Certificates of Deposit

LMAO.. to all the douches that think home-buying benefits everyone.. I say f u. Bernie/Timmy/Obama... screwing the "savers" for the McMansions....

Amen Mhillqt - if I could generate a return on savings, maybe I could accumulate enough for a down payment :)

screw the retirees

they don't WANT you to save. in the slightest. they want you to spend, spend, spend. on cars, and apartments, and second homes, and abercrombie and gap t-shirts and outerwear, and mutual funds, and 401ks, and i could go on for a long, long time.

they want you to prop up some malignant financial system that they haven't yet figured out how to fix, or perhaps that they aren't inclined to fix (right now most likely the latter). they depend on you to spend, because if you don't the f'ng economy might just tank, further than it already has.

makes me want to spend zero.

Sadly, I'm afraid that it could be argued that the big banks & the corporations are running the show & our pols are doing their bidding. Our system has evolved (devolved?) to this?

Grrr. I have the same reaction, AR. In my loonier moments I also consider stocking up on food and water, or leaving the country. I figure they'd still find some way to tax the bejesus out of me, though, even in a foreign country.

evnyc, the car is always filled with gas. to the brim. i'd love to leave, actually, but i have a kid who's getting a very good and humane education. and a husband who's making a great but probably not so humane living (although he does a shit load of pro bono).

drdrd, sadly i think they are totally backed into a corner. they don't believe that there is any alternative. lehman taught us all the WRONG lessons. as long as the market believes that nobody major will be allowed to collapse, party on. of course, our money isn't limitless or without implication if overissued.

i disagree. set new leverage requirements, with a certain period of time for their implementation.

Chase has very low rates because they are a strong bank. You should be looking at banks that actually need the money. Take a look at Citi and some of the online banks like Ally Bank and Amex.

I've been thinking of getting out of the US for years. I often ask, "What's WRONG with this country?" & advise friends to work on a second language.

mucuk, i have an account at citi. the .15 difference doesn't matter, although i have decent banking relationships so i get higher returns. still. for a long time i had my best rates at chase, and they were much stronger than citi at the time.

drdrd, if i could live in rome, i'd do so in a second.

2.5% is a good rate, why are you complaining? why don't you buy some 6 month Treasury bills at 0.2% if you want low rates.

AR, are you saying the "pols" are backed into a corner? How so? Everyone else is to blame, but they are backed into a corner? Are you saying the poor little pols have no choice?

drdrd, I'm in...where to?

Aboutready - I am in the same direction on that - I tend to consume more when I know I have some spare dough in the bank

modern, if i read the rate correctly it's .25%.

cb123, you don't know me well if you think that. i think that they think that.

it is .25%........they had some specials of 1% at 9 months....i laughed.....

aboutready....im an italian citizen...rome is looking better and better....

Portugal or Italy, I'm thinking. Actually, Mexico is probably my first choice, within a few hours of the capital & Juarez International Airport. I've long been afraid of the narcos in Mexico & that it would go the way of Colombia; they have been a problem, but a friend is down there all the time & he says that if you keep your nose clean, you're fine.

AR, I don't follow that closely, but when I come on I do always look for your input on things economic. Glad I misunderstood. I got a little nervous there.

i absolutely adored rome. and i thought i wouldn't. i liked it much more than paris or london.

i really thought i wouldn't like rome.

cb123, what a lovely thing to say. i'm still a woman of the people. not to worry.

ar... :)

AR, I just watched "The Talented Mr. Ripley" again - & again - & again. Yum yum. Italy ..... I couldn't get enough. Of course, the wealth & the pretty people didn't hurt none, neither.

drdrdr, isn't the yum yum so important to our lives? and haven't we redefined it so that it is just so silly?

i'd much rather drink scotch with you on a lovely afternoon than care whether some asshole or bitch is judging me by the home i own.

but we had an encounter just yesterday with a star. at our local wine store (and ph41 would definitely find it deficient) one of the OC stars showed up. i have no awareness of pop culture, so i just had a great time abusing him for his alcohol choices. he was funny, fresh and sweet (although he reeked of cigarettes).

