Budget talks: This is getting nasty

CarltonBanks · Aug 12, 2011

Magic In The Night said:

I have to agree with YF and Yeverything else on this one. I have a '99 Honda, totally paid off with only 105,000 miles. I've always thought the best thing to do is buy a car new and drive it into the ground.
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Mine is a 2005 Jeep Liberty with 120K on it. I still LOVE it. Also have a 1970 Honda 350 (but it only has 9,500 miles one it).

Alma · Aug 12, 2011

YankeeFan said:

Alma said:

Ah, an opening.

But they were told to take those home equity loans. American dream, peddled to all! And, given the standard of living a person like you I'm sure enjoys, they see a credit card as a means to getting some nice stuff, too. That's not to blame you by any means, but it is to say this: Lots of people would love to be wealthy. Most of them won't be. Some of those most will live beyond their means anyway, and that's part of why we're in the problem we're in.

But it's trite to sit there and say: "Well, they did it to themselves. It's their fault." Because, in a culture that bombards you with the need to be a certain way - from the time you're 4 years old - it is so hard to buck that imprint. And some of the people who do, let's face it, they're misers. They're people I suppose you're glad exist in theory, but people you wouldn't care to know. People who wouldn't give their teenage kid ten bucks to pitch in on gas and pizza. People who don't buy a round and just sit there at the table, watching everybody else drink a few. If the world were made up of them, it would be a very unpleasant fucking world.

And some of the ones who buck the trend are just great consumers. Which, by the way, is a learned skill. Man is not innately attuned to half the stuff that makes you a good consumer. And being rich - or, if you prefer, achieving wealth - doesn't make you a good consumer. But our market depends on bad consumers. We need some people to pay too much for the coat. We need some people who can't or won't cook a lick, and eat out all the time (which is about as bad of a consumer as you can get, because most people, if they tried for one year, could outcook most of the meals they eat out for a fraction of the cost and time spent on sitting there, parking, farting around, etc.) We need people who don't clip coupons and get the milk at the gas station because they're too lazy to go two blocks to the grocery store. We need people who spend $8 on sub sandwich at a county fair they make for $1.59 at home.

We need bad consumers, because if everybody was an elite consumer, let's face it: We wouldn't consume very damn much. It'd be a very small economy.

But it's equally trite to assume the only bad consumers are the ones who can afford to be. It's not going to be that way. And if you prefer to pile more tax responsibilities on those folks you certainly can - and probably feel pretty good about the mistakes they've made. But the reverse of that scenario is this: Left without options, those folks often kick over into crime, and we pay for that. We pay a whole lotta money for them to live in a prison for many years. Or we pay for their drug addiction in the cost of crime. Or we pay for their children to go through the foster care system. We end up paying, a lot, for that self-righteousness, when it might have been better to resolve the problem more progressively on the front end.

Next time you cluck your tongue, just think of it as a deposit from your bank account.

And if you want to say, "well, I'm tired of paying for that," well OK. Make some tough moral choices then. What about that war on drugs? What about adopting a whole truckload of kids just because you can afford to give them a better life than their parents did? What about for-profit private prisons, which would scoff at lifetime sentences for three armed robberies in California and would set parole to a mathematical equation. What about the day when the poor says screw it, starts to riot, and a city is left footing a million-dollar bill it can't pay for? What about privatizing social security and accountable for all the elderly who lose their shirts in the market and become 100 percent drains on the welfare system in their 60s, with 25 more years left to live?

So, to hold up misers and elite consumers as paragons of monetary virtue only works when they're a small percentage. We need poker players who fold every time the odds don't kick their ways, and we need players who bluff their way through, winning and losing big pots along the way. And, with those "losers" we need to strongly consider setting aside whatever pride we may feel over not making their mistakes, and thinking that, for the grace of God, go we. That might better inform how we manage what some call the "dregs."
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What the hell happened to Ragu? That doesn't sound at all like him.

Oh, it's not Ragu? I just assumed from the length...
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How's that strawberry ice cream thread going?

YankeeFan · Aug 12, 2011

Alma said:

How's that strawberry ice cream thread going?
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Fucking Azrael is ruining it

Football_Bat · Aug 12, 2011

The way to go is to buy a low-mileage used car. That way you pay way less for it and you don't get hit with the big initial depreciation. Then you can drive it into the ground. I've got two cars that I still haven't been able to kill.

JC · Aug 12, 2011

Football_Bat said:

The way to go is to buy a low-mileage used car. That way you pay way less for it and you don't get hit with the big initial depreciation. Then you can drive it into the ground. I've got two cars that I still haven't been able to kill.
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Depends whether you are financing or not. These days you can find a lot of car lots that are offering 0% interest.

