OT -Retired and starting to feel the pinch

Ditto!

 

Its not just the cheap labor thats preventing each and everyone one of us and most Americans from starting a money making venture.
Its the rules, regulations and restrictions.
The ONLY way to make a dollar is to do it illegally because ANYTHING you can think of is now against the law.

 

I was retired out on disability after almost 31yrs as a civil service employee. I got hurt aand then they found a few other major medical problems. Went through the hoop waiting and draining my savings but now things are better. I was lucky I got medical but gave up all my sick time. It took over 4yrs before SS finally settled. I get my pension now with the extra and its helped. I've been shuffling between a few cars that i'm trying to finish. Of course the downturn means my taxes have been rising...local tax bill came for New Yrs. up 17%. I don't have to think as much now about the bills, but I do. Hope things change here in Ny because its pushing people out.

 

In the news they say people vote with their feet and California and New York are losing population. Caifornia is losing, not gaining, population for the first time in history.

 

Why close it? If you or anyone else don't want to read it then don't. Really very simple.

 

Yep! From what I understand, 40% of Motown turned into a ghost town...

 

Yeah, what John said. It's very close every month--and now $3.00 a gallon gas. Damn!

 

....Please don't close....This is a good thread. ....makes us think about fellow hambers that are well off and not so well off.....we need to vent problems that affect us everyday so we can move foward.....its important that us hambers stick together...we are a strong group that can solve any problem......we get a lot help when we post car questions on the main board, so this post is no differant.....its helps us knowing... we have a problem that affects our hobby and our well being..its not going away by itself....we need to address it and try to solve it as a group...

 

I got laid off Feb 09. Unemployment and TARP helped me a lot, not to mention COBRA. Actually, COBRA was part of TARP. COBRA is an extension of your ex-employers health insurance. In my case, it was about $950 a month to carry health insurance. TARP/COBRA picked up 65% of that bill for 15 months, so that $950 payment turned into about $325. Government programs really saved me economically, from going broke and becoming des***ute.

I was out of work for 19 months and finally got another W-2 job about 6 months ago. At 56 I thought I was going in to economic oblivion and a down hill slide into poverty for the rest of my life, but I GOT LUCKY.

During my down time, I got very depressed and didn't accomplish much of anything. A good dry run for my actual retirement in the future, as a lesson for what not to do.

Here's the reason for the economic plight so many Americans are now ensnared in, thanks to the brilliant mind of the late comedian George Carlin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYIC0eZYEtI

Pay very close attention to what George is saying about SS, because it is happening right now, in front of our very eyes on the national stage.

Here's what I told Ned Lamont to his face when he made an appearance at our Democratic Town Committee meeting; "All our ins***utions are failing us simultaneously, because all our ins***utions are run by greedy sociopaths."

The concentration of wealth in America is at levels not seen since 1928, the year before THE GREAT DEPRESSION. So, to paraphrase George in this vid; There's a reason we are all hurting, and it is a direct result of greedy elites wanting all of the pie and wanting the bottom 98% of us to get s****s.

And that's about all I can say here. I have to censor myself because I don't want my post to get yanked for being too political.

-90% Jimmy

 

Maybe we should all march over to mamby pamby land and get some self confidence for us jackwagons? Love that R.Lee . BTW, Hi Jimmy!

 

YOU got my vote,very well stated!

 

That's funny.

 

On emerging markets & manufacturing jobs, I heard on BBC radio that China was looking to outsource jobs to Africa because labor costs were too high.

 

Mr. Lippster - nice to see you, buddy! R. Lee is out there saving us all from that dreaded so******m stuff.

-90% Jimmy

PS- China outsourcing to Africa? Sounds plausible. Manufacturing seems to migrate to nations with the lowest labor costs. They set up shop and the workers start to enjoy some prosperity from their wages. Wages go up and the manufacturing then migrates to some other country for cheap labor. Standards of living go up there and then the manufacturer pulls up stakes once again and finds some other country with cheap labor. Rinse, wash, repeat. It's just too bad that these changes take a few generations to run their course, as eventually the standard of living of the whole world will be raised to that of the American middle cl***.

So, globalization will probably be considered a good thing 50 to 100 years from now.

 

As sad as any of you guys are or may become just remember one very important bit. " Stay the hell out of the liquor cabinet." When opportunity knocks you want to be able to respond.

 

you really have good reason to be concerned about your retirement as it along with many other aspects most of us were raised to believe in has "changed". in 2009 140 banks were closed, 2010 157 banks were "taken over" so you tell me **** is getting better! the health care costs are gonna force people to stay working. that golden SS check is gonna go away when they tell ya "we ****ing used it to bring down the national debt"! so get up and put on your blue smock looking in the mirror saying "hi! welcome to......

