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US Consumerism and the Recession

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  • #31
    Originally posted by Aeson
    The problem is people can't go infinitely into debt.
    Sure they can, that's what bankruptcy's for. Just buy $50K worth of nice furniture, electronics, etc. on multiple credit cards, discharge all the unsecured debt with a Chapter 7, reaffirm your mortgage & car loan, and you're on easy street with a ton of free stuff. Plus after 10 years your record's clear enough to start the cycle all over again.
    Unbelievable!

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    • #32
      Unsecured debts like credit cards are almost impossible to walk away from now. Bankruptcy laws have been changed so that a fresh start now isn't really possible for most people. Basically if you use a credit card you're stuck with it until its paid off or your dead.
      Try http://wordforge.net/index.php for discussion and debate.

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      • #33
        Originally posted by DaShi


        This reminds me of a Bush quote.
        You say that as if I might care.
        I make no bones about my moral support for [terrorist] organizations. - chegitz guevara
        For those who aspire to live in a high cost, high tax, big government place, our nation and the world offers plenty of options. Vermont, Canada and Venezuela all offer you the opportunity to live in the socialist, big government paradise you long for. –Senator Rubio

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        • #34
          I'm just trying to do the math here. $40k/year is roughly $3300/month. Let's say 1/3 of that gets withheld for taxes, so she nets $2200/month.

          Now, she's sounds like she's single. A single PR exec in her 20s should be living in Milwaukee's hippest neighborhood (I know that sounds like a contradiction in terms, but bear with me). That'd probably be Bay View. A quick bit of Googling reveals that one-bedroom apartments in Bay View seem to go for under $600/mo, and 2-bedrooms for under $800/mo.

          So she goes for the one-bedroom. That leaves here with $1600/mo. Maybe utilities are another $150/mo, internet/cable is $100/mo, maybe a $250/mo car payment. And that leaves $1100/mo -- $275/week.

          What single person can't live on $275/week discretionary income in a place as cheap as Milwaukee?
          "I have as much authority as the pope. I just don't have as many people who believe it." — George Carlin

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          • #35
            throw in insurance and food and you knocked out at least half of that. If Milwaukee is like Chicago, utilities probably comes out closer to $100 for electricity and another $150 for gas (let's average that). So we're down to about $100 discretionary a week. If she's got student loan debt, she's underwater.
            Christianity: The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree...

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            • #36
              $250 for utilities? For a one-bedroom? Doesn't seem likely.

              I only know her situation as described, but she probably has caviar tastes. This is Milwaukee, not Silicon Valley.
              I came upon a barroom full of bad Salon pictures in which men with hats on the backs of their heads were wolfing food from a counter. It was the institution of the "free lunch" I had struck. You paid for a drink and got as much as you wanted to eat. For something less than a rupee a day a man can feed himself sumptuously in San Francisco, even though he be a bankrupt. Remember this if ever you are stranded in these parts. ~ Rudyard Kipling, 1891

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              • #37
                Actually, Rufus. Someone living that close to the edge as she was claiming shouldn't be living anywhere hip or cool.
                I make no bones about my moral support for [terrorist] organizations. - chegitz guevara
                For those who aspire to live in a high cost, high tax, big government place, our nation and the world offers plenty of options. Vermont, Canada and Venezuela all offer you the opportunity to live in the socialist, big government paradise you long for. –Senator Rubio

                Comment


                • #38
                  I think the idea is that a PR exec needs to live someplace hip and cool. Part of the job.
                  I came upon a barroom full of bad Salon pictures in which men with hats on the backs of their heads were wolfing food from a counter. It was the institution of the "free lunch" I had struck. You paid for a drink and got as much as you wanted to eat. For something less than a rupee a day a man can feed himself sumptuously in San Francisco, even though he be a bankrupt. Remember this if ever you are stranded in these parts. ~ Rudyard Kipling, 1891

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                  • #39
                    Originally posted by DanS
                    $250 for utilities? For a one-bedroom? Doesn't seem likely.
                    That's what we were paying in Chicago in 2001. I guess it depends on whether you have steam heat or not, but several of our apartments did not, and that last winter we'd get $600 a month gas bills, though only $50 in the summer. I averaged for gas, plus $100 on electricity.