I thought 2.5% sounded too good. For formatting, 0.25% is easier to read than .....25%.

There are plenty of high-yielding stock alternatives if you get tired of almost zero interest rates. For instance, Agency mortgage REITs yield from 12-20%. AGNC, ANH, CMO, HTS, MFA, NLY are some. Environment is perfect for them and will remain so for a year or two at least. Of course price and yield may fluctuate, unlike a CD.

Not sure if these are all FDIC (or similar) insured:
http://www.bankrate.com/funnel/cd-investments/cd-investment-results.aspx?local=false&tab=CD&prods=15&ic_id=CR_searchCDRates_cd_1yearCD

Yes, AR, that party up at Bernie's today was L O V E R L Y 'though we could never actually AFFORD that apartment. At least we didn't lose any money with that asswipe.

"why doesnt obama create more incentives for the average Joe to save instead of giving these banks all our money and they give us CRAP in return....."

Because, in case you haven't figured it out by now, the Obama Regime doesn't want "regular" Americans to save. The Regime wants Americans to be IN DEBT, forever under the thumb of economic slavery.

What do you think that whole little Cash for Klunkerz scheme was for? Certainly not to "save the environment". HELL NO! It was a brilliant maneuver to remove perfectly roadworthy (and PAID FOR) cars off the road, and get more people into new cars -- and more importantly -- new AUTO LOANS.

Have a second language, but unless I'm moving to France or Africa it's useless. Maybe parts of Canada.

I keep emergency supplies around the house, although more for a 9/11 type of emergency than for fleeing the country. I do have a lot of maps and keep the bicycle tires pumped up in case of that scenario, however. The poor man's equivalent to keeping the tank filled? DH and I are both healthy enough to bike to the border within a few days, even with unhappy cats in tow. It feels like caution, and I get to go for bike rides regularly. I don't think about it very much, but it does cross my mind.

And with this money they are charging their credit card users 30%. Criminal.

"And with this money they are charging their credit card users 30%. Criminal."

Sadly, at one point it really WAS criminal, but not anymore. http://www.affil.org/consumer_rsc/usury.php

Usury, even Shakespears & the Bible inveighed against it, didn't they? It's another indicator of how we have allowed the B I G money interests to take our power. I remember reading years ago that the credit card companies & banks said that they knew that their interest rates were excessive but since the consumer didn't seem to care, why should they. It brings me back to my oft repeated phrase: People are stupid.

aboutreaedy you're "stil a wOman of the people" -OMG Eva Peron is alive and well!!!

And living in PCV - tell all the Argentine Peronistas immediately!!! They will come to crown you queen once again.

Makes sense to me. 2% for profit 27.75% to reserve for the bad credit. i.e. My daughter and dog credit card offers, whoot!

The only reason mortgage rates are so low is they've passed the credit risk to us.

Ph41. Meow!

Fun to be on the blogs, no? Look it's like family, you bitch re-open old hurts and wounds and then play touch football in the afternoon. And regarding 'show it to your daughter comment' - I've been in jail (it's the 'truth') but no need to shove it in my 5yo's face right at the moment. Just like a viciously scary movie or roller coaster, there an 'age' appropriateness in life for some truths.

Secondly, I'm glad you've enjoyed this bubble and your 3000 sqft abode probably cost $1.0mm in 1999, up to $4mm at 2007, now trading at $3.5mm in your head but really $2.75mm if you want out NOW! You don't think it'll touch $1.0mm in your lifetime, I guess you are making that $1.75mm wager.

Remember that kenny Rogers song, know when to fold em?

You people serious? I know getting 0.25% sucks but would you rather be in the early 1980s getting 12% for treasury but inflation is 15%? Just wait a few years and your rates may be double digits. I'm sure most of you will bitch again about how high inflation is and why your mortgage is 15%.