 

Talk about damn good advise. In 1990, I went through some really anxious times. One of the companies I worked for had a "team" of suits and ties come to town from the east coast to tell us how to do what we had been doing well for almost 20 years. They had all these horrible ideas that were going to make us fail and I had to carefully tell them so. They had complete power to kick me to the curb, so I had to play it cool while still trying to get them to understand my point of view.
I was a beer-drinker, BUT at that moment, NO BEER until this issue was resolved, which was about four months later.
Two reasons:
1. I wanted to be quick on my feet every minute of the day.
2. If something went horribly wrong, I wanted it to happen when I would have absolutely ZERO guilt that any of my thoughts or actions were in the smallest way tarnished by one bottle of beer. I wanted to know that I gave it my best.

Yeah, I know it's kind of ****, but I have always come out on top when I have been the strictest with myself first.
You are your biggest boss. Whether you win or lose, it always starts with you, your at***ude, your knowledge and, most importantly, your ability to work well with others and be someone who people look forward to being around.

By the way...a few years after the suits and ties made my life a living hell, they were all fired and I got a promotion.

**** em.

 

From what I read in the news,the population growth in Cali is mostly coming from people walking across the border and staying.

 

I just replaced my clothes dryer. Did some research, went shopping, and asked questions. When I found one that was built in the USA (Wisconsin) and for sale at an appliance dealer right in my town, I bought it. Yes, I know I could have paid less for something built in Mexico or China, from a big box store a hundred miles away. But I think it was Teddy Roosevelt who said: "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."

(I know.... OT for a thread which may be OT already...!!)

Hell, I'm not retired and I'm feeling the money pinch big-time. But for you guys who talk about not taking your car to shows because of the economy, just a suggestion: Where is it written that you just have to take your car to shows? Take it to the grocery store, the barber shop, the parts store, the chicken ranch...

Get your hotrod fix by just DRIVING the damn thing! Works for me.

 

After 15 years of middle management work for well regarded company, I was kicked to the curb with 800 others in Jan 09. I put in the extra hours (no OT), did the spreadsheets, access db ****, powerpoint revisions. Didn't matter, they were cost cutting. After six months and the unemployment ran out, I accepted a job in Afghanistan. I worked there a year and am now working in Iraq.

I have been able to see my wife & kids a total of 60 days in the last 19 months. As you can guess the 1966 1/2 ton has made no progress.

I have been working to improve my market value by p***ing a Professional Geologist exam, taking various environmental certification courses and trying to keep my computer skills sharp. My friends that still have environmental jobs back home think things look pretty slim in the short term, maybe worse, long term.
Hate to think that I have to keep working outside the US, just so I can afford to live there. BTW, I am writing this from a CHU (containerized Housing unit). It's a cargo container finished out like a cheap camper & sold to the US Army by some rat ******* oil pigs that we call friends.

 

oldjeepdog - do you cross paths with contractors from halliburton or Xe? It's my understanding that America has deployed almost as many private contractors as troops!

One benefit to contractors is that they don't have the same accountability standards as enlisted people. This allows more freedom to commit war crimes without repercussion.

Some of the responses here make me really appreciate getting a job in this "great recession". I went from 30 years in CNC machine tool builder customer and sales support to programming, set-up and operation of two CNC swiss machines (Star SR-20R and SV-20) It was a lot of culture shock, but as of right now, this job is more fulfilling and rewarding than my old ones! I think this is due to almost no management meddling and second guessing, and at the end of each day I go home with a sense of real accomplishment. And I need to draw on my mechanical hands-on abilities every day to solve problems. I just wanted to put food on my family, and I ended up making a pretty pleasant career change.

-jim

ps - any comments on my previously posted Carlin vid yet?

 

I'm not being contentious, but in these times, I think those of us in the bottom 98% of this American economy need to stick together more than ever. The elites think you need things and power in life to be happy. I think they are wrong, one of the main foundations in life is other people. Work, family and community human relations are where the real solid spiritual rewards and happiness can be had.

I also think those of us in the bottom 98% of our economy had better stick together and fight back against the soulless multi national corporations that have bought almost all of our government. We have been divided and conquered for at least the last thirty years and our corporate owned main stream media has been feeding us pro-corporate propaganda for at least that long.

I was blissfully ignorant of politics most of my life, but my interest accelerated when the Supreme Court made their Bush v. Gore decision in 2000. When you look at how many of our Cons***utional rights have been nullied, the only thing preventing a full blown American police state is an informed populous. The current MSM is taking advantage of the fact that it is perfectly legal to knowingly lie in a news broadcast, and is exploiting that little bit of unknown legality to propagandize us all into voting against our own best interests.

