Time to Learn the New National Anthem - Sing It With Me!

[propertymanager]

Better learn this before the state tests you on it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l46t_nrySg4

Sing it loud and sing it proud!

Comrade Mike

[John_in_NC]

That is funny stuff!

[John_in_NC]

That is funny stuff!

Here is something for you mike.

http://www.cnnbcvideo.com/?nid=dVz57efDcNRXjWZIIBn5HzEzMDQ3Nzk-&referred_by=14290652-oWvz.mx

[propertymanager]

That's hysterical John!!!

[fdjake]

GLEN BECK

I seriously wonder if there's a BIGGER a**hole on the planet.

Here's what I know.....

4 more years of "W"'s policies and MIKE would BE a TENANT somewhere, not a landlord.

Let's just keep telling people the economy is sound!!! (McCain)

Hey John, that looks like the wing on our plane just got shot off....

Naa,  the plane is still sound...

Hey John,  looks like the ground is getting closer...... FAST!!

Naa,  that's just an optical illiusion.

Palin = Maverick

McCain =  Iceman

Either way....a sh*tty movie.

[propertymanager]

Actually, Glenn Beck is on the same page with us.  He has been predicting a collapse for more than 2 years and he has been absolutely right.  It's obvious to me that the credit crisis; the banking crisis; the housing crisis; etc are all just symptoms of the real problem which is LONG TERM overspending by the government and by individuals.  We have about 40% of Americans not paying income taxes and that will undoubtedly rise as full-blown overt socialism takes hold.  In addition, the peak earners (age 49-54) start to rapidly decline in 2012.  Massively increasing entitlements with a declining tax base and declining group of peak earners means that the country is in a corner from which we can not extricate ourselves. 

The economy WILL collapse (it hasn't done anything yet) and then we'll have to restart the country with a different model.  The overall standard of living MUST go down and savings must go up.  Handouts to the lazy will greatly be decreased and a major war is extremely likely.  Wars are the historic way to get rid of non-productive populations.

Our economy is like a house of cards and the cards on the bottom are rapidly being pulled out!

FDJake, I agree with you 100% about W.  He's done a TERRIBLE job and moved us a long way to socialism.  I think he's one of the worst presidents we've ever had.  McCain would have been much worse than W.  Unfortunately, Obama is FAR worse than either of them and just his "cap and trade" system by itself will be enough to finish off the country.  He's a full blown Marxist and Socialist and if he tries to implement his ideas (the idiot Pelosi has already signaled her intention to do so), the country is in deep trouble.

Comrade Mike



Mike

[fdjake]

I see this unfolding a little differently.......

What we have in this country is a RE-ALIGNMENT of wealth, priorites, property values, wages, basically....EVERYTHING.

I think Obama is a LOT smarter than people here are giving him credit for.  I recently read a column written by a VERY conservative REPUBLICAN who was on the Harvard Law Review with Obama in college.  There were basically 2 factions on the Law review.....hard core REPUBLICANS and Liberal Democrats.  They basically HATED each other. (sound familiar?)  Obama ran for President of the Harvard Law Review.   This is a VERY presigous postion, almost guarantees a Supreme Court clerkship.  What I thought was intersting was some of this replublicans comments about Obama.

After winning the job, these guys thought he would lock them (the Republicans) out.  He did the opposite.  He INCLUDED them, by giving those REPUBLICANS highly prized positions on the Review Board.  In the end, even the Republicans had to admit that Obama was probably one of THE MOST EFFECTIVE Presidents the Review has ever had.

I think he could surprise a LOT of people.  He ran a FLAWLESS campaign.  Think about how hard that is to do???  That's a sign of someone who knows how to use strategy, plan ahead, and stay out of trouble.  This is the polar OPPOSITE of what DUBYA has shown us for 8 years!!!

[propertymanager]

FDJake,

I hope you're right - that he'll govern from the center.  That is going to take a lot of strength, because the far left has already signalled their intention to do otherwise!

