connecting*the*dots

While everyone is “preparing” for that Aryan bird flu Panda thingy and that new soon-to-be-discovered fault line in their neighborhood, I’ve got to tell you, I’m taking a bit more of a practical route. If I had a bullhorn, this is what I’d shout into it (followed by that annoying ass siren):

Get out of the stock market now, sell your homes, pay off your credit cards and hide your cash under your bed!

This is the “sell high” period of the “buy low, sell high” cliche. Here’s why:

1. I have a top credit rating, and I can’t get a card with an APR lower than 12%. Plus they’re all adjustable rate cards now (their rate plus the prime). Some people are paying 29% interest. The only thing fixed anymore is the friggin’ corporate game. By the way, bankruptcy doesn’t cover credit card debt anymore. Are you listening?
2. Interest rates on mortgages are going up. I’ve heard of 8% and higher for people with pretty solid credit ratings. That’s ridiculous.
3. President Bush’s tax advisory commission wants to limit the mortgage tax deduction. It wouldn’t affect most of the country (that has rational housing costs), but in New York, San Francisco, etc. where the prices has gone through the roof? The young couples and struggling families who are scraping together the cash for a $90,000 deposit on a 2 Bedroom, $450,000 condo in a decent to nice section of Jersey City, would miss the proposed ~$390,000 limit. Do you have any idea what a 4 bedroom house in a decent neighborhood costs in NJ? The whole state just sounded a collective moan. Can you say, “Blue state *pop*” boys and girls? I knew you could.
4. Adjustable rate loans on pre-existing, first family type mortgages? Man, people are going to be living in the street. The prime isn’t slowing down with its inflation.
5. Health insurance (if you have it) will probably lose its unlimited tax deduction status. Small businesses are already behind the eight ball in trying to provide health care for their employees. That equals greater consolidation. These tax limitations will only keep health insurance away from more people, which in the end, equates with a death count.
6. People are going to be saving their money for the essentials (like food and shelter) and the retail economy will hit the shitter. We’re already in the midst of a service-based economy, making *nothing* tangible anymore as a country. Are you ready for the service-based economy to shut down as well?

~250 corporations bring in more than 1 trillion dollars in pure profit, and ~85 don’t pay taxes due to Cayman Island type of tax loopholes (via the Randi Rhodes Show). Where are those tax reforms? They’re not coming, folks. Welcome to indentured servitude and slavery in the 21st century. Those are drastic words, but they’re necessary in drastic times. Drop your political affiliation for just one minute, and look at the facts and crunch the numbers.

I’m in awe of the power Mother Nature to wreck havoc, but I’m scared beyond belief of Mother Bush, a woman with the ability to marry into evil and produce this degree of a corrupt thug. W. received his war plans directly from God? Hitler heard voices as well. I don’t want to sound apocalyptic, but I’m preparing my finances before the "every man for himself" image of Katrina looks like a walk in the park. Welcome to the first stages of something much bigger than a bursting bubble.

Tomorrow, on a lighter note, we’ll review the bombing of the Smurfs.