As a matter of fact, how many here know that Posse Comatatus has been essentially revoked? This is a law enacted shortly after the Civil War that forbade our government to use it's military against it's own citizens. To my understanding, America is now indeed using it's military inside US borders against it's own citizens.

And now our creeping totalitarian government has claimed the power to ***ually humiliate anybody that flies on commercial airplanes. Some consider that conditioning the American populous to accept unreasonable government intrusion into your privacy.

And this post probably will get yanked for too much politics. A shame, because we really should be talking to each other honestly about what our government and ins***utions are pulling off here.

Unless you don't mind losing more and more of your Cons***utional rights because, hey, you didn't really need them anyway. And, as radio host Thom Hartmann has said, only a government can guarantee your rights. A multi-national corporation sure as hell can't.

-jim

 

Yesterday I had only half a days work. I went out to the shop, got my pin stripe brush and my can of paint and sat down and wrote my abc's for about 4 hours. This was a lot more satisfying than watching a paternity test show or such. I felt really good about this. I plan on painting some ornaments to see how I do at it. If I feel really bored I will go out to the shop and try to stack dimes for an hour or 2. I want to tig some copper tubing and see if I can get a smooth polish finish. As long as there is something fun and car related that's all that I want to do. Even if it is just practicing the skill of doing the task. That is usually not too expensive.

 

Retired and disabled - Do what I can when I can - Cutting sheet metal out of a basket case 48 Ford coupe to make patch panels for a 48 Ford Panel Truck - Beg for old structural steel parts from demo sites or swap metal at s**** yards for what I need.
I'm scrounging for my projects AND MY MENTAL HEALTH.

 

This thread needs a "sticky"....

 

Thom Hartmann is dead wrong and I suggest you stop drinking the kool aid.......the government does not and cannot guarantee "your rights".........the U. S. Cons***ution guarantees your rights. Any government that "gives" you rights can also take them away just as quick as they gave them to you.

 

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT REFORM
(IT AIN’T HARD)

Term Limits
No Individual shall serve more than eight (8) years in office as President, Vice-President, Member of the Senate, or Member of the House.

Campaign Finance
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Federal Government Contractors.
With the exception of Official Government Business, Elected Officials, or those running for an Elected Office shall not have contact with any Federal Government Contractors. This restriction shall include the Elected Official and their descendents, the Elected Officials Spouse and/or Partner and their descendents, and the Parents and Grandparents and their descendents of the Elected Official and their Spouse and/or Partner. Nor shall any of the afore mentioned individuals accept employment from any en***y having Federal Government Contracts for a period of Eight (8) Years after said Official leaves the Elected Office. The proceeding shall apply to the Elected Officials Staff .

Appointees To Federal Departments and the Judiciary.
The Lobbyist and Federal Government Contractors provisions shall apply.

Federal Income Tax
All Residents of the United States of America Citizens or Individuals having income from the United States
Shall be subject to a Federal Income Tax of Fifteen Percent (15%) of income. The First Twenty Thousand Dollars ($20,000.00) may be deducted from the individuals income if so desired.
There are NO other Federal Income Tax Deductions.

Jobs Loss Tax.
All En***ies that have transferred American Jobs to foreign countries in the past or do so henceforth shall be subject to a Jobs Loss Tax of Seventy Five Percent (75%) of the Net Profit at Point of Sales/Service for the first Ten (10) years and Fifty Percent (50%) thereafter.

 

Was retired for 3 years, but felt things are going to get tighter....So, I am driving for NAPA 2-3 days a week......makes life a little easier....and, the employee discount dont hurt either

 

Look, the first step to getting back in control of your destiny is to start exploiting the system. I do agree with Chris that the US is not very friendly for small businesses, I feel that all the time.

Jobs and companies these days can be created by looking at the opportunities between the cracks. Example. I have a friend who sells used motorcycles. The business does well. I have another friend who sells antiques and 80% of his customers come from the web.

List up your skills and look at what you can do. Then look at where folks are scratching their head and saying "many I wish someone could do this for me."

Heck one thing I've done is paid Matt Townsend for his advice on my car. He's a Merc expert. I've spent about three hours on the phone with him.

I know one thing I've needed, is a service or company to help find parts. Over the course of researching and looking for parts for my Merc, I still can't find stuff because I don't have the time to check every single message board and I don't live in CA so I can't hit those swap meets.

I have a friend who welds, and he does stuff when I need it.

Bad economic times spur creativity.

 

85%, Halliburton & Xe are long gone. KBR (Halliburton subsidiary) is still here doing a great service for our guys. Not sure from where you get that "free to commit war crimes" misinformation, people really go to jail for that stuff unless your last name is Kennedy, Dodd, Schumer, Clinton, Frank, Kerry or Obama. and BTW even NY Times agreed that that the Supreme Court was right on Bush v. Gore.