Financial Collapse

Our town is filled with homes for sale.I see people using credit cards to buy food.I think so many are making it only because of credit cards.

What's bad is now if you declare bankruptcy,you can no longer include credit cards.By bad,I mean,people can only live so long on credit,and so many will be filing bankruptcy that it won't help where credit cards are concerned.

Yet,if it wasn't for credit cards,we'd have hit bottom already.We will hit bottom,like you said,the problem is not over.

I think like many problems,people live in denial,and that's what's happening now.But it can only be denied so long

How people can see the obvious and not see the timeline and actions that got us here is beyond my comprehension.

Good Morning! ( ? )

United we stand....yada yada yada It is true though!

When will we get over ourselves and our petty issues?

How can modern people such as we are, not realize how inter connected we are with the rest of the world?

What Mother Nature has in store, does not come close to what mankind does to them selves. War and abuse of power, waste of energy resources and neglect of our children.........

I will stop there. ...Good post, thanks for putting me in the MOOD, giggle

It can be a major mistake for any citizen of any country to be trust any bank, government, lending institution or credit card company for their financial education. Most schools teach nothing of financial literacy. Most schools teach people to be employees of the financially literate. I read this from a very wise and weathy person: " A-students work for the government, B-students wind up working for C-students" I found that to be very funny.

Financial literacy unfortunately has to be self-taught. The public library is a free rescource.

The principles of financial literacy will never change. Benjamin Franklin wrote enough material on the matter to guide one successfully even today. Buying into a "neutron" loan, a credit card and frivilous spending are personal choices. I will not put blame for my own financial demise on anyone not seen in the closest mirror. I certainly can't blame banks, governments or companies. To seem astute, we should study the strengths of the world wide market starting at the signing of the Magna Carta. Viewing the many up and down curves that one might see, we can predict that there will be good times and there will be very, very lean times. Just like ants prepare for winter all summer, perhaps humans might try this.

John F. Kennedy said "The best time to fix a leaky roof is when the sun is shining"

My kids will pay for their own college just like their parents did.

Buy the way, when markets are down, to the financially literate, assests are on sale.

Assets feed you, liabilities eat you. What one purchases is a personal choice.

The sky is not falling. We are surrounded by insurmountable opportunity. Change is an adventure to the wise, an opportunity to the alert and a threat to the insecure.

Coffee time.

Terrorists are just cockroaches in the grand scheme of things. What infuriates me the most is that I know that Democrats are going to blame the Republicans and Republicans are going to blame the Democrats and in the meantime the public is suffering.

Jackie, I think that what I've been preaching for years to clients and anyone else who would listen has now come home to roost. I missed by only a few years of being called a "depression baby." I was born at the tail end of the depression, but my childhood years were spent in the recovering war years of the forties and my teens, in the fifties in the "Dobie Gillis era" of general prosperity and absence of any worry other than the beginning of the cold war which amounted to a hill of beans in the end.

I was taught to "never write a check with my mouth my fists couldn't cash" and "never write a check with my wants that my income couldn't sustain." I spent the rest of my life living those credos which meant I stayed out of fights and I didn't spend what I didn't have.

Last year, unlike many Americans, I got the hell out of mutual funds even though I took a big tax hit. Had I stayed, my present value would be a loss of twice the tax hit! I don't know how many years it will take to make up for this market crash which is getting worse, but I don't expect I will be alive to see it.

Going against the grain, I used all the cash to buy 2 condo studios in an old converted hotel that sat in the middle of the richest goldmine of colleges, medical schools and employment of entry level white collar workers on the planet. So far, I have recouped 50% of my tax hit in 14 months in rentals ands have long-term leases. I am pestered by real estate agents who want to offer 150% of what I paid last year to buy me out. They just "discovered" that low cost housing in downtown Philadelphia has worth! Jeez!

My wife and I lived frugally and saved much more than the average family in, what was for most of our careers, a limited income bracket. You wouldn't believe what 40 years without fancy vacations or new cars every three years will do to your retirement position.

As a psychotherapist, I found that a high percentage of my clients, along with all the emotional problems they had, also had extreme financial problems. They found themselves paying interest so high on credit cards that they owed more each month rather than less. I tried to help them see that financial worries are a huge percentage of feeling good vs feeling bad. When you know you are secure, it leaves a lot of room inside to deal with all the little irritations of life like: You and your significant other are having sexual problems. The kids are taking drugs. Mother in law is cruisin' for a bruisin' and you promised your wife you wouldn't hit her!

Today's suburban families are the unhappiest people I have ever seen. I grew up in a place and time where the women didn't worry about getting a wrinkle and the men were happy with the old Ford. A new car was something to be ashamed of - it was showing off when the neighbors had so little.

I now live in a town composed of shopping centers and health spas ... with plastic surgeons on the green, desireable plots of land between. I've never seen so many spend so much to get so little of value. They keep on spending to make up for the fact that they feel worthless ... and to a large degree they are. They have done nothing with their lives to contribute to the welfare of others and now that their stocks are in the shitter, their jobs in the financial industry are in jeopardy, they stand a good chance of losing home, job and all the crap they collected that has no real worth in terms of making life better ... unless you can prove to me that driving a Porsche is better than driving a 6 year old PT Cruiser. Mine fits more groceries in the back on the day that the deluge hits and we have to run for the bomb shelters. And, when they get their $900 a month utility bill for their McMansion, mine is still a "reasonable" $200 and I could cut that if I take off my shirt in the summer and put on a sweater in the winter.

Anyway, why would I need a new sweater? The sweatshirt I bought in college in 1956 still fits and, if you look closely, you can still see the words "perseverantia vincit" on the faded Temple U. emblem. Oh, yeah, for those of you who didn't struggle through four years of Latin in HS as I did, the words translated to English mean: Perseverence conquers.

You are dead-on, TIE. Since this was years in the making and the result of billions of dollars spent to buy legislation creating this environment, this will not turn around soon. This will alter our future like nothing else previously. If your family finances were like this, you'd level with the family and begin packing bags. Corporations got the US to buy into 'globalization' like that was a good thing. Well?... Enjoy!