jeffmeden

Im not gonna say anything that would get me in trouble, but I will say this: Your job (no matter where you work) is largely what you make of it; on the stipulation that in some companies, seniority is the thing that gets you where you want to be. Oh, and Mr. Mensan has the experience to get just about any engineering job he'd like, I am not sure why he chose Liebert in the first place

The $700,000,000,000 that Paulson insists MUST be put under his immediate and unfettered control or else the world will enter a complete "Mad Max" depression is a bit more sizeable (even when the math is done properly). For the 110,000,000 or so households (taxation units) in the US, that's $6300 a pop. Of course, if your retirement is, like a lot of people's, tied up in the stock market that is facing certain doom should the major banks that prop it up fail, then it may be money well spent. Decisions, decisions.

You failed at the most important part of his statement:

Lol you saying that is about like Warren Buffet saying you don't need to study finance... There are exceptions, and then there is 99% of the rest of the population.

It all depends on what time you have to go through there. From 7:30 to 8:00 it can be pretty bad, with fluctuations depending on accidents and weather. If you have to come down 33 to hit 270 you may be in for a lot of traffic. Once you are onto 270 it's not so bad. With the 315 interchange getting redone, and the 270/71 interchange done, it may be getting decent before too long.

Since you have the right to have it repaired at the shop of your choice, is it possible to request a shop do it that will agree to only quote you for just under the total-out value? Say for example the quote was for a replaced bumper and rattle-can spray painting, could you then elect to use that shop, have the insurance company cut you the check, and keep the money and the car? Or put another way, is it insurance fraud if you get a shop to *under-quote* a repair?

Anyone with a willing VOIP provider can do this. However, the number looks Costa Rican. Their prefix is 506, and they use 2 as the first digit of any land phone, followed by 7 digits. So, for what it's worth.

There are always two very distinct arguments about DirecTV, one is you lose signal in the rain, the other is if you ever lose signal your dish must be on backwards. So, what's the secret to "properly" orienting a dish? I haven't tried Dish in the past and this is a sticking point for me, unless there is some reliable way to point the dish how do I know I won't end up like every other unhappy customer?

Advanced Auto now and then has a great deal on Mobil 1 synthetic oil and Mobil 1 filters, its works out to buying 5 quarts of oil (about $23) and getting the filter free (they are usually $10-12.) I stocked up the last time they ran that, I use only M1 oil and filters on my cars. Also, there is at least a material difference between 'regular' filters and 'synthetic' filters, being that a synthetic filter doesn't use paper, cotton, or other organics for the filter material, instead they use a nylon/poly mesh (if i recall). Whether this makes a difference or not, who knows, but I have a gut feeling that its easier to control quality on an inorganic material.

There are certainly problems on both sides, but the biggest problem is that Washington isn't going away. While it would be nice for citizens to "scrap" the current system and build a Utopian government, that's a little bit beyond our reach. All we can do is keep our eyes open and do our best to stop history from repeating itself, one vote at a time. That means being critical of each and every elected official, on everything they do, from the local level on up to congress and the white house.

I don't seem to remember Gramm (or Leach, or Bliley) having a D next to their names. Not that I am defending what happened on either side of the aisle, but to blame Clinton for what was a complete Republican love-in of deregulation is a bit inaccurate.

So you are the one who for some reason singles me out to waste their time personally attacking, and I am the one who is a "mudslinger" and doesn't have a life? Get real. Either address what I post directly, or save your breath.

Way to miss the entire point of my post. Congrats. And the pet name is a nice touch, too. Here's a remark in plain enough English that hopefully you can understand it: Get a life. You are bad at this.

So what part of the Conservative Playbook does "setting up a financial disaster then funding the solution with other people's money" does this come from? It sure doesn't sound like a very conservative thing to do, if you ask me. Maybe when Sarah Palin is running the show she can fix things with her brilliant "we need better regulation, so that the government can stop regulating" plan. Let the political mayhem begin.

You heard it here first! The country's largest insurer is taking a back seat to... Mac N Cheese. The Dow 30 is set to drop AIG as a component company, and replace it with the venerable Kraft foods. Next time you think you need some Insurance, just remember how tasty Easy Mac is, and everything will be alright. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=acrZ3rmB4ENA&refer=home

I tried to donate a reasonably well-off pickup truck once and they (St. Mary's of somethingorother near Cleveland) turned me down. It had rust on the rocker panels and was too many years old, they said. Are there certain charities that are more accepting?

Inflation is closer to 6% as of today. You have a depressing point, why save money when it's worth more to spend it right away.

While there is no doubt that it was wrong for someone to go after her "personal" information, what is telling is the fact that she was clearly using a "personal" avenue to exchange work-related information. As an elected official, this is a no-no. While it's hard to judge, considering the evidence was illegally obtained, it still makes her look bad.

The ultimate problem is that the ones that aren't stupid, are greedy. When too many people trust too few people to do the right thing, and have so little actual knowledge of what's involved, there is a pretty significant risk of "system abuse".

You talk like rising inflation and unemployment is a good thing. All I am saying is that things are going to get worse from the way they are today, before they get any better. It MAY not be worse than 1980 or 1929. Things were *not* good back then, so this isn't saying much.

Did I say it would be as bad as crises in the past? I for one would like to think it wouldn't, but so far it is looking pretty damn bad. To say with such confidence that things are going to be fine is some pretty blind optimism, in my opinion. The banks that are in trouble are pillars of the financial system, you can't lose many of them before everyone down to joe blow starts to feel the repercussions. And to say that despite the federal banking system (and the federal government in general) swimming in red ink, that there won't be any pain... Come on, the money has to come from somewhere.

Yes, please remind us of the joys of stagflation.

And to tie this firmly back to the Political Mayhem theme, there are some interesting links between Republican Candidate John McCain (whom I am sure is a swell guy) and AIG:

You are right, it is less than ten years. The actual number is 0 years. This is the bed we have made by deregulating and allowing profiteers to invade every nook and cranny of the economy. The future is looking like this: Government services will get thinner and less reliable, loans of all types will get harder to come by, unemployment will continue it's steady march upward, inflation will too, and the quality of American life as we knew it from 1995 to 2005 will be a distant, fond memory.

stolen from http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/P2.html for anyone who isn't up to speed: The extremely red bottom line here is that Deregulation (insistence that the 'free market' will self-preserve and self-correct) has created a mess so huge, that if assistance didn't come at the federal level there would be so many huge lumbering giants collapsing you would think the dinosaur extinction was happening all over again. Your invested retirement would be wiped out. Your uninsured bank balances would be gone. Your job (if you worked in a field remotely related to finance) would be toast. And for the next 10 years, the turmoil would cause hell for the rest of the country. If the government didn't step in today, we would be living in post-soviet russia (which is a lot like living in soviet russia except without the impressive military.) Of course, this could have been avoided entirely if the federal government (or the state governments in which these institutions operate) were actively regulating the activity of the banks, investors, and insurers. To me, this is the nail in the coffin of the "free market, deregulation for all, invisible hand will coddle us all the way to heaven" argument. The free market would work if everyone had the same interest in mind: the market. It's all to easy to see that the vast majority of the decision makers at these companies had only one thing in mind, short term profit. The "free market" champions that rode high on these companies are walking away with millions/billions in their pockets, as the companies crash and burn and the little guys are stuck with the bill. I could rant for days.