                    Heck, cable+internet and electricity is $280 a month here in Florida.
                    Christianity: The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree...

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                    • #40
                      Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly
                      I'm just trying to do the math here. $40k/year is roughly $3300/month. Let's say 1/3 of that gets withheld for taxes, so she nets $2200/month.

                      Now, she's sounds like she's single. A single PR exec in her 20s should be living in Milwaukee's hippest neighborhood (I know that sounds like a contradiction in terms, but bear with me). That'd probably be Bay View. A quick bit of Googling reveals that one-bedroom apartments in Bay View seem to go for under $600/mo, and 2-bedrooms for under $800/mo.

                      So she goes for the one-bedroom. That leaves here with $1600/mo. Maybe utilities are another $150/mo, internet/cable is $100/mo , maybe a $250/mo car payment. And that leaves $1100/mo -- $275/week.

                      What single person can't live on $275/week discretionary income in a place as cheap as Milwaukee?

                      Why is the internet so expensive? I only pay like £17 a month for cable TV and internet
                      Exult in your existence, because that very process has blundered unwittingly on its own negation. Only a small, local negation, to be sure: only one species, and only a minority of that species; but there lies hope. [...] Stand tall, Bipedal Ape. The shark may outswim you, the cheetah outrun you, the swift outfly you, the capuchin outclimb you, the elephant outpower you, the redwood outlast you. But you have the biggest gifts of all: the gift of understanding the ruthlessly cruel process that gave us all existence [and the] gift of revulsion against its implications.
                      -Richard Dawkins

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                      • #41
                        Yearly : heating 3600 DKK, electricity 2200 DKK, internet 3600 DKK = 9400 DKK - 1$ ~4,80 DKK -> $1958 / 12 = $163 monthly. Seems to suck to live in america
                        With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.

                        Steven Weinberg

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                        • #42
                          It all depends on how you managed your life during the good times as to whether you're able to handle the bad times.

                          Not that I did so good, but I didn't do too bad.

                          On the patch of my old Cavalry unit was the insignia "Toujours Pret" which they informed me means 'always ready'.

                          How can you be ready for bad times when times are good?

                          1) Know that times will be bad.

                          2) ***Don't get involved with a high maintenance babe.*** ...for too long.

                          3) Limit your expectations, don't buy into the advertisements that show how wonderful it would be to fly to Paris on your credit card. There might be a time to fly to Paris but if you need to use your card to do it, this aint it.

                          4) Only use your card if you have the $ in the bank to pay it off when the bill comes. Otherwise you're betting that when you need to pay it off it will still be good times.

                          5) Don't live as good as you can afford to live. If the bank tells you that a $500,000 house is affordabe for you, look in the $250,000 to $300,000 range and put down as big a down payment as you can and cut down the loan years to 15 if possible. Your payment will be the same as that $500,000 house but you'll have the debt (exposure to bad times) behind you in half the time. Plus, with the big down if you need to refinanance in bad times it's more likely you'll have wiggle room.

                          6) Don't buy a car that waxes your ego, buy one that gets you from A to B without taking you to the poorhouse.

                          Not very useful advise for our current bad times but they'll be good again and everyone will get stars in their eyes. Which brings me to the next and most important one aside from the high maintenance babe bit...

                          7) Live your life like its going to last 70, 80, 90 years and don't mortgage those years any more than is absolutely needed. (Needed, not wanted)
                          Long time member @ Apolyton
                          Civilization player since the dawn of time

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                          • #43
                            I've lived off $200 a month for food and free spending. Not nice, but possible.

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                            • #44
                              That's really good Etchy, particularly if you're making $1,000 a month. That would be self dicipline!
                              Long time member @ Apolyton
                              Civilization player since the dawn of time

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                              • #45
                                Originally posted by Starchild
                                Why is the internet so expensive? I only pay like £17 a month for cable TV and internet
                                Because our internets are privatized.
                                Christianity: The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree...

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