I've been wanting to start this thread for a while now because I think it's important. It has to do with the complete destruction of my wealth and how it was done through lies and absolute theft.

I want everyone to consider this info constructively and not see it as a pity parade for me personally. While it is my story, I doubt it is unique. Again, I am not crying in my beer here, please don't take it as such. I'll try to be brief on each topic and lay down the general facts. Any specific interest in further details can be Q & A as they arise. What I've faced in the last four years is cruel, unfair and admittedly hard to believe. I promise that nothing I say will be exaggerated in any way.


I've worked as an Auto Body Technician/Custom Painter from age 17 until my recent 40th birthday never in my life was I without a job and never once did I collect unemployment benefits from the state. My job was commissioned, so I only was paid for work I did. I bought my house at age 21 and could have afforded to buy two more. I never played hooky and believed that hard work was rewarded. From 1986-2003 I had worked for only four companies. In that time I made from $40k-$100k a year, my last few years being the lowest.

From around 2000 life was getting more difficult. I worked for an independent repair shop for 14 yrs. owned by a friend. He was getting burned out and was looking for a way out of the business. Though a costly divorce combined with depreciating economic times this was my best shot at my own place. I knew things were getting tougher, though I never expected what was about to take place in my life.

The current owner leased the space the shop was in. For nearly 20 years, we occupied two of the four 3200 sq.ft. units in an industrial building. The other two units were leased to another company and earning rent. I proceeded to make an asset purchase of my friends company as well as purchasing the entire building from our soon to be ex landlord. The business plan reflected, among other positive forward looking statements, rents alone from our neighboring tenants exceeded the total operating costs needed for property ownership. This was met with approval at the bank and I was officially in business for myself on Feb. 21, 2004.

Little did I know, but this was the beginning of the end. What I'm getting at though is it didn't have to be. My financial destruction came due not to economic downturn, but from dirty banking practices, crooked insurance companies, rising utility costs and interest rate increases.

Auto body and paint repair wages have been suppressed by insurance companies for years. Mechanical repair rates once equal to, now more than double that of auto body repair. Collision shops also differ regarding vast increases in utility and paint material costs. My heating gas for a 3200 ft. paint area have gone from $1200, on average in cold months, to a new average of $3700 per month. This is only the paint area. I also have a 3200 ft. collision repair area and a 400 ft. office. New 10%-20% increases for 2009 have been reported for heating gas as well as electric and water & sewer. My average telephone bill was $90 in 2005 and now never less than $400. What's worse is these figures are not fair comparisons. My gross sales in 2004/2005 were $495,000 and $438,000 respectively. Sales for 2006/2007 were only $325,000 and $260,000 respectively. This is outrageous and unsustainable. George W. removed any oversight to these crooks and we all are paying the price.



continued......

i feel bad for you man, i don't want to sound like a heartless sorta person for disrespecting your hard work, etc but...

America and the west have been enjoying inflated wages and profit margins for a long time now, the real price of utilitys has been hidden and the cost of living or operating a business has been suppressed - by manipulating world markets and basically enslaving the economys of other nations we in the west have enjoyed unrivaled opulence.

The kids at work in factories in africa who get paid a penny for every hundred footballs they stitch, the entire towns devoted to making plastic toys to be given away with breakfast and the millions of people around the world down holes collecting the metal which will get used to make something so pointless it'll be thrown back in the ground less than a week after its first used - all these people have been subserdising your life.

The way i visualize it is the entire price of something is like a spring fixed to the wall at either end, at the moment it's as if someone has gripped the spring in the center and pulled it so that one half is very tightly compressed and the other is stretched almost as far as it can go - the gap between the coils is the profit, the side which is compressed is under a lot of pressure and if that manipulator were to let go would spring back with great force. You have been lucky to have been on the right side of the spring and your overly opulent business venture was blessed by the hand of global imperialism.

Sorry if that sounds harsh, if it makes you feel better i have been enjoying the benefits of living in the evil empire and the collapse of our system will probably force me to get a proper job too, sux.

I'm not saying the manipulator has let go but his arm is getting tired, other manipulators are trying to pull the spring in their direction (er, yeah i think we should just assume it's a hyperdimensional super spring) and he's having to fight off the world with his other hand in a deadly game of mercy. hehe ok i think i've worn that metaphore out now, hope you get what i'm trying to say.

the price of tat is bound to increase for western nations, certainly as more nations try to imitate our opulence the pressure on the spring will only increase, just how strong is that manipulator?

Over all it's a good thing for the world, with everyone working together fairly and without manipulation we'll have a more stable system from which to produce robots, space ships and culture - it might seem like a terrible thing for some of us but in the long run you'll be glad the world changed.

or then again, the glass half full kind guy that i am - the collapse could be too much for people to handle, imagine the leaders of nations acting like the german billionair who killed himself under a train or the guy who slit his wrists at his desk - lets hope they don't push any big red buttons.

oh yeah and i forgot to say, the people on the side of the spring with lots of profit don't want to loose theirs so when they're finding it hard to keep the pressure on sometimes they have to grab the spring a little further down so that there are less rings on the lucky side, in stead of splitting the profit between 10 they're splitting it between 5 - you must have been unlucky to have been in the middle section.


[edit on 8-1-2009 by NatureBoy]

On second thought why don't the American People get together and file a class action law suit. These greedy corporate thieves keep getting richer, but whats there money gonna be worth when they are the only ones that have it. A financial system that creates more debt than there is money. We outta be pulling those criminals out of their seats in Congress physically.

