Well, this is a rant, so pass on if you don’t want opinion.
One of the things about Barak Obama that appealed to me when I watched interviews was that he actually listened to the question, paused a bit, then almost always came up with an enlightening and informed reply. This was in sharp contrast to other politicians. For example, how many times did you hear the exact same “smoking gun” verbiage pre-invasion?
So the previous presidential candidates “town hall” format was disappointing, feel that both candidates could have shown more courtesy in addressing the questions directly. They both sounded like students who over prepare for an exam, cramming to the extent that it interferes with performance. I hope the debate tonight is better. These are too valuable to use as substitutes for advertising.
On the economic situation, if you look back surely you will find a time when you discovered things had changed. Mine was in the mid-1980s when my aging compact car started gushing smoke and there was no public transportation to where I worked.
I located an affordable used car then went to my bank as I had for the first car to arrange for a small loan. I was informed that banks didn’t make such loans any more, but I could apply for MasterCard and use that instead. Yeah, right, 18% APR vs. 5-6% — I can see the motivation.
Then there is the demise of the passbook savings account. The last one I tried to use was getting about 0.45% interest! That is not an error, the interest was less than a percent — much lower than the rate of inflation. Since I am interested in learning about how things work, I actually set up a conference with a staff member at the bank where I had a checking account. There I learned that charging interest to the customer to have a saving account was a real possibility! I also pretty much confirmed that there was no way for a “regular” person to earn interest without gambling on the stock market. I do think that stocks are a great way to invest your “extra” money, but certainly not your retirement nest egg. The third quarter statement from what remains of my retirement savings, the fraction left after cashing in at a loss to pay for COBRA benefits, certainly confirmed that.
I suspect that a lot of this is just plain class prejudice, no one is willing to admit that they need to live modestly, so we accept the “instruments” that wealthy people use. Add the reluctance to admit that few people understand how they work, and there you are.