LongTimeListener · Aug 12, 2011

JC said:

Football_Bat said:

The way to go is to buy a low-mileage used car. That way you pay way less for it and you don't get hit with the big initial depreciation. Then you can drive it into the ground. I've got two cars that I still haven't been able to kill.
Click to expand...

Depends whether you are financing or not. These days you can find a lot of car lots that are offering 0% interest.
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You're still paying a quarter to a third more on the price. Wait a year and you get the exact same car with 10,000 miles on it.

JC · Aug 12, 2011

LongTimeListener said:

JC said:

Football_Bat said:

The way to go is to buy a low-mileage used car. That way you pay way less for it and you don't get hit with the big initial depreciation. Then you can drive it into the ground. I've got two cars that I still haven't been able to kill.
Click to expand...

Depends whether you are financing or not. These days you can find a lot of car lots that are offering 0% interest.
Click to expand...

You're still paying a quarter to a third more on the price. Wait a year and you get the exact same car with 10,000 miles on it.
Click to expand...

again, it depends on whether you are financing it. What kind of interest rate are you getting on a used car theses days. If you are getting 0% interest on a new one it is not as simple as it used to be.

LongTimeListener · Aug 12, 2011

JC said:

LongTimeListener said:

JC said:

Football_Bat said:

The way to go is to buy a low-mileage used car. That way you pay way less for it and you don't get hit with the big initial depreciation. Then you can drive it into the ground. I've got two cars that I still haven't been able to kill.
Click to expand...

Depends whether you are financing or not. These days you can find a lot of car lots that are offering 0% interest.
Click to expand...

You're still paying a quarter to a third more on the price. Wait a year and you get the exact same car with 10,000 miles on it.
Click to expand...

again, it depends on whether you are financing it. What kind of interest rate are you getting on a used car theses days. If you are getting 0% interest on a new one it is not as simple as it used to be.
Click to expand...

Even at 5 pct interest over 3 years, you'll pay thousands less for the used car. But nobody should be looking at financing a used car anyway. If you can't pay cash, don't get the car. And if you absolutely have to get the car (crash or breakdown or something) and don't have the cash, you should be looking way lower than the new or 1-year-old models.

YF is right. Making continued payments on a depreciating asset is an awfully dumb thing to do, and anything beyond getting from Point A to Point B is unnecessary in a car.

Boom_70 · Aug 12, 2011

JC said:

LongTimeListener said:

JC said:

Football_Bat said:

The way to go is to buy a low-mileage used car. That way you pay way less for it and you don't get hit with the big initial depreciation. Then you can drive it into the ground. I've got two cars that I still haven't been able to kill.
Click to expand...

Depends whether you are financing or not. These days you can find a lot of car lots that are offering 0% interest.
Click to expand...

You're still paying a quarter to a third more on the price. Wait a year and you get the exact same car with 10,000 miles on it.
Click to expand...

again, it depends on whether you are financing it. What kind of interest rate are you getting on a used car theses days. If you are getting 0% interest on a new one it is not as simple as it used to be.
Click to expand...

With the low interest rate deals available you might be better off leasing if you want a brand new car. You can always buy the car at end of lease. The overall cost may end up being almost the same.

Even better if you own your own business. You can deduct 100 % cost of lease. The G5 tax deduction for the middle class.

printdust · Aug 12, 2011

JC said:

Football_Bat said:

The way to go is to buy a low-mileage used car. That way you pay way less for it and you don't get hit with the big initial depreciation. Then you can drive it into the ground. I've got two cars that I still haven't been able to kill.
Click to expand...

Depends whether you are financing or not. These days you can find a lot of car lots that are offering 0% interest.
Click to expand...

Yeah but the credit qualification is like a card game with a dirty dealer.

Boom_70 · Aug 12, 2011

Alma said:

Boom_70 said:

Baron Scicluna said:

printdust said:

Baron Scicluna said:

printdust said:

Ben_Hecht said:

doctorquant said:

I think the whole "everybody should pay some tax" thing is a bit overblown, because almost everyone does pay some tax. On the other hand, the taxes that are at the forefront of this debate are: 1) income taxes; 2) corporate taxes; and 3) capital gains taxes. These are the taxes that seem to be the most popular targets for increases. And these taxes, it should be emphasized, are paid by only a very small proportion of the tax-paying population.
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No shit. State/regional sales taxes -- likely the most regressive cashgrabs working, are a bane for many, especially in most of the major metro areas.

The so-called Flat Tax and a national sales tax . . . two of the plumpest pet regressive schemes of Pinhead O'Really and his dittoheads, all fingering themselves. . .
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How is it regressive? You pay for what you get. If you get more, you pay more. If you get less, you pay less. That seems pretty liberal to me considering they want the rich to pay more because they can.
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Let's see ... 10 percent of $20K is $2K, which goes towards food and the rent for anywheres from a closet to maybe a 1BR..

