Recession Aggression!

We are all in the same boat but someone ELSE is getting bail-out help!

I don’t care who’s in the White House, somebody has had their mitts on my sh&# for a long time! And here’s irony for you. Turns out even if I was really, really smart with lots and lots of money (and I had neither)…this recession was gonna bite me in the butt. Put it in the stock market; poof, bye-bye. Outsmart the market and put it in real estate; can you say “foreclosure” boys and girls? My real estate holdings are not only NOT  liquid they’re poly carbonized, c(k)ryptonite sub-zero solid! And equity my friend is ‘an opinion’ blowing in the wind, the cash is gone with the wind.

But when I heard about a stimulus package I had hope;, mind you I am not naïve. I knew whatever was in this so-called package would not stimulate me to a full out “When Harry Met Sally” table slapping orgasm. But I thought maybe a giggle; I’d even settle for a smirk. But Nada. No stimulus feeling over here. No sparks, no electricity, or (as I once overheard) not even static cling! What I do have is that sinking feeling when you return to your car with loads of packages and you see your headlights flicker to off and your automatic door key doesn’t work.

What to do? I know, let’s all take what gold we have and put it into envelopes and put it in the US Mail and hope nobody goes postal the day our check for thousands of dollars comes in. We can all do this. It’s just like when you tried to get that loose tooth out of your mouth for the Tooth Fairy. String around the gold capped tooth, slam a door, a few more tries, a little blood…badda bing, badda boom!. Or am I the only kid who did not know that Alfalfa and Our Gang used stunts for those dental procedures? These days I’ve got more gold in my mouth than in the jewelry drawer so get out the twine…Barbados here I come for that vacation the gold collectors promised me on late night TV.

And I don’t know about you, but this semantics game calling our economic woes a recession is so LAST YEAR! This is a DEPRESSION, if not the country’s, then at least MINE! Yes I know, just like all of my depression, it’s a result of my bad choices in life, but it is no less depressing. Can I get a witness?

Recession, ha “my grandmother’s petunias!” Yes, even with 2 people working 3 jobs each, folks are up the creek without a paddle. Taxes, association fees,  ballooning loans, reduced credit  line for no apparent reason (and lord help you if you miss 1 single payment, your one-way ticket to Debtors Purgatory is in the mail), not to mention the whacky new rules for credit scores, and zap, bam, kaplooey folks everywhere are being thrown overboard this Bad-News-Boat we are sharing.

 And the banks (who are supposed to be flush with bail out cash) are saying NO to folks who have proven they can pay back loans. So what is it, a bad retake of it’s a “Wonderful Life”?  (Cue Jimmy Stewart’s voice) “The banks can’t give you a loan Sam because Joe, here, didn’t open a savings account.”  Crock-a-doodle-doo! ‘Joe Obama’ and his esteemed Congressional Colleagues said they just put a ga-zillion dollars into the big bank account in the sky. ¿Donde esta el dinero,  señors?

I have a 401K plan and my peeps put $250 a quarter into my account which ends up being $185 by the next quarter. Screw the bonds, mutuals and T bills. I would be safer investing in bongs, rituals and Mr. T. “Mother May I, pretty please with ice cream and cherries on top, opt out for the putting my $250 a quarter under Ben S. Bernanke’s mattress?”

Word up: news on the street is DO NOT CANCEL A CREDIT CARD.  Yup. Even if it’s for SEARS and the nearest one is in Dubuque and you live in Poughkeepsie. And not only should you not cancel those cards you don’t use (and HAVE PAID OFF)…but get this…you are supposed to use your cards ‘every once in a while’. Why, so they don’t get rusty?

WTF! You are telling me (that would be the ‘me’ who is in 50 grand worth of plastic-ware debt) to go out and spend a little more. Hot tip: if I could spend “a little” I wouldn’t be in freaking debt, now would I?

Telling me to hold on to that card and use it occasionally is like telling an alcoholic to save their shot glass collection from New Orleans and use them every once in a while to keep the dust out of ‘em. Are you F%#@ing me?

The answer to the last question is YES!

So, let me see if I have this right. The way we get out of national debt and recession is to

a) keep calling it a recession so we don’t scare people with the D word

b) give bail outs to industries who screwed up (did you get more allowance if you spent all of yours by Tuesday???) and

c) continue to spend our money overseas in a war or two which was started on a—oh, let’s just call it a federal fib!

And the way I get out of personal debt is to continue to spend.

And, oh, yes, hope the bunko bail-out system trickles down my way. Which I am told I will not get a dollar of, even with a piece of land worth over $100,000 as collateral. So who is getting all the new loan money? I’m guessing it’s paying the salaries of the loan officers who are telling the rest of us to bug off.

We may be all in the same boat, but the Love Boat it is NOT! All the bailing help went elsewhere and we are all holding on to the sinking gunnels with masking tape, finger nails and “Double Bubble” gum.

Meanwhile, I am not bored with all this waiting around for a sunny day “tomorrow” (thank you ANNIE!). By no means, I wallow away the day waist deep in paperwork trying to show I am worthy to pay %6 interest and drowning in photocopies of past taxes returns. And yet the offers come for even MORE credit cards.

Agony, agony…I see it all now in 20-20 retrospect. This false economy all started when I bought my first “Pet Rock.” And then my addiction graduated to stuff from China via the Gotta-have-ta-have-it-Mega Materialist Store. As my grandfather used to say, “Too soon old, too late schmart!”

Living under an overpass in Santa Monica is looking better and better each day! I wonder if Pizza Hut delivers to Highway 10 and Sunset. And of course there’s always Yasgur,s Farm, right dude?

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