Average American family "can't pay their bills"

Comment #1 in that series of comments:

Her "Soon to be Ex" is the dumbest part.

Too many stats show that together family units survive crisis and financial upheaval better than a SINGLE mother with kids... This woman is crazy and selfish. Enjoy poverty!!!!!

This is the fate of a feminist america...
 
i agree, most people who get into these financial hardships can blame themselves for years of poor planning and financial neglect. they talk about how they lost their job or what not, but that wasn't the real problem. the problem was, they were living on the edge for many years and it only took one event to push them over.

if they described those people's lives in greater detail, i'd guess the majority of them were poor at fiscal management.
 
Quote from Reaver:

I don't give a fuck.

Flip fucking burgers. I would if I had to.

Do you want to bitch or do you want to make it through? How bad do they want it? You have that first woman getting divorced of all things right in the middle of this shit.

Stop crying about your personal feelings and do what has to be done.

Try reading these stories and take away the violin music and dramatic story-telling manner of it and really thinking about how this is all going down.

The first couple already filed bankruptcy once, fucking losers, and she somehow had enough money to pay for college, but not pay her debts or her mortgage.

Think about it in the context of real life and not the CNN bleeding heart tear-jerking story.

And fuck you if you're that stupid as to not see what's going on here.

I grew up poor as shit. My dad delivered pizzas and stocked groceries working three part time jobs to get enough hours between them when I was little to make ends meet. I don't want to hear about their problems.

I don't want to hear about the labor pains, just show me the fuckin' baby.
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Fuckin-A Reaver, I totally agree. Nowhere I look do I see any of the people I know who are upside down and broke showing or have showed any constraint in their purchases or any attemtp at living within their means. Everytime I look they have a new $1000 barbecue grille or a new car or whatever. All on credit. Its deeper than people just spending, it's almost as if they can't be happy unless they are buying, buying, buying.

Fuck em all. Time to pay the piper you weak fucksticks.
 
Hey, I've got a great idea. Let's just raise taxes and repeal the Bush tax cuts. Then there will be plenty for everyone! We'll just tax our way to financial prosperity for all. Hurray! What a great solution! People who don't want to work shouldn't have to. And think what an awesome boost it will give to the econonmy when businesses pay more taxes. Of course we will only tax "the rich." (But now you have to realize that to a Democrat anyone who makes over $40K a year is "rich.")
 
Quote from Reaver:

*yawn*

I am one of the most kind-hearted people out there. But I have NO sympathy for these people. At all.

Okay I take that back, I feel sorry for them that they were born so fucking stupid, selfish, greedy, and short-sighted. Sorry they were not equipped with the proper survival skills to make it through.

I donate time, merchandise and money to charities all the time. Just not ones that help people like this out. This shit just doesn't magically happen to people. Everyone is responsible for their own lives.

If that shit happened to me, I'd be out mowing yards, dropping french fries, having yard sales, you name it- but I wouldn't be fucking crying on the news about it.
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Agree - it's the fault of the sheeple who fail to see the writing on the wall because they do not look ahead, and prepare for the economy's change. They're more interested in Britney's latest adventure, American Idol, or some other worthless shit on TV than watching CNN, learning about the world outside of their shallow lives, or picking up a WSJ and learning about finance.

They allow themselves to be brainwashed by a system that wants them to remain ignorant, and thus remain poor.

It's partially their fault, and it's partially the fault of a system designed to keep them in the dark, and bail them out.
 
Quote from dalodoma:

WTF is up with all these damn shows on TV, they provide audiences with no intellectual messages,, none...
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Intellectual messages require people to think. People (most) don't want to think. They want to absorb and decay. Path of least resistance and all that.

Besides...a population fully aware of it's environment is inherently dangerous to the government if that environment is poor.

Regarding the article...one of those families has five children. My wife and I have one. One. We thought long and hard about another one and realized that with another child comes the expense of another child. That expense is not to be taken lightly. Some folks just keep having kids without any regards to what it's going to cost them down the line.
 
Quote from turkeyneck:

Some people have no one to blame but themselves.

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/news/0803/gallery.real_stories/index.html
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Turkeyneck, Reaver, SellingRich, Slapshot, etc.

I read these stories, and it is quite obvious if these were your family members, you would be much more supportive. :confused:

Schey is right. Most of these are normal people trying to raise their kids and work hard. I highly doubt you are any different.

Like others on ET, I am hard on people who do stupid things, like putting their money into Tuco, which was not even registered. Or being way too leveraged anda blowing out their accounts.

And I know you may respond with self-righteous flames, but I suspect it will be little more than a kneejerk reaction. In this situation, you are wrong.
 
With respect, TZ, you really don't know their financial situations any more than the people you quoted in your post.

If they are the average American family, they have credit cards maxed out. They buy all sorts of things they don't need. They're stretched to the limit because they have been living beyond their means for so long that the slightest upset in the balance (like gas prices) throws them into dire straits.

We're talking about the average American family here. No, it doesn't say that these examples drive around in large SUVs with large HELOCs, but it really wouldn't say that if the point the author was trying to convey is that average Americans can't make ends meet, would it?

The underlying issue here is that the average family is having problems in today's economy because they put themselves there. They spent too much, far more than they made, because of easy credit. They saved nothing - put nothing away for a rainy day. And today it's raining.

So they can blame gas prices, food prices, etc. But they didn't prepare for it because they thought the good times were going to be here to stay. Well, they never are.

You've heard the parable of the Grasshopper and the Ant, right? See in front of you all the Grasshoppers.
 
Quote from dalodoma:

WTF is up with all these damn shows on TV, they provide audiences with no intellectual messages,, none...
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All the stupid reality shows on TV now are complete crap. There are only 1 or 2 channels worth watching. Gotta love those old 70's shows like Three's Company and All in the Family. Almost everything else on TV is mindless crap.
 
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