10 percent of $2 million is $200K, which goes towards the vacation house in Tuscany.

Which is more important to the overall welfare of the country and the world?
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You're talking about taxes you pay in. Everyone is paying on ability to pay.
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And for half the population right now, there is no ability to pay. They're barely scraping by as is. And you're going to ask them to pay more taxes?
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Maybe it's because the credit card payments and home equity loans they should not have taken are burying them.
Click to expand...

Ah, an opening.

But they were told to take those home equity loans. American dream, peddled to all! And, given the standard of living a person like you I'm sure enjoys, they see a credit card as a means to getting some nice stuff, too. That's not to blame you by any means, but it is to say this: Lots of people would love to be wealthy. Most of them won't be. Some of those most will live beyond their means anyway, and that's part of why we're in the problem we're in.

But it's trite to sit there and say: "Well, they did it to themselves. It's their fault." Because, in a culture that bombards you with the need to be a certain way - from the time you're 4 years old - it is so hard to buck that imprint. And some of the people who do, let's face it, they're misers. They're people I suppose you're glad exist in theory, but people you wouldn't care to know. People who wouldn't give their teenage kid ten bucks to pitch in on gas and pizza. People who don't buy a round and just sit there at the table, watching everybody else drink a few. If the world were made up of them, it would be a very unpleasant fucking world.

And some of the ones who buck the trend are just great consumers. Which, by the way, is a learned skill. Man is not innately attuned to half the stuff that makes you a good consumer. And being rich - or, if you prefer, achieving wealth - doesn't make you a good consumer. But our market depends on bad consumers. We need some people to pay too much for the coat. We need some people who can't or won't cook a lick, and eat out all the time (which is about as bad of a consumer as you can get, because most people, if they tried for one year, could outcook most of the meals they eat out for a fraction of the cost and time spent on sitting there, parking, farting around, etc.) We need people who don't clip coupons and get the milk at the gas station because they're too lazy to go two blocks to the grocery store. We need people who spend $8 on sub sandwich at a county fair they make for $1.59 at home.

We need bad consumers, because if everybody was an elite consumer, let's face it: We wouldn't consume very damn much. It'd be a very small economy.

But it's equally trite to assume the only bad consumers are the ones who can afford to be. It's not going to be that way. And if you prefer to pile more tax responsibilities on those folks you certainly can - and probably feel pretty good about the mistakes they've made. But the reverse of that scenario is this: Left without options, those folks often kick over into crime, and we pay for that. We pay a whole lotta money for them to live in a prison for many years. Or we pay for their drug addiction in the cost of crime. Or we pay for their children to go through the foster care system. We end up paying, a lot, for that self-righteousness, when it might have been better to resolve the problem more progressively on the front end.

Next time you cluck your tongue, just think of it as a deposit from your bank account.

And if you want to say, "well, I'm tired of paying for that," well OK. Make some tough moral choices then. What about that war on drugs? What about adopting a whole truckload of kids just because you can afford to give them a better life than their parents did? What about for-profit private prisons, which would scoff at lifetime sentences for three armed robberies in California and would set parole to a mathematical equation. What about the day when the poor says screw it, starts to riot, and a city is left footing a million-dollar bill it can't pay for? What about privatizing social security and accountable for all the elderly who lose their shirts in the market and become 100 percent drains on the welfare system in their 60s, with 25 more years left to live?

So, to hold up misers and elite consumers as paragons of monetary virtue only works when they're a small percentage. We need poker players who fold every time the odds don't kick their ways, and we need players who bluff their way through, winning and losing big pots along the way. And, with those "losers" we need to strongly consider setting aside whatever pride we may feel over not making their mistakes, and thinking that, for the grace of God, go we. That might better inform how we manage what some call the "dregs."
Click to expand...

My opening as well. Besides high credit debt one of problems plaguing middle class is a lack of personal responsibility. Too many always looking for someone to bail them out and absolve them of blame. Case in point is your take on credit problem. Assuming there name was not forged they signed the note and should have understood what they were signing.

High debt of the middle class is the 1000 LB elephant in the room. It one of key reasons why the Fed is keeping interest rates low.

JC · Aug 12, 2011

printdust said:

JC said:

Football_Bat said:

The way to go is to buy a low-mileage used car. That way you pay way less for it and you don't get hit with the big initial depreciation. Then you can drive it into the ground. I've got two cars that I still haven't been able to kill.
Click to expand...

Depends whether you are financing or not. These days you can find a lot of car lots that are offering 0% interest.
Click to expand...

Yeah but the credit qualification is like a card game with a dirty dealer.
Click to expand...

In what way? 0% interest you are playing with the banks money.

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Budget talks: This is getting nasty

CarltonBanks New Member

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Budget talks: This is getting nasty

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