Mike

[fdjake]

Think about it Mike......If Obama centers himself he wins on BOTH fronts.

The Republicans who got their @sses handed to them, and have NO expectations end up getting a seat at the table.

The Democrats get what they've been after for years....more for the middle class.....

Think that middle class stuff is bad????? 

Don't kid yourself....

Building the middle class back up will make this country STRONGER!!!

Here's how I see it.....

Obama is going to back UNIONS...BIG TIME......before you all jump out the nearest window hear me out.....

If Walmart, Home Depot, and Lowes, ect Unionize what happens???
Those employees will go from making $8/hr to making $15/hour. 
Mike.....how much easier will it be for you to find QUALIFIED Tenants with HUNDREDS of potentials working right down the street from your properties.

How will those people spend that money???
They'll BUY HOUSES, CARS, they will SPEND!!!

I know a lot of guys here think Unions are the scurge of this country.
The REALITY is we are watching a PENDULUM swinging. 

Henry Ford sold MILLIONS of cars by INCREASING his workers WAGES.  That spread through the industry and BUILT the middle class.  The pendulum swung TOO FAR, Unions bacame FAT, USELESS weights on business, then they started to die OFF.  At that point THE BUSINESSES became GREEDY, FAT, USELESS.  These are cycles that get repaeted over and over.  You can make a FORTUNE if you can identify these trends EARLY. 

Unions will make BIG, BIG gaines in this country in the next few years.
Be READY for it....Don't BITCH about it.....PROFIT FROM IT.
Potential areas to look at are......CAR MAKERS (in 3 to 5 years)  Home Builders (same time frame)  Heavy Construction eqipment makers (infa structure repairs)  and believe it or not...even the HOME DEPOT's and LOWES will profit.  At a LIVING WAGE those employess will buy MILLIONS of homes.

And ALL Boats will rise.....

Watch.....it's always the ideas that sound ridiculus that end up being the reality!!

2 years ago we had knock down drag out brawls over the mess we ARE NOW IN!!!  LOT'S of very smart people here NEVER thought this would happen...

[justin0419]

Some of this sounds good, but won't that sharp rise in wages you're predicting lead to higher costs passed on to the consumer?  Isn't this part of the same mentality that's driven businesses to manufacture overseas and across borders already?  I'm not poking holes here; just trying to consider all the pieces.
 
I'd like to see President-Elect Obama as more of a centrist, but I'm not sure that's probable given his limited record so far.  As I said before, I do hope he takes advantage of this opportunity and does some good things for our country.  Like it or not, we've got him for 4 years.  Hopefully as a country we will move in the right direction.

[propertymanager]

I can only agree with one thing you said in that post FDJake - IT DOES SOUND CRAZY!

I think that the problem is just the opposite.  In the United States, we've had a standard of living that we haven't earned - we've borrowed it.  That's the 11 Trillion dollars that the government is in debt AND that's the trillions of dollars that consumers are in debt.  Our wages are already too high in the United States to compete globally and the unions are largely responsible for the destruction of industry in this country.

So, I can't agree that paying a clerk at Walmart is worth $15 per hour.  In fact, if I were president, I would eliminate the minimum wage and allow the market to decide wages.

In my opinion, the free ride is over for the country.  No longer will we be able to live a lifestyle so far above our means.  It's time to get lean and mean.  It's time to start building things in this country again.  It's time to start paying as we go, and it's time to start saving again!

Mike

[fdjake]

So Mike......Dick Fuld was worth $250,000,000 a year because "THE MARKET" said so??????

Dicky bought muti million dollar paintings with that money, mansion after mansion, Ferrari after Ferrari....THAT sh*t he cared about....His company just let 10,000 people go, but Tricky Dicky STILL has HIS job.   If that's what markets do..... screw the markets.

Mike.......did ANY of DICKS spending MAKE YOU MONEY????

How about if all the Walmarts and Home Depots in your area paid a LIVING WAGE???  Do you think YOU  might benefit from that????

Here's a CLASSIC example......

