I just read in todays paper where Governor Arny was laying of some 22,000 state employees in CA. The article was about budget difficulties in some of the different states. The states are using up their prudent reserves and funds earmarked for other purposes. Here in AZ the largest employer is the State of AZ. Some states are considering putting the proceeds from their lotteries for the next couple of years up for bid to raise cash now. Some are considering raising taxes. Who is going to pay taxes. When tax returns get filed this year their won't be much to hope for. Deductions should run high for self employed people who have been bleeding at the pump. Capital gains, nope capital losses from investments. I don't have much sympathy. I have been treated in a high handed manner by enough government employees who acted liked I work for them instead of the other way around. There is an entire class of people who seemingly have never functioned in the real world. I have no sympathy. What you put out there will be returned to you 10 times over. I guess no one ever told them they create their own Karma. Asta La Vista Baby! The potential upside of all of the financial woes is that a major housecleaning will take place in all levels of government. Reagonomics. Asta La Vista Baby! Our House of Representatives decided to go ahead and take their five week break without taking action on an energy policy. That would be like us walking off and leaving a freshly poured slab in the forms without troweling it. It's election year for many. Asta La Vista Baby! Let's clean house.
I have been talking about this for some time. We simply must produce more and consume less as a populace. This means living within our means. If affects us on a personal household to household level and it affects us in the municipal, city, county, state and federal level. In time, the cost of debt for these states will quadruple for these states... in fact, it may even become impossible for them to float their bonds on the lottery gains as planned. The incoming tax revenues will plummet and they will be insolvent. We might not be able to affect the political decisions of the state of California, but we can affect changes in our households. It is past time to do so.. its getting rougher by the week. Circling the wagons and taking steps to protect ourselves is an absolute must.
-- On another front, New York is now facing a similar issue. However governor Patterson has a different message. It's do more with less, make the hard cuts now. NYC may run him over maybe not. Interesting to here a voice of reason.
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/29/paterson-warns-of-economic-crisis/index.html?hp
I agree it's fixin to get rough. I've got one builder who just went past due on his bill and another getting ready to. This has happened before but not since 2001. Tighten up.
I've been tight but it look like it's time to get tighter than a bull's bum in fly time. [crz]
...oh and btw --- good rant, desdawg. :)
Quote from: ScottA on August 01, 2008, 08:21:42 PM
I agree it's fixin to get rough. I've got one builder who just went past due on his bill and another getting ready to. This has happened before but not since 2001. Tighten up.
I don't think any of have seen what's coming, in our lifetime. Yime to quit extending credit.
Va has it's share of financial problems too. Governor Kaine has blown through a pretty substantial surplus and then tried to cover it wit the most ill conceived scams imaginable. Ever hear of abusive driver fees....That was where speeding, etc cost Virginia drivers thousands in fines while out of staters (Tourists) were exempt. After nearly lynching the General Assembly, they nullified the law and agreed to refund all the fees.
Then Kaine couldn't get his road projects done because VDOT was required by law to use what money was available for maintenance of existing roads. Kaine came up with a plan to increase gas tax and other fees. He called a special session of the General assembly and then went tagging after Obama like a puppy dog,
Not one member of the GA would support his plan.
So Va is tightening it's belt too...no thanks to that self righteous SOB.
The only good thing to come out of this whole mess is, less money means less government.
I have been running tight since last September. It's getting close to a year now. I have only made it to the property up north a couple of times this summer because of the price at the pump. I keep working at selling off some unused assets and haven't had a lot of luck because everyone is tight so there aren't many buyers for anything I own unless it is at fire sale prices. I have done some of that just to clean house and raise a little cash. It hurts to do that but if something is just sitting around unused and there isn't a potential to make use of it in the near future why keep it.
It seems to me like the various governments could do the same thing and trim a lot of fat. After all that is what the taxpayers are doing at the personal level. I have thought for a long time that when the state government is the largest employer in the state something is terribly wrong with that picture. Ther is a cop in every area of endeaver that one might venture into.
Merrill Lynch sold some of their questionable assets recently for 22 cents on the dollar. Some people believe that this has quantified the bottom of the subprime mortgage fiasco and that this sale defines the bottom. This is as bad as it is going to get. Because Merrill actually had a cash buyer the number is no longer an unknown.
http://money.cnn.com/2008/07/29/news/newsmakers/thain.denial.fortune/index.htm
The process will still go on for a while before the inventory clears out but there is now a place to begin the rebuilding process. New legislation allows for the holders of those mortgages to lower interest rates and principal amounts to reduce the amount of the write downs. That should have been happening from the beginning. The numbers would have been lower. About a year ago I offered on a short sale house and asked the lender to write a new loan to me, 30 year fixed, at a resonable rate of interest and their servicing agent wouldn't even talk about it. I was going to catch up all of their back payments and fees as my down payment. The owner of the paper was Duetsch Bank. That was one that never had to become a statistic on their write down list. They would have lost some interest as that loan was originally adjustable to 13%. Bad, bad loan. Had they been willing to sacrifice some potential future interest that would never be paid anyway they could have salvaged the principal.