Money Matters This Week

GOT THIS EMAIL FROM NETFLIX:

Dear [Sucker], We want to let you know about two important changes to the Netflix service.
	The price of your current plan is changing from $16.99 a month to $19.99 a month. This new price will be effective with your next billing statement on or after January 2, 2011... I ENROLLED WITH THE SAME HEALTH INSURANCE PLAN WHICH WILL COST ME MORE PER MONTH: Premium information for plan year 2011: Blue Cross Blue Shield premiums will increase. Delta Dental premiums will increase. All State of Arizona medical plan premiums will increase. Avesis vision premiums will stay the same. AND THE RICHEST MAN IN the U.S. SAYS the RICH SHOULD PAY MORE TAXES: Billionaire Warren Buffett rebutted claims that the Obama administration is unjustly hurting business orders with high taxes by saying that in fact, the wealthy have never had it so good. "I think that people at the high end, people like myself,should be paying a lot more in taxes. We have it better than we've ever had it," he told ABC's Christiane Amanpour in a clip played on "This Week" on Sunday. See the whole article here on Huffington Post I'M HAPPY SOMEBODY'S HAD A GOOD YEAR 'CAUSE I'M DOWN TO A DIME AND A NICKEL.

Sound Familiar?

This excerpt is from the novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid :

But we are not rich. The men and women--yes, the women, too--of my household are working people, professionals. And the half-century since my great-grandfather's death has not been a prosperous one for professionals in Pakistan. Salaries have not risen in line with inflation, the rupee has declined steadily against the dollar, and those of us who once had substantial family estates have seen them divided and subdivided by each--larger--subsequent generation. So my grandfather could not afford what his father could, and my father could not afford what his father could, and when the time came to sen me to college, the money simply was not there.

I hope this passage from a novel does not describe the U.S. in a few years.

The Rent Is Too Damn High Party's Jimmy McMillan at the NY Governor Debate

This guy is running for governor of New York. Some have said he's a former Vet and just a little bit off. I'd say his message is right on.

Empty Houses on Both Sides

This is my family's life. Half the stuff we have to do isn't even on the calendar. We're constantly on the grind. No time for air.


This is a house in my neighborhood that's been vacant for almost 2 years.


I love how someone put
balloons on the signpost.
Let's make it pretty.




Both of my neighbors are now gone. There are empty houses on both sides.

The owner of this house left last week. He's still cutting the grass.

This neighbor has been gone for a while.

You can see straight through the house.

A quote:

"The economists I’ve talked to-- like Biden’s top economic advisor, Jared Bernstein—insist that recessions are particularly unkind to the poor and the middle class." -- Barbara Ehrenreich from her blog in January 2009.

A housing crisis isn't too kind to the middle class either, but I'm too busy hustling to really care. (see first photo above).