My local STOP & SHOP grocery store is Union.  They pay their employees a wage you can actually LIVE ON.  STOP $ SHOP employess that I know personally, all own their own homes, they buy new cars, they SPEND MONEY!!!!  In contrast WALMART pays their employees $8/hr.  Their turnover rate is ASTRONOMICAL, they employ people who are either retired or jump from job to job EVERY MONTH.  These people DO NOT own their own homes, they ride the BUS to work, and their ability to stimulate our economy is almost NON EXSISTANT.  We can SEE THIS NOW!!!  The funny part of this story is WALMART is right down the street from Stop & Shop, both stores do a very good business.  I DO NOT pay more for food at Stop & Shop than I do at Walmart, so that kills the INCREASED PRICING theory.  The only difference I see is this.......I've seen the SAME EMPLOYEES at Stop & Shop for YEARS.  Walmart on the other hand, looks like they hire out of the local Carnival. 

Need another one???  Let's look at Construction trade unions...I've worked with, and have been a member of both groups...the NON UNION home builders who hire guys as carpenters for $12/hour  and the Union construction contractors who pay pervailing wage.  Here's the difference...

The guy making $12/hr lives at home with his parents and gets picked up every morning by his boss.

The Union Carpenter drives to work in a new F-150, owns his own home, has a few kids (which creates FURTHER spending) and wants to KEEP his job because he KNOWS what it's like to be on the other side.

I not kidding myself here....there's some real pieces of sh*t working on BOTH sides.  But the bottom line is....the more WORKING PEOPLE make, the MORE they'll SPEND!!!

You don't have to agree with me Mike....This IS COMING...like it or not....Then we will all see WHO spends their money, and on what.  My bet is a middle class, making a decent wage, makes me a BARREL FULL of money.
I ALREADY know the Dicky Fuld's of the last 8 years never made me a cent.

One last POINT.........Mike....how long do you think it will be before the BILLION in CHINA start seeing THEIR wages rise???  This isn't a vacuum buddy.  Those people, like every society in HISTORY, will start demanding BETTER.  Very soon they'll get it...We better start taking care of our OWN here, before there's no one left to take care of.

Mike....we tried YOUR WAY (unbridaled capitalism, NO regulation, market sets the price) for 8 LONG YEARS.  It created THE BIGGEST FINANCIAL MESS in the HISTORY of our PLANET.  Giving the RICH GUY'S more....DOES NOT trickle ANYWHERE but to their ART collections and Wine cellars.  Maybe an increase for the people who actually SPEND MONEY might do the trick.  The other way certainly DID NOT work!!!

[$Cash$]

Forrest Gump Explains Mortgage Backed Securities
 
Mortgage Backed Securities are like boxes of chocolates.

Criminals on Wall Street stole a few chocolates from the boxes and replaced them with turds.

Their criminal buddies at Standard & Poor rated these boxes AAA Investment Grade chocolates.  These boxes were then sold all over the world to investors.

Eventually somebody bites into a turd and discovers the crime.  Suddenly nobody trusts American chocolates anymore worldwide.

Hank Paulson now wants the American taxpayers to buy up and hold all these boxes of turd-infested chocolates for $700 billion dollars until the market for turds returns to normal.

Meanwhile, Hank's buddies, the Wall Street criminals who stole all the good chocolates, are not being investigated, arrested, or indicted.

Mama always said: "Sniff the chocolates first, Forrest".

A little humor from Forest....

[stevie-o]

The one thing I'll have to say FD is that this financial mess can't be blamed solely on 'W'. You'll have to look at a few others.

Greenspan - the 7 trillion dollar man, and the great bubble creater
Clinton fits into this too with his push for minority homeownership
How bout the democratic congress for the last few years blatently ignoring the coming housing problem and saying they don't see any problems

Anyone else want to name a few?

[fdjake]

I agree....there's NO SHORTAGE of blame here......BUT come on...the man can't even SPEAK!!  He's a complete JOKE, and the BUCK DOES STOP THERE!!