Oil drops to $43 a barrel

One of our bank stocks was paying us $10,000 a year in dividends in addition to good growth - right up to when the bottom fell out. They didn't go under, but were bought for pennies on the dollar. The amount of stock we received in return was pitifully small.

Tom

 

Have not heard any one yelling, "Drill, Baby, Drill" lately.

We could be smart and take this break in energy prices as an opportunity to be ready for the next round of "peak oil" pricing:

-Most of "stimulus package" should go for development of Renewable Energy, Smart Grid and EVs and PHEVs.
With the long lead times involved, we need to work now so by the next price spike we have greatly reduced our oil needs.

-A "floor" price at the pump could be established with an increased gas tax to make fuel efficency important even during times of cheap fuel. Give people a reason to buy smarter. Don't call it a "gas tax" call it a "national security tax". Democrats understand the conection between oil use and our security and I want to watch the Republicans vote aginst "national security"!

-Rather than giving oil leases to Big Oil so they can just sit on them, we should encourage exploration of our most viable untapped resources so we ready for the next oil spike.

-As much as I believe we should be "Energy Independent" for security reasons, maybe using "their" oil in times of cheap oil and saving "our" oil for future generations is not a bad idea.
Of course it becomes a very bad idea IF we are not preparing for "peak oil".

 

my CD's are with a locally owned and operated Savings and Loan that has always preached that they based all their loans on sound financial decisions (they turned down my SO for a checking account because her credit rating was too low, so they are picky... she went to Washington Mutual (back when they were still in business as WaMu that is) and they took her, no questions asked)

their newletters have been harping for years on the poor financial decisions made by other lenders especially concerning home equity loans that others in the area were offering. guess they knew what was coming

 

Ooooooooh yes you can. A handful of crooks made fortunes off doing just that. You and I are the ones stuck with the s*** sandwich

 

That alone will make you RICH in comparison to your neighbors. I've never had huge amounts of debt, indeed have been debt-free +15 years. It's like giving yourself a huge raise

True enough I had to live very frugally and simply for most of my life. Nothing wrong with that. Just not being in indentured servitude to somebody else is very worth it

 

Yep, folks like you and I got bent over and shafted by these crooks.

In the early 80's, a Canadian singer Bruce Cockburn had a song "If I had a rocket launcher" in reference to the various political crisis in central and south america.

Every verse ended with "If I had a rocket launcher ..."

Verse 1: "I'd make somebody pay"
Verse 2: "I would retaliate"
Verse 3: "I would not hesitate"
Verse 4: "some son of a bitch would die"

It would be pretty easy to cover this song, substitue a few words, to perfectly describe how a lot of investors like us are feeling right now towards the banking industry

I suppose you know that Madoff is pissing and moaning because he is stuck in his lavish penthouse pad? Poor guy, what a shame. No doubt some old lady somewhere is being shoved into a nursing home because she can no longer afford to be in her home, thanks to that sob

 

Credit Unions!

At least you are truly in debt to your neighbours if you owe money,,, or you are loaning it to your neighbours!

I have closed all my commercial bank accounts. C.U. has all the services with few of the fees.

No debt except mortgage. Keep nibbling away at that too,

Icarus

 

I've been saying that for a long time. I'm well aware of the difficulty and COST of extracting our proven domestic reserves. However, we have to make a simple and clear choice of funding terrorism, or looking after ourselves

That "cheap" mideast oil isn't so cheap once you factor in the homeland security and terrorism

Another concern would have to be the vast potential for oil and natural gas in the Canadian arctic. Canadians are just now starting to piss and moan about Russian exploration vessels snooping around the arctic, planting CIS flags on the seafloor, etc

Well, that is precisely what you get - and deserve - when you completely ignore your own sovereignty, pretend to be a "peaceful" nation with no real naval or military assets, and hand over your territory by default

Now that the Northern Passage is appearing to remain ice-free during the summer months, one can expect more foreign involvement in what used to be called the "Canadian" arctic. The US is very careful about claiming the Beaufort Sea north of Alaska

Given the enormous cost of developing our proven domestic reserves, this will not help keep pump prices low. However, every dollar we spend on domestic production remains in-country

 

a agree that debt free is the best investment you can make. we dont make a lot of money compared with most household in our area, but we have things simply because we have no loans. 3 cars paid for (2 relatively new) and our spending habits are not frugal in any way whatsoever (well mine are, but hers ARE NOT EVEN CLOSE!!)

we eat out at least twice a week, we pay ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY DOLLARS A MONTH JUST FOR CABLE TV AND INTERNET (something i hate doing, but she absolutely insists and adding a TON OF CRAP to the basic service.

i learned a long time ago that interest on outstanding loans far outpaced nearly all savings plans. when i first met Linds she had $18,000 in medical bills that she was paying $200 a month on... well, imagine her thoughts when i told her that she was reducing her liability by about $7 a month because they were charging her interest.(jus a small clue concerning her financial acumen) well, i had the cash, so i paid it and now she pays me $200 a month and her liability is reduced by $200 a month.

