Er... uh... not to get into anything off topic I will only say this once. Trying to hint that Clinton is even in the slightest at fault for the present situation is.... well being a good Christian etc etc etc. Clinton came into office facing the highest deficit in the history of the country, balanced it for the first time in over a hundred years, and got the economy rolling bigger and better then it had been in many decades. Quite the trick to be sure. Bush has nearly tripled Reagans deficit record and now has punged out another near trillon dollars (without sufficient return guarantees to even dream about this having anything to do with anything remotely close to socialism) to fill the pockets of those wheeler and dealers whom already have squandered away so much of Americans pension savings its ridiculous. I mean for crimminy sakes... loans to the risky clients outlined below means small loans to a small percentage of Americans who couldnt possibly borrow all that much to begin with regardless of policy. How many more times that was borrowed by fairly well off middle class (a fast dwindling species btw) in double mortgage schemes where a guy with half his house paid down figured he could buy another one... rent it out and get it to pay for itself.... ? And thats just the little guy scenario of that kind of thing. Lets get real here. Blaming this on what amounts to a few billions in loans to the absolute lowest echelons of American society is.... well... etc etc etc. RicB I've sold more pianos this year than the last several years combined. I'm expecting to sell more before Christmas. I'm getting more calls for piano service. I never call customers because I'm too busy generally. Economy is 90% a psychological phenomenon: This current slow down did have some pre-cursors. Clinton ran on racial integration especially in the financial sector and made good on his promise by sending out Justice Department Lawyers to threaten bankers that if they didn't improve on their balance of customers (racially) that they would be sued by the Justice Department with the deep pockets of the American people behind them. Bankers are a cautious lot and when pushed they asked what could they do and they were given an outline. Essentially they were to give loans to risky clients and develop certain types or risky products. Democrats and Republicans that were close enough to the issue to understand the ramifications protested that this would result in a time bomb going off when those unqualified (not by race) clients couldn't make their payments. They were viciously labeled as racists without regard to party by the Clinton machine. The "rules" or psychological climate changed and risky banking products became the norm. While we had good growth everything worked. But, like it or not, taxes do drag on the economy and we had the Clinton tax-caused recession going into Bush's first term. There were some economic measures taken in the form of tax cuts and stimulas in the form of a tax "refund". This only delayed the inevitable as all those pigeons sent aloft (fundamentally bad loans) came back down to roost. This brings us back to psychology. We can let the talking heads convince us that things are terrible or we can explore the reality that real, cash, economy is local. That larger debt-based economy is a house or cards that crashes and folds in fairly predictable cycles. It re-arranges itself and takes off again eventually piggy backing of the real cash economy you and I make in our every-day-lives. It is going to be hard to get loans for a while. So what. A cash based lifestyle makes a lot more sense. Need more money, go out there and make it. Re-examine your "needs" too and pay bills in order of importance: food, housing, clothing and then everything else in its order. Sometimes you have to look further and work harder but eventually there is something out there for someone willing to make it happen. Never debase the value of the service you provide by attitude or by reduced service. We do serve the people most able to pay in general. That should be a comfort. Confidence on your part begets confidence on the part of your customer. Andrew Anderson
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