Originally posted by dawnstar
well, can't show you any laws about those things you have listed....I can think of a few...

There are no such laws, that's why. The following are not laws.

many employers have policies regarding employee absences, basically if you miss so many days in a row, you are required to have a doctors note...

A reasonable request as an employer. Not a law. Having been an employer I like to know who's going to be showing up for work, so if necessary arrangements can be made to delegate that person's work to another employee or if longer term, hire a temp.

there's a bus company in the city I live in that has recently adopted a rule that if you miss, you must be home, because they will call to check you are there and heaven help you if you are not I guess....

A private bus company? Then it is not a law, it is a rule of employment. Absenteeism has been enough of an issue with some employers that they have needed to resort to checking up on employees. That could be because either they hire unsuitable people or the employer is crap to work for.

schools do the same thing

Yes they do, and this is the closest to law you've come so far. Unless there is a good reason for a child not to be in school, such as illness or home schooling, then there is little reason for a child not to be in school. The school is doing their job is ensuring a child is absent for a legitimate reason.

My kids are grown now, but I have heard the stories about what they were required to have for school....I think it was something like ten boxes of tissues, along with a bunch of other stuff, some were saying it cost them close to a hundred just to fullfill the schools demands!

What? I've never heard such utter rubbish. If this is true you're going to need to show a little more that "I heard".

and well, let me ask you this, as many of you know, I can't really afford the healthcare out there, I don't believe you can either really, I think either you have a really good insurance policy or you are just lucky enough not to get real sick or hurt!

That is the point of socialized health care. You get it whether you can afford it or not. You would be better off in such a system, not worse, so what exactly are you complaining about?

one of those credit cards I have is just for any medical bills that I may have to incur

See above point......

there's alot of ways society has found to force you to spend money you don't have.....try getting a job without a phone, without a car, without decent clothing...(decent clothing can be bought at your local goodwill by the way!)

No, society has found lots of ways to justify being an inept consumer. No one is forced to get a credit card, no one is forced to take out a mortgage, and no one is forced to buy a new car. If the desire for those things leads one into a life of debt, they have no one to blame but themselves.

[edit on 4-10-2009 by quackers]

Originally posted by quackers

My kids are grown now, but I have heard the stories about what they were required to have for school....I think it was something like ten boxes of tissues, along with a bunch of other stuff, some were saying it cost them close to a hundred just to fullfill the schools demands!

What? I've never heard such utter rubbish. If this is true you're going to need to show a little more that "I heard".

Around here the schools put out a huge demand list. They'll even ask you go get the name brands instead of generic. And yes, it can cost a lot of money to do so. They ask for stuff like tissues, hand sanitizers, paper towels, batteries, film for cameras, etc. The one that my daughter had even wanted a Wal-mart gift card so that they can get more stuff later. They even called the school list a "wish list" but it was pretty clear they expected it. I am unemployed and might be homeless in another five/six months if I don't find something. I even got turned down for food stamps. I read that list and I'm like yeah, you can keep on wishing for it too, because you're not getting it from me.

When I went to school, my mom just had to get me pencils and paper and the schools supplied paper towels, etc.

I don't really feel I am equally at fault for this econonmy. I was not the one who created the system of debt and credit. I was told you needed credit to get an apartment, a house and a car. I got credit for 2 reasons; one was to give myself the ablity to move away from my parents. The second reason is because when I got credit card offers I was in desperation. I was behind on my electric bill, needed gas in my car so I got a credit card. I paid off the orginal amount I owed but then they had a huge $200 fee for me opening up the account. I shut down the credit card yet I still owe it.
I made mistakes out of misinformation, out of need and wanting to be independent. Our soceity more or less forces into these situations but telling us we need good credit just to live a life. (not even a good quality of life for some people.)
We have risk ruining our lifes intially to start a life. It is a catch-22! I wish this system of failure was never set up in the first place. I am 34 years old and had to have a co-signer on an apartment. I have only been late on rent once and that was because my check was late.
I really hope prices do decline and hope that these greedy companies who feed into this sick system falls apart.
If the ones who are greedy end up closing maybe we will be left with the companies who actually care about people living a decent life.
I could write a book on this subject!

