Maggie,

That’s really cool!  Thanks for telling us about it.

I still believe unemployment will reach 10%.

Here in Ohio, the unemployment rate is over 11% and continues to rise.

At my age, getting fired is not a concern.  But I remember my husband bringing home several pink slips over the years and the knife-in-the-gut-panic it brought on.  (Even worse, he’s lost small businesses too—talk about gut-wrenching!) That said, he always got a another job and it always turned out to be a step up from the one he left.  Sometimes getting fired is the kick in the pants a person needs to reach for the stars.  But…I don’t deny it’s hell going through it.  I wish all of you going through this the best and I think Ms. Foreman’s advice is spot on.

Phyllis,

Check out this CNN article.  The dealerships are bailing early.  http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/08/21/cash.for.clunkers/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

RJBR,

Sadly, the government doesn’t even care about the bottom line;-)

DeB,

Besides the National Park system and maybe the Space Program, I really can’t think of anything the government does well.  Mind you…I think the Post Office does a great job 99% of the time, but they can’t seem to get a handle on the economics of the beast.  And no matter what I think of the Cash for Clunkers program, the government certainly isn’t efficient about getting the dealers their money.  Since the rest of us don’t live on credit, at least anymore, this is a real problem for the car dealers.  And we’ve been told to gird our loins in preparation for the Swine Flu…but there’s not enough vaccine.   I could go on for pages on the subject, but I’ll spare myself and you. 

Here’s an example of the attitude and incompetence that scares me.  For the last several months, we’ve heard countless members of Congress say the health care "reform" calls for cutting some billions of dollars out of medicare.  At the same time they claim they won’t be cutting benefits…that they will only be streamlining and cutting the waste.  

Those kinds of statements beg the questions:  What waste…where is it…how do you know there is that much waste?  And, if there is billions of dollars in waste, why hasn’t it been addressed?  Why do we need a health care reform bill to address mismanagement in an existing program?   And then there’s the loan and mortgage crisis that plunged us into the financial situation we now find ourselves in.  It was the government’s job to monitor what was going on.

Liz,

As you say, we all have issues with our insurance companies.  But I will always trust private business more than any government.

I keep going back to wondering where these increased taxes will come from?  Does the Administration not understand that without private business there is no new money; that private business is the only way to create wealth that can be taxed?  Taxing public employees is just moving tax money around.  This thinking is just beyond my comprehension.

We’re constantly having to cancel credit cards due to unauthorized use.  Recently my PayPal account was compromised which led to a long series of problems with a bank account, credit cards and PayPal.

We still bank and buy on line (but not with PayPal).  But we check account activities on a daily basis.