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Automotive News & Views Are gas prices fueling your pain? 
10042 messages, Last post on Jul 12, 2008 at 3:07 PM
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
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Replying to: tpe (Apr 23, 2008 5:27 am) This does not absolve them from their predicament but the lending practices that brought them on were so unethical they are close to criminal.
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Replying to: bpizzuti (Apr 23, 2008 2:25 am) I think a lot of people are using this whole "misled" thing as a cop-out. While I'm sure there are some unscrupulous lenders (as there are in any business), the vast majority of people that are in trouble did it consciously and it's there own fault. You can't tell me that people don't understand what happens when their 3 or 5 or 7 year arm runs out. It's in plain print in the loan documents and explained when options are discussed. If ones doesn't understand what one is signing, they need to be asking more questions. A lot of what happened was that people went for the arms and/or interest only, etc. knowing the payment will go up later, just so they could get into a house they couldn't afford otherwise. And I'm not only talking about buying a larger house than they could otherwise afford, I'm also talking about people that couldn't afford any house and where continued renting would have been more realistic. Then when folks get themselves in over their head, they say they were taken for a ride. Let's put the blame where it belongs and for the vast majority of these cases, it's on the individual borrower. No shoving off ones personal responsibility onto the lenders or the government for not "protecting" us poor, witless borrowers. Budgeting your household is part of ones personal responsibility. If you have $200 to spend one month for food, and you decide to spend it on T-bone steaks and lobster, and then run out of money half way through the month, is it the fault of the grocery store for offering you food items that are beyond your means?
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Replying to: tpe (Apr 23, 2008 5:27 am) On the other hand, gasoline and diesel prices affect EVERYBODY, even those without cars or trucks. The price of food and other goods which EVERYBODY NEEDS is affected. I love how some of these posters say, "Get an education! Enhance you skills so you can earn more money!" Heck, I feel I already make decent money. What's it going to come to? Am I supposed to earn a doctorate so I can live the same lifestyle my Dad did with a high school diploma and a short stint in the Navy? Besides, where is the time for school and the money for tuition to magically appear for some working poor slob laboring 80 hours a week just to pay for the rent on some run-down apartment in the 'hood? Is this man to just abandon his wife and children to pursue higher education, (if he can even pass the entrance exam)? Congratulations, you've earned your MBA! Your wife and kids must be proud! Uh, I wouldn't know. They starved to death six years ago. |
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Replying to: chadx (Apr 23, 2008 6:19 am) |
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Replying to: bpizzuti (Apr 23, 2008 5:25 am) Except when we're talking mortgages.  House GOP challenges Pelosi for gas price plan. (The Hill) Pelosi put tax breaks and royalty relief given to big oil and gas companies on the table then. Could be some interesting footmanship if the Dems decide to move on those issues and Big Oil says wait a minute. Alaska just told Exxon to give up a major oil and gas field on state lands since they've been sitting on it 1977 with no development. (Alaska Report) |
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Replying to: fezo (Apr 23, 2008 5:31 am) Criminal? That is ridiculous! Yes they loosened there standards, but I reiterate, budgeting your household is a personal responsibility. So did the at-home conversations go like this? "The bank will give us a $200,000 loan. This is great. But the payments are going to be $1,500 a month". "But honey, we can't afford that payment." "But they are willing to give it to us! We can't pass up this opportunity! Let's just do it! "
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Replying to: chadx (Apr 23, 2008 6:48 am)
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Replying to: bpizzuti (Apr 23, 2008 5:25 am) I think you just contradicted yourself in the same paragraph.  If oil goes up, gasoline goes up, just like if wood prices go up, lumber goes up. If oil is that expensive, and the "oil" companies are STILL making huge profits, But they aren't making huge profits, year affter year. They're making decent profits now. Go to any financial webpage, lookup an oil company - like Exxon-Mobil (symbol XOM) and do some research. The value of stock is $94 and the EPS (earnings per share) is $7.28. There are 5.3 billion shares of stock issued. So people like me and anyone who has a 401K, has about $450B invested in Exxon-Mobil. We're making about 10% per year, hardly that extravagent. EPS is what investors look at, and the %-profit they make. Exxon-Mobil's profit is not large relative to what people have invested. |
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Replying to: snakeweasel (Apr 22, 2008 3:34 pm) One one of my jobs (transportation) I get OT after 8 and after 40. Not sure the state say after 8 or if it's our contract. On my other job (farming) I get the same $4 per hour no matter how many hours I work.
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Replying to: kernick (Apr 23, 2008 7:09 am) Plus whatever money stayed in the company fir various reasons (some of which gets re-invested, but they count the new 10,000 sq foot executive suite as an investment too, heh). If oil goes up, gas goes up, yeah. But if oil goes up, and gas goes up, and Mobil's profits go up, that means that they're raising the price of gas faster than the price of oil is going up, because their expenses are falling in relation to their income. |
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Automotive News & Views Are gas prices fueling your pain?