In the very beginning a point is brought up as to 8 Billion Dollars in "Theft"

The reality is that this simply is false, the Banks WANT you to go onto debt, after a Bankruptcy you have no way to avoid paying, I know point blanks that credit risks who have defaulted are often chosen and encouraged to be given new credit.

They don't loose anything

If you default on 7000.00, inevitably the majority of those people will pay some sort of a settlement to a debt collector, even if they don't when they finally get new credit they can't default... bam, the banks have a monthly payment from you for life.

In Intrinsically agree

With every word your saying about HOW to avoid these traps, I have begun in my life doing the exact same things and actually found i'm MORE comfortable.

I just thing OP, your being too hard on people.

There are so many reasons...

Lets start with contractor laws, why do people actually Sign for mortgages? You can't build your own home anymore, not and sell it at least, the laws are so complicated and you simply aren't allowed to do anything....

The Mortgages and "appearances" matter more than people... I should be able to go outside today and add a room on, I can't... it's ridiculous.

Your forced into a mortgage these days to the 90%

God forbid I could start with a room and do my house like the Victorian era and add and add...

What makes it worse are clone houses and big developments where they use 4 floor plans and everything has to match URGGGGGG 500 G for crap I could do better myself.


Credit Cards?

Most are given out now in College

WE have a President, just skanking us... he want's to add HRS and DAYS to public Schools as if most of the kids who struggle with READING lol or Basic Math are going to go on to College anyway...

He wants us to be competitive? LIES

Because money would further go for UNIVERSITY where the real learning is done...

But NO LOANS and CREDIT CARDS

You can say be smart and do __________X

But, when your 19 and the other kids can go out and you can't.... I'll just say you can never get those years back, youth. They will take those cards and roll the dice... Many forever in debt or for a long time.

No escape from student loans ever, credit cards maxed and forced to have a job while in school...

Competitive, no slave driven from within our proudest institutions.


Now let's add to this Computers and how mistakes follow you for a decade... too long, A decade can be the loss of a life...

a decade unable to buy a house? Not fair, not at housing prices...

Look lets face it knowing what to do doesn't solve every problem

You can make do, but you can't almost certainly just go outside and build up what you want, College is unaffordable without loans if you have children, I can become a person happy in a trailer, but they will do everything possible to prevent you from making it paradise...

They WANT you in the cycle or out of the way.

The level of greed is unparalleled in human history

They leave anyone of ambition in a situation forced to pay up big time and via debt.

and

You say "live within your means"

Your means have been reduced to rubble... you could live within your means and build a wonder life in the past, now you just exist

The philosophy of live within your means applied real well in the days of "an acre and a Mule" there was no restrictions on what you could do, I don't care if you or I "manage" and have that ability.

They wont allow the fulfillment of what I COULD do with my hands and time and income, not without do everything they can to force the price up... make it unsellable or nail me on every code violation from color of paint to height to whatever they dream up....

They hold you by the short and curly until you give in...or choose to have allot less than you could via your own work...

I forgive anyone who succumbed to credit and despise what they do to people...

I could buy an acre and build a mansion, but I need contractors license on EVERYTHING, approval on everything... it's made out of reach and I don't blame anyone for stealing a bit to get by that being the case.

They are robber barons bro... plain and simple.

Are you seriously suggesting that the amount of responsibility for the current World financial situation falls on the public?

I agree with the OP. Yes, we are at fault.

Our culture places a lot of worth on our wealth, or lack of it.

Poor=bad. Rich=Good.

Western culture values stuff above substance. And it gets worse all the time. It's not enough to have a family home, now you need an investment so you can move up the property ladder. It's not enough to have a car, now you need to upgrade every year to the newer model. It's not enough for kids to go to summer camp in the woods, now they need speciality camps to learn Yoga, or lose weight. It's not enough to go on a family road trip cross country, now they need luxury vacations in the Caribbean.

Are we so shallow that we believe that "insert name brand here" makes your life better? Looking at my friends and neighbours working increasingly harder and longer to make increasingly larger payments on their debts to fund their increasingly unhappier lives seems to indicate that we are.

Our children are out on that treadmill early on. To be a success, they are told, one must go to university. A large proportion of graduates start their working lives with a huge debt in student loans as a result. Because, afterall, being a success means making a lot of money, and everyone knows that University graduates make more (Info brought to you by your helpful government which has a vested interets in keeping you in debt ).

