While always imagine the bank system as kind of shady, I never thought that they actually rig the system in a way that it is a given that they will 'win' no matter what happens. — dclements
People had to take those loans for it to work.
I'm about to get kicked out of my apartment, I hear. Just moved in a few months ago. Not long after that we were all informed: new owner.
Instead of $550 per month for 1 BR it is going to be $810, I hear.
As far as I can tell, a few cosmetic changes and some new appliances will be the only difference.
Yet, those who can afford it will be camping outside the leasing office so they can be first in line to pay higher prices for the same product, apparently. The words "newly remodeled" in advertisements must be powerful.
If nobody takes the fraudulent loans; if nobody rents the nondescript apartments for more than a mortgage payment; if nobody buys the same food at Whole Foods that they could get from a discount grocery store for much less; if nobody accepts the credit cards and spends money they don't have, it doesn't work.
But for some reason household consumers never seem to be anywhere on the radar of people looking to indict and convict economic and political actors in the court of public opinion.
I can't even figure out if I am poor, middle class, living in poverty, or something else. — WISDOMfromPO-MO
People had to take those loans for it to work. — WISDOMfromPO-MO
Passed as a response to the financial crisis of 2007–2008, it brought the most significant changes to financial regulation in the United States since the regulatory reform that followed the Great Depression.[2][3][4][5] It made changes in the American financial regulatory environment that affected all federal financial regulatory agencies and almost every part of the nation's financial services industry.[6][7]
I know this doesn't help you, but right now I'm living in a house with around ten other people (plus 4 cats, 2 dogs), it is pretty cramped, and just last year me and my Mom was evicted from the apartment we lived in which at the time they tried to BOTH collect rent and threaten/strong arm us with an eviction whenever we couldn't pay all or back rent at once - PLUS WHATEVER FEES they felt like hitting us with.
One of the main reasons we couldn't pay rent was I had become disabled (or more accurately I was already disabled but had finally lost my job), but another reason was the place we lived was too expense for us to afford. Although there is no one for us to blame for the second problem then ourselves, part of the issues was we were in a bad situation and the move was a bit of an emergency move (where we didn't have time/energy to really think and plan what we were doing) and it wasn't that different than what happens to some refugees who end up in a number of bad set of situations because they are constantly trying to run from one bad thing, survive the process of running away, only to end up in other bad situation or short end of the stick in one way or another because they didn't really know what they were running into. Or at least that is the way I see it. — dclements
Personally I think the powers that be, kind of like families (other than their own of course) to kind of be dysfunctional as well as societies and governments as well. I remember in a psychology 101 class (or something like it) that gangs and certain organizations (perhaps it was military) prefer recruiting kids from ghettos and projects since they are already use to abuse/dysfunctional relationships and are more loyal to anyone/any group that can provide any kind of security or structure in their lives since they have none already.
I think the term some psychologist use for such people that are use to dealing with drug addicts/drug dealers, corrosive and/or abusive relationships, etc. and are terrified of getting out of such situations (since when you are down and out, the grass looks even meaner on the other side) is called CODEPENDENT. While I probably sound crazy saying that there is a conspiracy to make as many of us as possible to be codependent on those who abuse us, I think history shows us (such as the beginning of the cold war) that such tactics have been often used in the past both by us and in other countries. Below is a link to excerpt from "Atomic Cafe" that sort of visually shows and talks about this kind of condition:
The Atomic Cafe | 1982 | Part 2/4 (17 minutes into the video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4kR73wIrm0#t=17m01s
("in time of social crisis and tension, in times of changes that happen so think and fast that the individual can no longer place himself in his group,when he knows something is wrong but he doesn't know what, when he feels himself upon, in times like these MOST MEN BECOME HIGHLY SUGGESTIBLE, THEY LISTEN EAGERLY FOR ANY VOICE WHICH SOUNDS AUTHORITATIVE, they listen eagerly for any voice who can tell them what is wrong,and what to do to right it)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4kR73wIrm0#t=17m01s
Unfortunately, this might also explain some of the reasons the US is sometimes to eager to enter into a war (since wars often help the incumbent party if people think it is the right thing) and/or it might help explain why someone like Trump can get into office; even though he is not typically what one would expect to become president (hot temper, single minded, etc) he also talks with enough authority/ about solving problems that for some people neck deep in it they are willing to give it a shot. — dclements
The point I tried to make is that it is not much of a surprise that things like fraudulent mortgages and then mass foreclosures happened when we have people--typical American households--eager to play right into the hands of the hucksters.
I agree with what you say is true, but I also that such problems are aspects of the human condition and blaming people for being suckers in certain situations is almost like blaming animals for having to walk on four legs instead of two. — dclements
Often when we are young we can sense that the world is messed up but in order to fit in and/or maintain our sanity we cut ourselves off from some of these senses and if the powers that be rig the system to take advantage of us because we take part in a kind of group which has this negative aspect of it, I'm not sure what can be done about it.
Or maybe we are already partly HARDWIRED to be sheep because of an aspect of evolution which happen in the past. — dclements
If reincarnation exists I think it works in that whatever animals or plants that use the water, minerals, vitamins, etc are sort of "you" (just as "you are a sort of a representation of any being that used the same resources that makes up you at this particular moment) after you are no longer here — dclements
but since there is no construct to save our memory and our mind (the main source of what makes up our conscience), I have a bit of a problem with any reincarnation that doesn't resolve this.
Because of this I think it is probably best for anyone/everyone to delay going off to the great beyond
, even if it takes being put into an ice cube for centuries or millenniums is need be.
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