 

Yes, a much more "local" control of where the money goes. Usually much more transparant, as you are an official stakeholder

 

Dave

I'm single for a good reason

jay

 

Jay; i concede that you do definitely, without a doubt, have an advantage!!

 

Ouch. Where we previously lived I had cut that back to ~$42/month for cable and internet. Turned out that their "Basic" service included the same tiers as the introductory ~$65/month rate that expired after six months, although it wasn't supposed to. I wasn't willing to pay $110/month for the same package, and they wouldn't negotiate, so I gave them back their converter box and went with the basic cable/internet package. My set tuner picked up everything I had before (I never used any of the triple digit channels anyway.) I'm not sure if they forgot to eliminate the extra channels I wasn't supposed to get or what, but it remained that way for 2 years. The internet download data rate was cut by 2/3, however, but still more than sufficient.

Where I am now I'm presently paying $65/month on another introductory bundle. I'll probably keep it that way although I believe this outfit will also try to move me up to $100+/month once the first year expires...so I'll have to explore options and reopen negotiations. I'm happy at $65/month, but if they try to squeeze more out of me I'm prepared to aim for fewer services and less cost.

 

We don't have cable. In my adult life I've never had it. I don't watch TV much. We do have a Netflix subsciption, which is sort of a surrogate cable... kinda. It's great for the kids (lots of things like "The Blue Planet") and Wor Lass is a movie buff. We bank with USAA and have had no problems. Their customer service is excellent.

 

well, the minimum "I" require would cost $65 a month as well which is FIOS and basic TV only. however, my SO "requires" a DVR to record a ton a reality TV garbage that she has to watch. this is in addition to unlimited instant movie and TV viewing (mostly older stuff) and 3 movie rental thru netflix (at $16 a month, THIS is a bargain)

heck, this is nothing, our cellphone account is $300 (shared amongst a few other family members but our share is still over $150) with all the extra stuff she has nearly doubling our share of the bill

 

:doh:

Oy

 

cor luv a dook, mate. $300/mo for a bloody phone?!? We have a trac phone that we prepay every so often. No monthly fee. We don't use cell phone much. Simplify your life and retire early!! Or at least have fewer worries about money. We don't even have a digital receiver for the telly yet. If it were up to me, we wouldn't buy one. Eventually I suppose we'll get a flat screen (nothing fancy) but not until they're cheap.

The biggest issue the missus and I have is the heating regimen. I had the thermostat set to 62F at neet and 68F during the day. She threw her toys out the pram and so now it's set at 65F at night and 70F during the day. Of course, she wanted 72F, but that's silly. Ah, compromise!

 

ya we have heat thing too. during day, i can stand 65, but at night i like it cold, so i turn off heat at night, all night. well, in morning it can be as low as 55-58 which she HATES... me?? heck with it. jump in nice hot shower, come out and i am good to go. after all, i have to be AT work at 6 am but dont get up until 5.10 am, so i have it down to a science which does not allow time to be cold.

she wants it warm when she gets up, so we have frequent discussions about that too. when we first met, she kept her house at like 75. i couldnt stand it. even if bare assed naked, i could not survive. but i have slowly worn her down to where she now does not go over 70 which is still ridiculous.

as far as the phones go, we killed the land line and we do have a bunch of family members on it, but we also have unlimited everything except peak minutes which is ok because the unlimited mobile to mobile is mostly all we use anyway.

 

I set my 7 day programmable thermostat like this:
+++++++Winter+++++++ Summer
--------M-F S,S -------M-F S,S
7:00am 69F 69F -------78F 78F
7:30am 64F 69F -------84F 78F
5:30pm 69F 69F -------78F 78F
11:30pm 64F 64F ------80F 80F

 

Buy her a sweater, a netflix subscription. Cancel the dvr, most tv shows are available on Hulu or netflix on line/on demand. The tv shows may come a week late, but just have her adjust her schedule once. We have satellite TV and spend way more than I wish we did, but the world is changing. With high speed isp, the need for conventional cable or satellite is becoming redundant.

Mess with the t-stat and the thermometers so that they display optimistically, eventually she will think it's warmer than it is.

Icarus