by Amy Stinson | Oct 3, 2008 | Reasoned Opinion
Ok, I knew we were in a pickle when my brother told me with (presumably) a straight face (we were talking on the phone) that he was getting most of his background in what was going on in our country politically and financially by watching “The Daily Show”. Now I am definitely out of the loop since my exposure to TV is limited to what is offered across the airwaves. I don’t see non-network TV on a regular basis, but in this week that I’ve been staying at my daughter’s house I have been watching it every day. Wow! and here I’ve been limiting myself to the Wall Street Journal for my information. Straight shooting and no bias on “The Daily Show.” Yeah, right. Is there some truth to what Jon Stewart talks about? Of course.
So people ask – how did this happen? How did our country’s finances get to this point where the toilet is up? Is it really so hard to see? Remember back in 1986 when Congress passed the largest tax reform bill and Reagan signed it into law? One thing that the “reform” did was to drop the deduction on the interest paid on consumer credit for those of us who itemize our taxes. This lost deduction was designed to slow spending. Yeah, right. Shortly after that, the inevitable loophole was found. That loophole was to use the equity of one’s home as a personal line of credit, which at the time was limited to 70 or 80% of the assessed equity of the home and commonly used for home improvement. How many people took advantage of the equity of their homes to pay for consumer debt only to acquire more consumer debt on credit cards? Lots. How many times were people encouraged to leverage non-collateral debt against their homes? Lots. Not only that, various mortgage credit companies continue to act as though it’s business as usual, when it clearly is not.
Not everyone was able to avoid the temptation, and when the mortgage market “opened” to the place where people were able to borrow against “future” value of their homes – more then a home’s present worth – well who wouldn’t want to take advantage of “cheap” money? Moreover, many thought (rightly) what lender in its right mind would put its assets at risk by gambling on future values and someone’s questionable ability to pay? This led to a false sense of security. With the full approval (mandate) of Congress, lenders flattered the high risk borrower, and sold off the questionable loans to investors looking for a quick return on what was (apparently) perceived as a bottomless pit of growth, even as new home starts were slowing and homes were being foreclosed upon in areas of economic slowdown. To add to this hot mess, mortgage brokers working on straight commission who had no incentive to screen applicants; more than likely a huge incentive to fudge the numbers. In other words, there are no “victims” in this fiasco. People bought more house than they could comfortably repay based on flattery and the hope of repaying, and then borrowed against an over-valued home. Lenders led borrowers to believe they could repay while charging risky borrowers enough interest to make it worthwhile to the lender. Lenders, in turn, sold high risk debt to someone else until the whole hot mess collapsed. Don’t let anyone tell you this mess lacked oversight. There was plenty of oversight – by people who chose to look the other way.
Now we, as a nation, appear to be close to getting the opportunity to bail out the lenders and perhaps some of the borrowers if Congress can put their collective minds together and come up with something most of them can agree upon. Don’t make the mistake of believing this is a long-term solution. This is nothing more than a band-aid.
by Amy Stinson | Jul 30, 2008 | Reasoned Opinion
We have a land line with AT&T phone service. My gripe? I have Privacy Manager® to keep from having the pesky people who don’t feel they should have to announce themselves ringing into my house. To me, the phone is like my front door. If I want to look out the window and decide I don’t want to answer the door, it’s my door – my decision. Same thing with my phone.
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by Amy Stinson | Feb 14, 2008 | Reasoned Opinion, Self Improvement
I consider myself a pretty smart computer person, so imagine my frustration when I tried to load LifeScan’s OneTouch Diabetes monitoring software on my laptop and it could not “find” my meter. I have to say that LifeScan does not recommend putting the software on a laptop because of all the ports. I’m not sure what the difference is between a laptop and a desktop (from a port standpoint), as my desktop has more USB ports than my laptop, but apparently there is an issue.
I don’t give up easily. I installed the software on my laptop a month ago and never could get it to find the meter – other software packages had no trouble – but this one was not going to make it easy. Actually it is easy, if you know where to look, which was a problem as the documentation doesn’t give you a hint as to where to look.
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by Amy Stinson | Jul 26, 2007 | Reasoned Opinion
It’s been a number of months since I’ve written on this topic. I’d like to be able to say that it all turned out well, but it didn’t. The township ended up paying a $470,000 settlement to Doug Williams, since there were never any lawful reasons he could be fired, and he moved on to another job. The township remains deeply divided by this issue. Some people are angry he ended up leaving, some are angry over the payoff, others are angry at the board, while others are angry that anyone is angry at the board.
Now people are looking forward to the next elections where at least 2 board members who caused this chaos can be voted out.
by Amy Stinson | Apr 21, 2007 | Reasoned Opinion
I know I am not the only person who worries about whether something they have ordered will ever arrive. I am no exception.
In my last post I said the guy had stated he had mailed the RAM the week before. Not true. He had mailed the RAM on April 6. Apparently he waits a week and mails out all the RMA replacements on the Friday a week after he receives the returned merchandise. It also takes 7 whole days to get a first class mailing from Georgia, which is weird because I can get a first class mailing from Texas in 3 days.
The RAM arrived on April 14. I opened the package and found 2 new RAM chips in actual RAM chip plastic containers (something I had not gotten in the last 2 shipments and the RAM was name brand. The RAM was also the type that I knew would work in my machine. I shut down my machine, unplugged it, removed the battery and replaced my old RAM with the new RAM. The machine fired up like a champ and has been working flawlessly since.
March 1 – April 14 to get the RAM. I felt I was back in the ’80’s before FedEx changed the way we expect to receive mail and packages, but I am finally a satisfied customer with 2 gigs of RAM in my laptop!
by Amy Stinson | Apr 11, 2007 | Reasoned Opinion
Well, getting new RAM for my laptop has gotten more interesting. The new RAM supposedly mailed on March 16th arrived on March 23rd. So I eagerly opened the package only to see that the RAM sent was not one, but two identical RAM pieces just like the one that caused my machine to cycle and hang on the POST. Wow, it’s not like I didn’t tell the company that. OK, the bad RAM in the first package might have actually been bad, but I did tell the guy the other RAM worked just fine.
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