Then they are helpfully told that they must get on the property ladder to be successful. Renting is bad! it's a waste of money. Your first property is just a step in the ladder which will get you to your "dream" home. So get into debt, the earlier the better, and get on that all important ladder!

20K in student loans, a new mortage? Now you are a slave to your job, your career. You'll spend 60 hours a week at work to pay off your "dream". If you happen to have time to start a family you'll enjoy them in between working increasingly harder to fund your lifestyle that you've grown up being told is what the "good" people do.

The most valuable thing we have is time, and we squander it on trying to maintain wealth. As result the quality of our lives measured in time spent in leisure activities and with our loved ones is dramatically reduced.

It doesn't have to be this way. You can make a conscious decison to live your life without being a slave to "stuff".

I have no debt. I have no mortgage. The "stuff" I have I saved up for.
I have no career ( I have a job, that pays for the things I NEED), I have no board meetings, I have no working weekends.

I DO have time to spend enjoying my hobbies, taking long walks, being with my family and taking in every minute of this too short life that I can.

We, each and everyone of us, have a conscious decision to determine what is most important to us. Get off the treadmill, downgrade your life, learn to live with little money, enjoy living with lots of time for love and experiences.

Originally posted by D.E.M.

i am sorry if this is an old thread and I am digging it up...but I saw it in a signature while reading a few other threads....

The title of the thread itself, with out even going it the detailing any of the atrocity of a post.....Well how can I say this nicely...aimless, ignorant, and uneducated.

If you own a loan for a house you are as much to blame....LOL the naive thing I have EVER read!
How my loan or my parents home loan could even be compared with the manipulation and grubby tactic to sell credit to people that they know wont be able to make the re-payments very long and almost assured they will never see out the life of the contract solely done to propagate greed and to gain a commodity to via dishonest practices, selling onto another corporation which does the same and so on and fiddling the accounts to show the activity and profit of the sales and acquisitions and then misguiding stock markets and creditor and stock holders.....

How????

I understand personal debit is a problem and unwanted distraction but again it comes back the financial institutions and corporations manipulation to force plastic cards with criminally high interest rate designed to enslave you to debit, and then irresponsibly offering a high card limit or another card or loan offer...then the advertising and marking departments bombarding us in every imaginable way constantly to buy buy buy buy buy...and your nothing if you don't with clever and dirty manipulation techniques developed over the years..it's board line mental torture.

These grubby tactics are to numerous to mention here, but go as far as once you have to go to the shops, they try entrap you to spend more
Music, aroma's and smells, flashing lights, temperature and climate control, lack of clock and window, displays and placement of products....and so on and so on.
I most people are just vain and stupid but in reality they have good cause to feel aggrieved if they just woke up and realized...they have a good excuse.
But if your not strong enough to not buy buy buy and get into debt debt for un-needed luxuries then yes you aren't the greatest help to the worlds credit issues but if we look at % of blame via the intent of dishonest activity then this is a minuscule % number rand virtually insignificant as to the reason behind the fall of the markets...matter of fact it actually had no effect.

ya know what fantasy football is, right??

now think about fantasy finance for a minute..cause well, that's what they were doing.

in fantasy football, you only have a set number of players, right...but then all these people pick and chose amoung those players the ones that they want on their teams. so, in the end, you can have an unlimited number of fictitious players. you try to get the best team assembled as you can, and you bet on that team. you don't need the permission of the players, the league or anything else to use the players. you win or you lose...and somewhere there is someone keeping track of the real players stats, so you team can be ranked.
but what would happen if tomorrow all those football players decided to go on strike for a season?? fantasy football is a pretty big business, and well....that business would about die overnight...

this is what they did with those mortgages is turns out. the mortgages themselves were only worth billions, but the duplication of them caused the losses to go into the trillions.
the subprimers, the little people didn't create this mess!! there is no way they could have... this was big business with big money, with gov't help....

despite what they say about not being able to foresee a drop in housing values, well....I don't know, these people must be pretty young, cause I have seen it happen a time or two in my lifetime!! we survived those without our gov't throwing this much money at the problem! not sure if we are gonna survive this time, the money they throw, just doesn't seem to land anywhere where it will cause a change of any significance...
it's probably ending up on the betting table of the fantasy finance game!!





[edit on 6-5-2010 by dawnstar]