Yeah, good songwriter/singer that Kenny Rogers, right doggie? Know when to fold 'em before going to jail. Tell us more about what landed you in jail? Did you make a mess on the sidewalk and not clean it up? Speed in your Porsche and you were all jacked up and hostile when talking to the police officer? Or maybe you harassed the Coast Goard from your yacht? OR, was it from your days as a slu..., I mean landlord, maybe some building violations? Or was it a securities violation when you were on Wall Street? Maybe it's not so bad, maybe you were just grunting too loudly at the gym when doing your squatz and the manager got upset.

Hello doggie!, it's nice to talk to you again today. I kind of felt bad for you when you bumped your thread from yesterday about Neda and Chris (http://www.streeteasy.com/nyc/talk/discussion/14586-neda-and-chris-meet-your-downstairs-neighbor-let-the-party-commence) and no one was interested in coming to your rescue or engaging your bitter hostilities toward the average New Yorker and grave dancing over owners, buyers, sellers and brokers. ... oh, who am I kidding, it's not nice to talk to you.

W67th Street - I would like to thank you for keeping your post free of unnecessary vulgarity - actually it was rather thoughtful.

And, actually, paid less than $1.0MM, and I am not trading it at $3.5mm in my head (because, as I've said before, we are definitely not selling, ever, so market doesn't really matter, as this is not part of future retirement funds). and NO it will NEVER go down to $1.0mm again in my lifetime, nor in yours. That is just pure wishful thinking on your part.

W67th -just to add - smaller apartment in my building,(2,000 sf, no fireplace, no terrace, standard ceiling height) sold 4 months ago for $1.9mm - so I don't think I'm blowing smoke.

W67th - wait, it might go down - if Manhattan goes underwater as they are predicting

ph41, in that case, w67th will be dancing on your grave.

( http://www.streeteasy.com/nyc/talk/discussion/14586-neda-and-chris-meet-your-downstairs-neighbor-let-the-party-commence )

sam zell... the greatest grave dancer ever... until ooops... he bought a paper at the height...whom to admire now?

ph41, nice. again. vulgarity bothers you, but calling someone a redneck is just fine? look inward sweetness, you're rotten.

dissembling much in the following, ph41? i consider us lowly peons. just because genetics and luck enabled us to make more money than most doesn't make us a damn bit better than the teachers and firefighters we live amongst.

aboutready - please take the following comment with a sense of humor, because that is how it is intended. It is a good thing that the partners in your husband's firm (and you and your husband) don't invite the firm's lower level people at holidays, etc. Because, they might wonder why the equity partner is living in an apartment and apartment complex that was originally intended for New York's working class (i.e. the lowly peons) at a rent they cannot duplicate. They COULD understand your living on Psrk Avenue, but the PCV thing might cause a weird sort of reverse class resentment.

"smaller apartment in my building,(2,000 sf, no fireplace, no terrace, standard ceiling height) sold 4 months ago for $1.9mm - so I don't think I'm blowing smoke."

except that of the 152 closed sales in the last six months between 1,750,000 and $2 million, none remotely fits this description. so...yes, you are blowing something.

aboutready
about 1 hour ago
ignore this person
report abuse ph41, nice. again. vulgarity bothers you, but calling someone a redneck is just fine? look inward sweetness, you're rotten.

sounds like a party you are invited to as well.

http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleid=424335
THIS IS TRUE QUITE OFTEN....

GUTTER LANGUAGE: A columnist I used to work with (not with PhilSTAR) habitually cursed in his opinion pieces. He must have been trying to appear macho or to add color to the plain prose he had learned in his police reporting days.

The opinion editor had to rake out the offensive gutter language. Deleting cuss words was easy, but it could be irritating to overworked editors beating the deadline.

I advised the writer to stop cursing in his draft columns. Cursing does not add to your arguments, I said. When a writer starts to curse, that is a sign that he has run out of arguments.

Now, what about politicos with presidential aspirations flinging curses in rally speeches? That might endear them to the canto boys, but I doubt if that would appeal to the more decent elements of society.

NYCMatt - I agree with your takes on this. I think the other unintended consequence of the clunkers is that consumers are slowly being trained to wait for government incentives to buy. Just my opinion, but who in their right mind is going to buy an upgrade to their auto (unless it is literally on deaths door) right after the clunker program expires? My guess is that this type of demand will wait on the sidelines til the next "sale" for their share of the next govt bailout now that the govt has set this kind of precedent.

