an auto loan crisis looms. With a credit card crisis of similar, if not worse proportions lurking over the horizon.
My father is 83 years old with a recent history of medical intervention, and a long history of complications due to diabetes. I picked up his latest round of prescription meds recently to discover that five (FIVE!!!!!) of his prescrips ran him up for almost $400. And like most of this nation's elderly, he's living off savings and a severely battered and constant politically jeopardized social security system. Not to forget that his s.s. payments are as "trickle-down" as it gets, and if he could still work, his paycheck would kill his s.s. payments if he earned more than he got back from the government based on what he earned for himself back in the day, anyway.
My brother is pretty successful right now, but he has zero money management skills, and keeps repeating that I need a credit card as some sort of fix for my own broke ass problems.
I tell him constantly that credit is the last thing I need. The credit companies and the banks are our worst enemies right now. The only way they make money is by keeping the rest of us broke!
As incredible as it sounds, its true.
If you get money from a loan shark, it doesn't matter if you pay them back in full or infrequently. They will hound you and use you for their own ends until you drop. They will claim entitlement for their methods, and it doesn't matter how much you borrowed or paid back. You would be lucky to get out alive, even if you don't get your extremities broken in the process.
The banks, credit companies, and the so-called consolidators work the same way. They may not break your actual legs, but they'll sure break your financial ones.
Banks use a credit agency known as ChexSystems to see if "it's safe" to allow you or I to have a bank account. If you have had an overdraft of any amount in the past for any reason, and it had been overlooked for simply unpaid, this will stick out like a tumor on your record. And you are blacklisted for at least five years, simple as that. You must wait out the mark on your head to get out from under it. If you've ever tried to live and collect your paychecks to pay your bills and get on with life, imagine how hard this becomes when you cannot even get your paychecks CASHED!!!
If you live in a place where you there's no other entity to help you in that matter(and charge you a hefty surcharge on top of it), no check cashing businesses, not even a liquor store to do this, and if they do exist they still have rules on what kind of checks they do cash.
This happened to me in "the big city", I was working my dream job as a broadcast engineer helping construct the studios & broadcast centers for major television networks and bringing home the best pay I've ever seen, plus overtime. (Yes!! UNION RULES!!!)
But because I had a $20 overdraft at a bank 4000 miles away, no bank would see me... or help me fix the problem.
So there I was, broke but not broke. I had a $2200.00 paycheck burning a hole through my pocket with white hot intensity, and I had no place to put it. Check cashing stores couldn't help simply because the check was too large, and if they had they would've taken at least a $150 cut.
By contrast, the credit companies literally lend you money at some ill interest percentage to pay back, with the theory that you'll keep spending so you'll keep having to pay it back. And if you don't (or can't), they'll just take your shit. Unless you're really savvy, and just use your card to buy food. I've never seen repo men raiding a fridge for that bottle of applesauce Visa said you brought from the "Shop N'Bag".
And this government recently changed the bankruptcy laws against us. Not that bankruptcy was anything anyone wanted to go through, but now it's been written so that your climb out of any sort of debt is all but impossible...unless you're rich, of course.
The credit (and now mortgage) companies we're allowed to make their services more attractive to those seeking "the american dream" as rates they could "afford", but when the jobs started breaking out for overseas pastures, and businesses were not using their tax cuts to create more jobs people went broke... or more broke depending on who you are. This caused the mortgage crisis. With the rising cost of... EVERYTHING, people simply couldn't keep up, and a once sweetheart deal of home ownership became a coffinnail.
Here's the twist: If the company gets bailed out of the crisis, who bails out the person who paid into the system?
As goes the mortgage crisis, now an auto loan crisis looms. With a credit card crisis of similar, if not worse proportions lurking over the horizon.
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