Billy Graham?
Any way we can trade him in for food or something?

Originally posted by 12.21.12
Billy Graham?
Any way we can trade him in for food or something?

Food will only sustain your body. Spiritual food will sustain your spirit and your eternal soul.

I tell what I know to be the only answer...but hey I have had Angels intervene in my life and I'm blessed beyond most!

LOL. Sorry I couldn't resist.

Glad it's not Billy Graham though. I would be disappointed.

man i am sorry for your misfortune. but it seams that all of this is so common place here in this day and age. The other day my wife and i got our utility bill for last month and it had increased 100% from this time last year i would like to know how these companies expect people to pay there utilities when they are almost as much as some peoples mortagages. mines was over 300.00$ last month, this crazy they added some kind of surge charge to our bill that what the hell is the bill for when the surge charge is as high as the bill itself. i'm to the point i just quit caring when companies go on tv crying i need a bailout becuase i stole from people and misappropriated funds and stole peoples retirement , just remember what the good book says , the meek shall inherit the earth. hope you the best in staying afloat that is all we can do. crawgator

This is how the free market works. Giant corporations are allowed to rob the individual blind, and the government refuses to do their job in combating fraud.

Insurance is nothing but private sector tax, that regulates small businesses to death so that giant corporations are able to take over their markets.

By writing the rules as obtuse as possible, huge amounts of the process wind up being questionable in a court of law, where those with the most money are bound to win.

The free market is a big con job, and I hope people are finally waking up to this.

I understand where you are at perfectly.

We are in the asphalt maintenance business. This coming May would be our 6th year in business. Our first three years were decent, not fabulous but decent enough for us to move to a nicer house and after paying off almost all debt moving to a house twice the size of where we were was a lateral move financially.

When we purchased our house, our mortgage broker noticed that we did not take many of the deductions that we could have on our taxes and advised that we should amend them after we close. He said people do it all the time and our CPA agreed.

So we did. Two months later I began to receive letters from my mortgage company telling me that they had reviewed my loan and that my taxes did no match the records that I had given them. I called and explained and the local manager said that all I had to do was send a letter from the CPA stating that we had amended our tax returns. I did that. And called...and called and called...no response. When we finally did find someone to speak to, they said that wasn't good enough and that they could not sell the loan therefore we owed the entire balance. We tried to refinance and could not because of the fees they wanted there was not enough equity in the house to cover it. It was an 8 month battle (which I am sure you can imagine what that did for a self employed person). I finally called my attorney and one letter from them finally shut them up after I received something saying that even if we sent payments they were going to begin to decline our payments and force us into default.

Then the economy began to decline. Our last two years in business have been terrible. We rely on property managers, business owners, capital money, etc for business to do maintenance on their property. At this point in the economy...uh..what capital money?

Not to mention that our area is over run with "travelers" (aka gypsies) that do terrible work at insane prices and then the local customers trust no one.

Contributing to our downfall in these last few months is that wonderful banking system that you mention. Every deposit that we made had an *11* day hold on it. All that did was put us more and more behind every time we deposited a check. But I notice that the checks that I *write* go through with lightening fast speed..as opposed to the ones I put in which take nearly two weeks to clear.

If things weren't bad enough, we lost close to $100,000 in contracts toward the end of 2008 that would have carried us through the middle of 2009 sometime. Gone. No one has the money. And if they have the money, they aren't spending it.

Our family had to take up a new craft just to keep the lights on. We started making soap and personal care products.

Foreclosure was imminent in November and I finally filed bankruptcy just to keep the house through the holidays and not have to pack up the kids (we have 5 in ages from 10 down to 1) I expect the lights to go off any day. The gas will be turned off shortly as will my phone (not good for business, but what do you do?). After putting out 200-300 job applications between my husband and myself and only receiving *2* calls back....it really feels...bleak.

We owe everybody money. Vendors that we get our supplies from, etc...and I can't do anything but look at them and shrug.
On February 5th or shortly after, we will find out if the mortgage company will even work with us but they don't have to. After that..I don't know unless by some miracle those contracts that "postponed" until the spring come off of a down payment.

I'm not trying to tell a sob story either...believe it or not...painting an accurate picture of where we are at.

::edited:: to add that as far as insurance goes...our business insurance is completely staggering. It will cancel here shortly. My house insurance has lapsed. My car insurance has lapsed. The only reason my insurance card is in my vehicle now is in case I get stopped so I won't get a ticket for that

[edit on 9-1-2009 by jenmckin]

Originally posted by poet1b
This is how the free market works. Giant corporations are allowed to rob the individual blind, and the government refuses to do their job in combating fraud.

Insurance is nothing but private sector tax, that regulates small businesses to death so that giant corporations are able to take over their markets.

By writing the rules as obtuse as possible, huge amounts of the process wind up being questionable in a court of law, where those with the most money are bound to win.

The free market is a big con job, and I hope people are finally waking up to this.

this is one of the only uses we have for federal government. provide us only enough oversight and regulation to keep the game fair and competitive. a true free market wont tolerate monopolies or lobbyists. in a free market you get no bailouts or second chances. you get greedy and cheat people at your own peril. you play by the same rules no matter the size of your company. you can't lower your operating costs with cheap imports when you have to compete. you certainly can't afford $16 million bonuses to failing CEO's. you survive on quality service and good reputation, not bribes and bathroom buddies. ( little larry craig ref. there.)

anything less than these basic principles is not a free market. we are so far removed from this people hardly remember it. this cannot be tolerated!