....Ben is running the printing press on overdrive? where do I get some?

It's clear the government is engaging in a transfer of wealth from savers to the banking system. It's also true that it is in the government's interest to attempt to keep short rates low considering the ballooning deficit. After all we have to fund cash for clunkers, referigerators,Citibank & 6000 housing credit...

from naked capitalism...
Some of the transfers are simply impossible to estimate. However, an estimate of one component is just a few assumptions way from being “ballparkable”. The Fed has cut short-term rates to near zero with an eye to among other things allow financial institution that borrow short and lend long a chance to” earn” their way back to financial health and resume “normal” lending. This represents a transfer wealth from depositors and holders of short-term investment vehicles to those institutions which borrow short to lend long. The scale of the wealth transfer in terms of a % of GDP can then be “guestimated”. Given a chosen measure of short-term assets (as a % Of GDP); an estimate on how much lower on average the interest paid on those instruments is than it would “normally”: and ) the length of time that the Fed will be holding short-term rates at artificially low levels. Given the Dollar volume of outstanding short-term paper and the likelihood the money market rates will remain substantially below where they would have been in the absence of the crises, it seems likely that policy induced transfer from savers to the financial institutions post 2007 will be of the same order of magnitude of net wealth transfer that occurred between households and the government sector in the 1970s.

So... what's the preferred vehicle these days to conservatively stash your cash, since CD's are offering paltry returns?

It is a game of chicken with government and financial institutions hoping savers get tired and lock in long term for 2%.

Corporate or municipal bonds seem to be the place for conservative US savings. Does anyone know a convenient yield play on foreign currencies, like any ETFs? The dollar cannot hold with such puny yields.

three year aaa munis pay just over 1%

Arlodog, sticking with TIPS and munis for now and doing decently. Will change that strategy as situation changes.

"I'm sure most of you will bitch again about how high inflation is and why your mortgage is 15%"
Hofo - if you're still around, getting 1.75% on CDs a year or two ago when inflation was running 3-5% wasn't exactly the bargain of the century either. Many people will have locked in interest rates of 4-5% when rates begin to rise again, so no need to finger-wag.

1.85% from amex savings -- http://personalsavings.americanexpress.com/savings-product.html

aboutready - my parents were educators (principal, and math supervisor for en entire district in New York), so I certainly do not look down on anyone like them.

However, PCV WAS BUILT FOR THEM, not for those like you who crow about how cheap it is to live there (see one of your previous posts), could live elsewhere, but can buy a country house mainly because of their "protected" rent,

And that is what is also wrong in many ways with rent stabilization in NY

Oh, and I forgot - didin't Eva Peron proclaim herself one of the "people" while flaunting her couture gowns, furs and jewels?

aboutready - read again my post which you quoted so completely - right - you just proved my point. The other less economically fortunate you live among may not be able to go to their country houses to do their laundry (oh actually, most of them probably do the same thing).

for the fifteenth fucking time i pay market rent. every year my landlord can tell me to take a dump and leave. or can increase my rent as far as they care to. if this apartment was still an apartment for the people it was built for the rent would be $1600.

the reason my rent was so low is because people like you scorn the development. i took advantage of the fact that my lovely apartment was much less expensive than other apartments because people didn't WANT to live here.

do you get it now? i'm not the recipient of any largesse. zero. nada. perhaps in the future, but that will be like winning the lottery without ever playing.

i didn't compare myself to eva peron. you did. i just used a phrase. yours would probably be let them eat cake.

uh oh...that blows a big hole in her fantasy.

still wondering about the answer to my previous query?

