Friday, November 14, 2008

Yeah - I'm bitter.

I'm not even sure how to articulate how I've been feeling the last week. Mostly just mad I think. Mixed with a bit of cognitive dissidence. You see, my whole blog has revolved around wanting people to be fired. Now that this is a reality, it takes quite a bit of effort to remember that we got here through complete incompetence and malaise. I feel bad people are loosing their jobs. But, then I remember my experiences with those companies and wonder if I shouldn't be glad. And when I think about how much of my tax dollars are going to help these people, I just get extremely pissed off.

You see - I didn't expect anything for free. When I bought my investment house, I didn't expect to paint it, throw in some carpet, and make tons of money. My crapshack was the closest you can get to a condemned building you can get. I worked hard and made it a livable place. When I couldn't get rid of it due to market conditions, or use whatever reason you want to use, we re-worked our plans. We moved in a renter. It has been quite a bit of stress. But, we didn't have a choice. Now we have to help bail out the banks who created a huge f-ing roadblock and lost complete control of how to conduct business. Not to mention other people who weren't as responsible.

Maybe I should tell you that my neighbor told me a few weeks ago that he was trying to buy an understated house at a distressed price. It wasn't a crapshack, but not a great place either. He was willing to put 50% down. And he still couldn't get the house. Think about that people. 50% down in California real estate prices. Sure, he was a first time home buyer. But he lives within his means.

Now we have to bail out the car companies. I understand having to help people when they get into trouble. I don't always like it but, I understand the rules. But, when I think back on the experience I've had with Chrysler, it just pisses me off to no end that we have to help these guys.

Two years ago, we could barely get a Chrysler dealership to sell us a car. Without any financing. We'd worked hard all our lives, and were just going to write them a big check. They actually treated us pretty badly, considering. And that wasn't the end of it - every experience we've had with the dealerships has been bad. Here, here, here. And I have to give these people money? Pisses me off.

On top of having to bail these people out - I get the pleasure of all my taxes going up. Sales tax, income tax, car tax. You can't watch the news without them saying they are going to raise some kind of tax. All for the pleasure of being responsible. And never mind that the cloud of layoffs hitting my doorstep are an everyday fear.

And what pisses me off the most is that I'm fairly cynical, but I never imagined in my wildest dreams that the government would let things go so horribly before doing anything. And these are the people who now own our car companies, banks, and whatever else they intend to buy?

Now, I imagined they would use the economy as a bargaining feature in the election. But, really? To do nothing until it was way past too late? I'm just pissed off.

1 comment:

  1. This should cheer you up:

    "And who's going to pay for all of this? Those who lived within their means, who went with the smaller house, who waited a few more years to get that new car, who took a part-time job rather than borrowing even more money to pay for college. Suckers. You missed out on the thrills and now you're going to be paying the bills. The prudent will be paying for the imprudent for a long time."

    On second thought, maybe not...

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