"smaller apartment in my building,(2,000 sf, no fireplace, no terrace, standard ceiling height) sold 4 months ago for $1.9mm - so I don't think I'm blowing smoke."

except that of the 152 closed sales in the last six months between 1,750,000 and $2 million, none remotely fits this description. so...yes, you are blowing something.

preserve cap in tips munis for the right leg of the w--buy s&p next time down to 700 (< 1 year)--buy NY RE down another 20% in 1-2 years--sprinkle in a little europe and asia stox over the next year--me: cash since summer 07 and lovin it

for now save that precious cash ammo---the sitting ducks will be here soon

CC- actually, you're right - I just checked -it was late 2008-
OMG you are one jealous angry dude!

you are one self righteous idiot.

no difference between a sale in late 2008 and four months ago? even you have to know that's ridiculous.

jealous? hell no.

angry? not exactly.

sick of posters making up facts to suit their silly arguments? for sure.

NO,I just have a life that is not totally consumed by this (and time sometimes does fly, doesn't it?)
And I do live in this city, while you sit upstate posting away,opining, and lashing out at anyone who doesn't agree with your take on real estate in N.Y.

your assumptions about people are stunning. and when the facts don't suit you you simply ignore them. or alter them.

2% for an online savings account at Discover Bank: http://www.discoverbank.com/online-savings-account.html

onthemove, thanks.

AR you wrote:
do you get it now? i'm not the recipient of any largesse. zero. nada. perhaps in the future, but that will be like winning the lottery without ever playing.

you are at the top of the biggest pyramid schemes going - Medicare & Soc Security. We all know that these are pay as you go systems, so by choosing to have 1 child, you will be taking out way more than your child puts in. not to mention the survivor benefits of Soc Sec should your husband pre-decease you as you don't work & contribute to Soc Security. but go on, tell yourself that everyone else benefits from the gov't borrowing but poor old you.

gotcha...so ar is gaming ss and medicare??
what if the child is older than 21 when ar and her husband both die promptly at 65

good lord, printer, you'll not hear me ask for a pity party. i'm doing just fine, thank you. sorry i didn't meet my moral obligation and have another child, but you see, when i was still fertile we couldn't afford it. actually, i'm quite saddened by the fact that i only had one child on some levels, so feel free to pity.

i personally think that very few net benefit from our government. the financial industry comes to mind.

Impossible - she'll be the Havisham of PCV - commenting away on SE till she's 90+.

Point wasn't that she is intentionally gaming the system, but that she is a huge beneficiary of the way it is set up, while complaining all along that others benefit at her expense.

what am i complaining about, personally? i'm complaining on the behalf of others, not myself. now that i have determined i don't care about my primary residence being PCV, i would only be benefitted, in the short term at least, by reflation efforts.

havisham? dickens is my favorite author. i think the analogy is weak.

Intersting comment Printer about hoping to win the entitlement lottery someday.. In many ways this is a country addicted to entitlements... and what's not said, is often politicians use entitlements to obtain votes(the bread from bread & circus)
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1316/is_n4_v27/ai_16827468/

Senior citizens are not alone in awaiting regular government subsidy. So, in one form or another, do farmers, veterans, homeowners, civil servants -nearly every American, in fact, is entitled today to a plethora of social benefits from government as a matter of "earned right." Indeed, our sense of entitlement has become so strong that in the last 15 years the noun "entitlement" has evolved to describe the social benefits Americans feel their government owes them. This is a quantum leap from the Great Depression, or even the sixties, when social workers had to persuade the down-and-out to accept a helping hand from government.

Roughly speaking, entitlements are benefits that the government automatically distributes, without budgetary limits, to citizens eligible on the basis of their membership in some legally defined group or class. Some beneficiaries, like recipients of Social Security, disability insurance, and unemployment insurance, only collect if they have previously paid certain taxes; others, mainly veterans, qualify through service. Some, such as farmers, benefit by virtue of perceived contributions to the national interest. And a distinct minority of Americans qualify for certain means-tested entitlements simply because they are needy. Altogether, some 400 programs qualify as entitlements.

Today, slightly more than 50 percent of all U.S. households have at least one member who is receiving a direct entitlement benefit from the federal government, such as a veteran's pension or disability payment. Such families collect on average more than $10,300 a year in benefits, which adds up to a total of $750 billion, or more than half of the total federal budget.

At any given time, 30 percent of the U.S. population is also receiving indirect benefits through loopholes in the tax code. A prime example is the home mortgage deduction. Rather than subsidizing homeownership by mailing a check to everyone who borrows to buy a home, the government allows home buyers to write off mortgage interest costs on their income tax returns. The result is an entitlement that pays 27 million homeowners an average of $1,900 a year, dwarfing all other federal housing programs.

Altogether, the mortgage interest deduction and other tax subsidies to individuals cost more than $354 billion in 1993. (By comparison, tax subsidies to corporations, including all depreciation allowances, came to "only" $47 billion, according to the General Accounting Office.) The total bill for entitlements thus comes to well over $1.1 trillion each year. If all of this were going to welfare mothers, the inner cities would be full of Leona Helmsleys. In fact, poverty programs consume only one of six federal social welfare dollars; in 1990, only 25 percent of federal entitlements went to families earning $20,000 or less.

her complaints re the welfare that has been extended to the finance indusstry make sense to me

haven't heard ar griping about the gourmand food stampers

Gotta love the gov. Got printer hating ar, ph41 NYC owner hating pcv renter and upstate owner. Ya think this is their game plan?

But back to ph41, 'not on your mind' about the $3.5 cause you plan to never sell, but $1mm is definitely impossible no matter how you gyrate it 'in your mind' : ). One other thing, how about I give you 4% inflation adjustment on your $1mm 1999 purchase, say $1.5mm, ya think we ain't ever gonna hit $1.5mm in 3 yrs? Caviar for thought, since you live in a penthouse.

Mhillqt,

Can you provide a link for all of us to see?

How much was the CD for? Most banks have a minimum to get the best rate, and it's usually not much.

I think Havisham is a pretty good analogy - her original pining away for the groom who would never re-appear transforming itself into a bitterness so deep that she determined to make sure others would never know the happiness she was denied.

and here we have AR - now pining away to own that $300/sq ft apt that will never re-appear, growing more bitter by the day and using her pulpit of SE to try and convince others to forgo their dreams of happiness in owning a place of their own.

and given the financial condition of PCV, it'll probably resemble Satis house in a few years too.

Intersting, we could update the Fox & the grape analogy to have the fox become a blogger and tell everyone else how bad the grapes are.

I'm not so sure that 300/sqft days won't happen again on the UWS. I was there when prices were at that level, and the economy seems much worse to me now. Crime/retail/streetlife were about the same now as back then, maybe retail more varied and interesting. Am I the only NYC property owner out there who is somewhat bearish?

all i'm pining for is financial regulatory reform. idiot. oh, and a market that's not infected by a bubble so others WILL and CAN know the happiness they desire. without having to devote half their take home pay to achieving it.

i'll most likely buy again somewhere, right now Rome sounds good. as i've often said, my decisions in PCV are personal, and partly based on age and circumstances. printer, you're sounding rather bitter yourself.

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/09/americans-have-been-taken-hostage/

As we approach the anniversary of the bailouts for our banks and insurers — and watch the multi-trillion taxpayer-funded programs at the Federal Reserve continue to support banks and subsidize their multibillion bonus pools, we must ask if our politicians represent the interests of America? Or those who would rob America of its money and its future?

As a country, we must demand that our politicians stop serving those whose business models are based on systemic theft and start serving those who seek to create value for others — the workers, innovators and investors who have made this country great.

Ph41: you have to be careful about extrapolating for comp purposes an apt in your building that is in a different class altogether. The pool of buyers you would be targeting is different. For say, 3.5m, would your target pool choose a PH w/ outdoor space in Murray Hill or a classic 8=7+ on the UES or a classic 7+ on the UWS or a TH in Murray Hill?

This outpouring of attacks on AboutReady is both alarming and completely unfounded. Printer, I cannot believe you'd attack someone for not having more children. That's rather a personal decision, and it was hardly AboutReady who designed social security and medicare. Having met her, I can say that she didn't exist when those programs were created. So quit acting like you hold her personally responsible. If there's a Havisham on this board, perhaps it's you?

yes, Rome is perfect - after all, Italy is almost as admired for the fiscal responsibility of their gov't as the food. And totally free of the type of gov't/corporate/banking incest and back-scratching you so scathingly detest.

printer, i really don't care in the slightest what you think about me or my choices.

california is preparing a plan outlining how they are going to accomplish reducing their prison population by 25% in the next two years. they've been ordered to do so by a federal court. philadelphia announced that there is a high likelihood that they will need to close all public libraries on october 1. we've always had corruption and a flawed system, but this is a whole different magnitude.

well, when AR goes on her soapbox,protesting for all those who should be able to have the happiness they desire "without havings to to devote half their take home pay to achieving it" and calls someone an "idiot" or worse, (usually much worse) because they don't agree with her - it really does seem like Eva Peron crying out on behalf of the descaminsados (again, while wearing her furs, gowns and jewels, and soaking the country for everything she could).

And does anyone really believe that lawyers contribute a whole lot to this society? Usually, they live off the sweat of others.

ph41, you mean the man who volunteers his time to help people seeking political asylum?

you're the oh-so-generous one who condemned the entire universe of new construction purchasers yesterday? but then again, they didn't invest the same way YOU did. your heart is massive.

evnyc - AR attacks are much more profane than anything I've ever written - she certainly doesn't need you to defend her. And where did I criticize her decision to only have 1 child? I merely point out that her decision (and she's made clear that it was a financial decision, and not something that was medically imposed upon her), whether intentionally or not makes her on the receiving end of the gov't largess that she so vehemently decries.

Likewise, she carps on about how irresponsibly our gov't spends, and how incestuous are the relationships between big biz/banking and gov't, yet pines away for Italy, which makes us small potatoes in both depts.

As ph41 points out as well, she is the worst type of hypocrite.

printer the superficiality of your arguments amazes me.

Love lawyers on my side. Hate mindless borkers first, then the bubble buyers who think their timing = financial big uncircumcised penis. Or labia.

AR - exactly what is superficial about printer's arguments? (actually, they might have left you almost speechless). Mostly based on your comments, and on common sense. Oh, that's right - didn't include reams and reams (and reams and reams and REAMS) of rewritings of newspaper columns.

So.......we're not going to talk about CD's then?

ph41, yes you listen so well. like to the fact that my apartment is market rate.

you don't enjoy reading? then don't.

Printer, foul language doesn't bother me. What does is that you're being unnecessarily vicious. We all benefit from certain government benefits, most of which we had little if anything to do with crafting. Would you prefer that we stick our heads in the sand and ignore the significant problems facing us? The government *has* been appallingly irresponsible, and if we're going to fix that we need smart people talking about the problems and solutions. Trying to silence that discussion smacks of support for the status quo.

Flmao. Printer we are all hyp., the question is she/ he 'our' hyp? Flmao. What r you 5? I figured that out all on my own. Hahahahha

positivecarry, and mhillqt, sorry. truly.

we should just have an i hate aboutready thread. wait, we've already done that.

Also, it was drdrd who wanted to go to Rome; Aboutready just said that sounded nice. Hardly a thought-out escape plan. Some reading comprehension, please?

Ah, whoops, take back everything in that last post. Sorry to both. My own reading comprehension is severely compromised when lunch takes place this late!

Bread & Circuses
Gov't crafts hand-outs to various groups to get votes. Doesn't really matter if it's interest deduction on someone's second home upstate or instructing Fannie Mae to buy a sub-prime loan that's bound to fail, or an Ethanol program that makes corn into fuel that would otherwise be uneconomic, etc

Of course once you benefit or think you'll benefit, all of a sudden you buy into it hook line and sinker, not realizing you'll pay for it some other way, or you decide some other group is evil and you tax them..

evnyc, i have no idea where i'm going. still at least 7 years away. but going i will be. sadly most of my favorite places are blowing up due to the bubble. i'll have to see how the fires burn.

Don't let printers hunger pangs discourage you. Maybe it's his monthlies cycle too. It was a full moon recently.